"Is that You, God?"

I am from a small town in South Dakota called Eagle Butte. I am a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. Our tribe is back to back with the Standing Rock Indian. Reservation. So we are north east of Pine Ridge.

I grew up on the Cheyenne River Reservation. The first town I remember living in is the little town of White Horse. My grandma was raising me until I was probably four years old. Then I went to Tribal Boarding School at the age of six. And after a year I went to a one room school house.

There was no plumbing or running water but we did have electricity. That was my first year.

I grew up in Eagle Butte and left there at age 18 to join the military. So that was my life until I was 18 years old.

I have two sisters and three brothers. My parents are still both alive but both are suffering from various illnesses-my mother from breast cancer-but the Lord is taking care of them.

The most significant thing that happened for me was joining the military because it took me off the reservation. I was able to see for the first time that there was a world-a better world-outside the reservation.

For three years I served in the military in Germany, Colorado, and Guam. I lost my girlfriend while I was in boot camp and that affected me a lot emotionally. I started drinking because of that to dull the pain. I never really drank that much prior to that happening. I had only experimented with alcohol until I saw the effect it had on people when I was a young man.

I met a girl from Guam while in the military and we got married. We were separated a few times while in the military and we ended up getting divorced but I stayed in Guam. I had friends and we partied and I ended up becoming an alcoholic. I drank a lot, did a lot of drugs but I always knew that God was up there somewhere. My mother told me that He was the one who took care of us and provided for our needs and that we should thank Him every day.

I knew that God existed but my big day was March 9, 1990. I was on alcohol and drugs at the time and even though I was intoxicated and high on drugs and everything else, the Lord was able to come through.

I was taking a shower and He came to me in the shower and the Holy Spirit was all over me. I looked up and said, "Is that You, Lord?" And I heard Him say, "Today is the day of Salvation."

I looked up again and said, "Is that really You, Lord?" And I started to cry.

He just said "Today is the day."

I shut off the shower and got out.

Putting on a pair of jeans and a pair of shoes, I drove to the Nazarene church which was one block away. I got inside and told the preacher that I needed to talk to somebody.

He asked me, "If you were to die right now, are you absolutely sure you would go to heaven?"

I told him "If I die right now, I'll go straight to hell."

He asked if he could pray for me and when I said "yes" I fell straight forward on my face. I hit the floor and went into a vision and I saw the entire universe and beyond that, a much much bigger one and the presence of God was like a white light. In the presence of this light, all I could feel was love. It felt like a million times of love for me.

I just said, "Lord, I am so sorry for the way I've lived my life."

When I came out of that vision, I just felt so much love. His love.

The pastor asked if he could pray for me again and I said, "Go ahead!"

As he prayed I felt something in my head and there was something moving in my stomach. It was moving around and when it came up through my throat, I could feel the pain-my muscles were stretching. When this thing came out of me, it made the sound of a cat.

Then the pastor said, "OK, pray the sinner's prayer after me."

So I prayed the sinner's prayer and by the time we were finished, I was laughing and I couldn't stop. And he said, "let it go, more of the joy of the Lord!"

Finally the laughter stopped and the pastor asked how I was feeling.

"I'm clean, I'm clean," I said.

I went home and told my girlfriend that I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior."

She said, "Well that's good."

So on Sunday morning I got up and dressed for church.

"Where are you going?" my girlfriend said.

"I'm going to church." After all, that's what I thought Christians did.

"Well, go in peace," she said.

"I will," I replied.

I went and gave my testimony of what had happened.

I was at the church every time the doors were open.

I started teaching Sunday School.

I went to the prison run by Prison Fellowship. When I got there, there were four Christians. When I left, there were 94 who had accepted the Lord.

There were 14 guards and out of those 11 of them had become Christians.

The Lord blessed that ministry.

When I left Guam, I moved back to South Dakota. I stayed home for a year and then I went to Bible school. I spent six years in Bible college.

Then I had a spiritual fall and so I took nine years off and just preached with the local veterans where I was a Veterans Chaplain for about seven years.

In 2010, I started a church in Eagle Butte called New Life Church serving mostly street people. We fed them a meal on Sunday so we would have different kinds of food. I have one supporter and I use my food stamps to buy the food they eat on Sunday. The Lord just gave me a heart for "the least of these..." And we've seen the Lord move in incredible ways among our street people.

In 2013, I met Kimberly my wife at a prayer meeting. We have a street ministry called "Rise Up, Red Nations". My wife has a ministry in Sioux Falls, South Dakota called "Tapestry International" which raises up justice leaders, a 'call to freedom' ministry to victims of sex trafficking.

On August 14, 2014, I suffered a stroke and the heart doctor recognized my name from a year before when they did a heart scan. They checked me out again and the blockage in a main artery had increased and so she put in a stent to clear that. So the stroke actually saved my life because it led them to find the blockage which was 97 percent blocked.

We want to heal the gap between the Native American Community and the Church. Our history has not been good from what the Church has done so there is a stereotype that Christianity is bad on Pine Ridge. People come in with their own ideas about how they are going to bless Pine Ridge. Sometimes it makes people angry. So we are trying to show them Jesus' love and the Light of Jesus.

Christianity is more than religion.

Our young people really need to break away from the poverty mentality that exists among our people. But more than that, I wish that our people would be able to find Jesus Christ and to live in love and His forgiveness and to undertand that. I think most of our people believe that they are beyond the love of God and that people would have a confidence that Jesus is all powerful and with Him, we can overcome anything in this world.

I want them to realize that Jesus is alive and He is more than a myth. He is our Savior and coming Chief.

Many of our people have a hopeless feeling that nothing is going to change. They get depressed and suicidal. They would rather die than live.

That's a powerful spirit and the only way to fight that spirit is to walk in the power that comes by knowing and walking with Jesus.

We live in a time when people need to hear the truth. So much of what we hear and see isn't bringing that message of God's forgiveness. We want people to really live and not get caught up in drugs, alcohol, and hopeless living. We want people to really live for Him and be willing to die for Him.

That's the message we want to take to our people, especially the thousands of Native people living in Sioux Falls.