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I have spent a lot of time recently thinking about honesty and I still struggle because even within the past day, there is still a degree of a lack of honesty. And discernment through reading someone is a gift but it's also a hindrance and then one wonders why there is no trust when through discernment it's obvious there is no honesty and then a lack of trust follows. Honesty is a huge part of self-improvement and overcoming delusional thinking. If we aren't honest with...
Love is so attracted to goodness that it automatically rejects evil. Love always and only recognizes evil as a corruption of the world. When we fill our minds and our lives with what is good, evil will have no place. For this is the power of love’s goodness, when goodness comes into action, evil is buried by it. Love brings the knowledge of God and when God is known, other things are made clear....
STANDING ROCK I have subscribed to Indian Life for many years and share it with my Indian and “white” friends as well as folks in jail. It has been a real encouragement to all. Your last issue (Jan-Feb 2017) is informative and interesting. However, the article “Standing Rock water protectors wait and see after huge victory” concerned me very much. Most of it [the protests] was political and for “show”. Most of the people were bussed in and paid to protest. They not only closed a bridge, but made a royal mess of the area. A...
My friend Matt Hyde lives in Boise, Idaho, a city that is 89 percent white. After he became the pastor of Discovery Church in 2013, he learned that refugees from many countries were living in Boise. They are from Bosnia, Serbia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Nepal, Bhutan, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Congo, Togo and Sudan. Most of them had fled political oppression or civil war. Many spent time in crude refugee camps before they were granted permission to move to the United States. Almost...
I wish I could have been there when the first ship rolled in Too bad we had to wait so long for knowledge we needed when they decided to take their newly discovered land, no matter what the cost.... -Three Feathers These lines are from a poem I discovered in some old Indian Life files. Ever wondered what it was like for the Indigenous peoples of this land to stand on the shores of North America or the islands of the Caribbean, and watch the first European settlers sail in?...
Years ago I knew two brothers who farmed their land together. One of them had lost both legs fighting in the Korean War. The other brother had lost an arm in a farm-machinery accident. They worked hard and never complained about their lot in life. Neither did their wives and children. They were committed Christians, and I can still see those brothers and their families sitting in the first two rows of their little country church. They worshiped God, trusted Him for guidance...
10 began like the last day of 2016. The sun rose and life seemed to go on pretty much as before. While we're accustomed to dire predictions for the future at the end of each year, it seems that this year, people's fears over future uncertainties were heightened more than in previous years, with the possible exception of January 1, 2000. Perhaps this year's tensions are due to the surprising results in the U.S. presidential election with many North Americans upset over who...
I sit on my bunk, lights off, tears flowing uncontrollably. My mind races back and forth, making it next to impossible to focus on a single thought. Loneliness smothers me from neck to toes, my head just above it. I’ve been like this for a few weeks. It’s become normal for me this time of year. I’m exhausted. Tired. Sore. The last two months of the year weigh heavily on me. The heaviness becomes cold as steel. My emotions cramp. My faith has shortness of breath. Year after...
After almost two years of non-stop political talk and TV, radio and newspaper advertising filling the media, it is finally over. The voters have spoken and the American people have a new president and vice president-elect. And along with this new leader, thousands of government leaders and representatives were elected or reelected across the United States. One characteristic of this particular election was that the extremists on both sides of whatever issue, seemed to control the agenda and steer the conversation in their...
Ya'at'eeh. My name is Mark Charles and I am the son of an American woman of Dutch heritage and a Navajo man. After living on the Navajo reservation for more than a decade, last summer my wife and I packed up our belongings and moved with our three children to Washington DC. Living in our nation's capital has been quite an adjustment from our quiet, simple life on the Rez. But one of the best parts of living in such an urban center is the numerous opportunities we have had to...
I love your publication and what I like is that it gives me ideas on how to help my son who has an addiction he is trying so hard to battle with. As a Mom, I will never give up on him, so I try to help in showing him the stories your newspaper has to share and I find very uplifting…keep up the great work…. It was so nice hearing from you. I’m blessed by your card and letter. My mom’s surgery went well and she can see real well but now she has had a massive stroke and is in a nursing home to be rehab. So please pray for div...
Evangelicals or those we like to refer to as “followers of Jesus” are sensitive to what we call “God moments”—when circumstances fall together in a way that suggests God is at work in our lives in a fresh way. These believers who are part of North America’s dominant society have experienced collective “God moments.” In the 1970s, few churches concerned themselves with the relief of world hunger. Then Ron Sider wrote Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, and before long, we just assumed that Jesus followers should be conce...
America has been in mourning for days. We’ve cried for the 49 victims of the senseless Orlando shooting. We’ve prayed for the families and friends of the innocent people who died in the Pulse nightclub, and the 53 others who were wounded in the massacre. We’ve shaken our heads in disbelief that the deadliest terrorist attack since 9/11 occurred in a nice town known for its theme parks, palm trees, and carefree attitude. We’ve also listened to countless theories about why Omar Seddique Mateen, the 29-year-old Muslim-...
