I am here in Whiteriver, Arizona at the Fort Apache Indian Reservation.  Outside access is difficult.  I have no phone service or email access on my own.  I either drive 45 minutes off the reservation north to Show Low to be able to use my cell phone or head down to the Kennel to use their computers.  The Kennel is run by Apache Youth Ministries and is a Youth Center for the youth of Whiteriver.  It is a vital part of what God is doing here in Whiteriver with the youth.  Vital perhaps, because it is pretty much the only thing for the youth to do in their own hometown.  Life is bleak here.  Poverty abounds.  Drugs, alcohol, suicide, gambling addictions, automobile accidents, teenage pregnancy.......not much hope.  Jesus is the answer......really the only answer.....some get off the rez at some point in their life but without the hope that Jesus puts into our lives they usually come back and fall into their old lifestyle, which is a lifestyle of destruction. 

 

One of the guys on my project here in Whiteriver said to me this week, "I really don't see the pain and despair on the reservation that everyone talks about."  That was an interesting comment to me because I see it every time I come to the reservation........any reservation........not just here in Whiteriver.  Yesterday I saw a woman pulled over on the side of the road bent over vomiting.......too much to drink; I saw a woman staring straight ahead and staggering down the sidewalk in town.....high on drugs; I saw and heard a lady weeping in the grocery store, pouring her heart out to a friend about all the problems in the family; I spoke with a man at the local grocery store and listened as he poured his heart out to me about his alcoholism and his struggle to move past it to a healthy life; I spoke with a lady who had been addicted to gambling for four years, and I even saw the despair of an animal....., a cowboy had rounded up his horse, lassoed him and loaded him into a horse trailer.  The horses companion, who apparently did not belong to the man, was left behind.  The horse that was left behind was in despair.  He followed the horse trailer out to the road and when he couldn't cross the cattle guard, he raced down the weedy area on the other side of the barbed wire fence after his friend who was being driven away in the horse trailer. 

 

My heart breaks.  It weeps and weeps for the injustice of it all.  For the grace of God go I.  I don't understand why it isn't me.  I am no better than anyone living here on the Fort Apache Reservation.  I didn't do anything to deserve a better life than these people have.  I'm a sinner just like they are.  I fall short just like they do.  All I know is that God has broken my heart for the pour, the needy, the hurting, the injustice of it all and I am determind to do what God is calling me to do and go where God is calling me to go no matter what the consequences so that I can bring the hope of Jesus into a lost and dying world. 

 

Carrying a 20 pound sack of flour out of the grocery the other day I was stopped by an elderly Apache man.  He asked me if he could carry the flour for me.  I felt guilty as he was much older and obviously had been through a much harder life than I had but God told me to let him carry the flour.  As he placed it in my trunk we began to talk.  He poured out his pain to me.  He was just coming from an AA meeting and needed someone to share his experience with.  We talked for about 15 minutes and then he told me he had gotten a free T Shirt at the AA meeting and asked me if I wanted it.  Sure, I said, knowing that he so wanted to share with me what he had.  After I took the T Shirt he gave me a small bar of soap and bottle of shampoo that he said his sister had given me.  He was so glad to be able to share with me what he had, a gift to me greater than gold because it was the best he had to give.   That is what Jesus wants from us, the best we have to give.  As he handed me the soap the Holy Spirit began to share through me with him that Jesus does for us what the soap does for us, He washes us white as snow with His blood if we confess our sin, ask for forgiveness and ask Him to be our Savior.  We talked on that for a bit and then I gave him a Bible, which he assured me he would read.  As we began to part he reached out to hug me.  He held on for dear life.....he needed that touch from Jesus.....just the reason that God put me there at that grocery store at that time to be a touch of Jesus to him.

 

 This 20 minute experience is what the Bible talks about when it says to, "Be ready to give an answer for the hope we have within us."  God wants us to always be ready to share Jesus with anyone at anytime.  As I shared all of this with my group today at lunch time, I saw hearts soften, I saw tears flow, I saw pain on the faces of my people and I saw God begin to move in their hearts as he began to break their hearts for the pour, the needy, the hurting, and those who live with the injustice of it all.  I saw God drawing them unto Himself and calling them to a greater walk with Him.  And I knew, once again, why I am on the rez, sharing Jesus with the lost and guiding those that God has put into my care into a greater walk with Him.  To God Be The Glory!