February 9th, 2012

    I woke up to the smell of my favorite muffins fresh out of the oven.  Lemon poppyseed! Veronica remembered.  In the afternoon I watch Latisha retrieve rebounds like nobodies business in the middle school basketball game.  After the game we pick up some pizza and the other girls and head back to my house.
    The Box of half eaten pizza is on the table.  Alexis is lounging on the couch.  Tianna is sitting cross legged on the floor with her legs tucked under the coffee table in front of her.  Latisha is sprawled out on the floor in front of the fire.  Her beads are in a rainbow around her.  All are bent over their work; their eyes squinting to make sure they can get the beads stacked onto the earring posts.  "Can you show me again how to bend the wire to make a loop for the earrings?" Latisha asks.  "Sure," I say.  She sits up next to me and we both do the steps together.  "Can you pass me that wire cutter?" asks Tianna.  The three stay very calm as we make earrings together.  The conversation bounces back and forth between silly and serious as we talk about middle school life.  Time slips away and soon we are cleaning up the beads and pliers.  It is time to take everyone home.  We get in the car and they ask for the millionth time if we can listen to 92.9 "The Bull".  They all love country music.  I remind them that my radio is still broken.  So, instead, we listen to songs from Bible study, and they sing along.
    As I crawl into bed that night I think I would not have wanted to celebrate my third anniversary of my arrival on the Rez any other way.

How do we know God loves us?

I was reminded the other day of how the Lord loves us through the 6th grade girls who is in a discipleship group with me.  I was reading the group a story by Patricia St. John about how a father loves his children.  At the end of the story I asked the question, “How do we know that God loves us?”  I was unsure of how they would answer, becasue they all live in situations where most of their physical and emotional needs are not being met.  Without hesitating they started to rattle of a number of ways God shows His love for us.  “He created us.  He wakes us up each day.  He died for us.”  They have tasted the Love of God and He has reassured them in their hearts that it is true.  I am so glad to see first hand that the Lord is choosing to build His kingdom in White Swan through 6th grade girls.  The Sacred Road team here on the reservation would not have the opportunity to see the kingdom moving in like a wave over White Swan without your faithful prayer and financial support.  

“I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.”

Phil 1:3-5

They love inventing games.  This one had to do with guessing the flavor of the
gummy bear in your mouth while playing gummy bear dominos.