We were shocked to wake up that Sunday morning in June to hear of the horrific shootings in Orlando that killed 49 people. Our expressions of sympathy go to the families and friends of all those gunned down in another senseless act of violence. In the case in Florida, a particular group was targeted—gay, lesbians, and other sexual minorities—and so our prayers are with this community. This particular tragedy was again time for the family who call themselves followers of Jesus to shine His light and share His love. Yet thi...
It was routine by now. I’d gone through the same steps many times. No nerves. No worries. Very relaxed. I knew what to expect and I was ready to get it over with. It was time to remove my toenail again and I wanted no part in others’ business. A group of five of us were taken to the medical facility, a few miles away from our facility. All five had different reasons to be there, but at this time I truly didn’t care. I was there for me and my toe, not them. When we arriv...
Life has dealt a series of crises in North America, if not the world. In recent days Canadians attention has been fixed on the states of emergencies declared in Pimicikamak Cree Nation, also known as Cross Lake, Manitoba, and Attawapiskat, Ontario, due to a rash of suicides. In the United States, we have the horrifying kidnapping of a nine-year-old Navajo boy and his eleven-year-old sister and the eventual discovery that the young girl was murdered. The community and nation...
Have you been watching the political ads or the debates on TV or following election results recently? Better yet, have you been voting? In the United States, the battles have gone from small skirmishes to major battles, literally destroying candidates. Canada came through a bruising election last fall and the new government is being tested and judged on the campaign promises it made. Now it's the United States' turn and it seems to go on forever. In each of these arenas,...
What a year 2015 was. With its highs and lows, good and evil, many are glad that we have closed the door on one of the most volatile years in recent memory. As we stepped across the threshold of a new year, there was a lot of fear, anxiety, and yes, trembling. Not only are we confronted with the fear of the unknown but also we're trying to do battle against what Judith Herman calls "The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud...."1 There are those who say that we must forget the...
The fact that you are alive and reading this at this moment is proof that Creator has a plan and purpose for your life. God put you on a path. Perhaps you aren’t walking on that path and maybe you don’t even know what that path is. But He has a path and He will show you. As the wolf is a hunter and provider, so our men need to provide for their families and give them knowledge. We just celebrated Winter Solstice. Non-Native people call this day—the first day of winter—as the shortest day. Indigenous people of the North think...
"Down, down! Everyone on the yard, down!” came the voice screaming over the loud speakers. Sirens wailing, officers running from every direction, straight toward us. Minutes before this event took place, ten brothers in Jesus and I had gathered on the grassy area of the yard, in a circle. We were about to start our small group Bible study. As we began to open up in prayer, we could hear two men directly behind us, arguing over something. “Father,” I started the prayer. “As w...
Just one day before a crazed young gunman killed nine people in Oregon last week, police arrested four males who planned to go on a bloody rampage at their high school in central California. Fortunately those four juveniles are now in custody-but it doesn't lessen the pain of the families who lost loved ones in the Umpqua Community College shooting in Oregon. What is happening? Why are so many disturbed young men in the United States carrying out massacres? Consider these...
The handwritten sign on the wall caught my eye: "Baby gophers for trade; $2 in Top Ramen; Beef-flavored only; See Big Chato." My cell mate had already told me about the sign, but I just could not believe Big Chato was selling his baby gophers. "I think it would be fun to have a baby pet gopher in the cell," my cell mate shared with me as we both saw a sad pet adoption commercial on our TVs. I didn't answer because I didn't think he was serious. Plus, the sad commercial filled...
The political ground shook in Canada on October 19, 2015, when the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper was resoundingly defeated by the Liberal Party. It was kind of a David and Goliath story of biblical proportions. Political commentators said that it was a combination of anger over the former government along with a great desire for change that brought about this landslide victory. When you read this, Justin Trudeau, 43, will have been sworn in as the second youngest prime minister in Canadian history (Joe Clark is...
North America's Indigenous Peoples know that The Land is very important. In fact, in most First Nations societies, land is sacred. There is little doubt that our land is being desecrated and destroyed. Not only is the planet being harmed environmentally, it is slowly being destroyed because of our immorality. The shooting of two young journalists in Virginia on August 26 is the most recent horrid example of the ways our land and our people are being defiled. The Bible tells...
Being an inmate we [I] are very limited to what we can read. By luck your July-August 2015 issue ended up in my possession. I am a Tribal member of the Lac du Flambeau Band of Chippewa Indians (Ojibwe). Can you please give me the address of AFN Grand Chief Perry Bellegarde so I can write to him concerning his statement: Reconciliation can’t proceed while First Nations are mired in the “poverty that plagues our people”? I can change that statement but I need to correspond with him. The Pope asked the world for a unive...
