Jannie and I were called to sit with Santa at the Christmas Party for the Adams Lake Band. We were called out with the other elders of the community. This was quite a surprise. It was an honor to be included with the community is such a visible way.
We led the community in singing Christmas songs. While singing, it occurred to me that you can get away with singing the Gospel story where speaking it would not be welcome. That gives me more to plan for next year. Perhaps, the Lord will open an opportunity for a speaking time, too.
Winter has arrived. We get a gentle snow almost every day. The picture on the left is the view from our kitchen window, looking east. The one on the right is the view from our front porch, facing north.
We had dinner with some elders recently. They told us how things used to be. How the community used to get together almost weekly. They used to play softball, but the softball field has not been used in three years. They used to get together and have potluck feasts. Now, the gatherings are catered affairs. As the elders spoke, their words bore a great weight of pain. Oh, that the old days could come back...but how? The welfare mentality is so prevalent and deeply ingrained. Instead of kids playing outside, parents buy them Playstation TV games, or an Ipod. Kids don't learn to interact and play with others, they are learning to isolate themselves. Twenty years ago, you could challenge kids with backpacking trips. Now, for the most part, we are encountering kids that are lazy. They don't want to be challenged. They want immediate gratification, and working for something, well...why do that? Why buy the cow if you can get it for free?
I can't fix a dysfunctional community, but I believe that if I can do something, I should do it. So, we submit our efforts with the Creator's Talking Circle in prayer to the Lord and pray that He will do a miracle in the lives of these children that come to the meetings. The kids seem to enjoy it, and we have enough adult staffing to make it work.
Starting in January, we will be directing our thoughts to the Spring and Summer months. We will be evaluating each reservation and community to see what opportunities may be available. We did a lot with the Adams Lake Band in 2007, but we don't want to miss opportunities with the Squilax Community, the Tappan Community, and new opportunities with the people 30 minutes to the south, in Enderby. We expect another week of canoeing with the excellent help we have received from Rick, John, and Steve from Racine, Wisconsin. Two other churches have expressed an interest in sending out short term missions teams to share in the work here. While that is good news, it means a lot of planning from this end. This is a cross-cultural ministry. At the moment, we don't have construction projects for volunteers to focus on. So, if people want to come out here on a short term trip, they need to accept some training so that they can engage the Shuswap culture with respect. Developing long distance training programs and implementing them take additional time and effort. So, January will be a time of evaluation and adjustment. We need to keep on building relationships, but we also need to assume more of a supervisory role, too. May the Lord assist and direct us in being responsive to all that He is doing! :)
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