Please Keep Native Communities in Your Prayers

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Please keep Native American communities throughout North America in your prayers.

Our recent staff meetings confirmed a difficult truth. While our Native communities are separated by distance, they all are threatened by high rates of suicide, addiction and severe depression.

It breaks my heart that so many Native people are caught in the depths of despair, but it also renews my resolve that we are right where God wants us to be.

I am thankful for the Native leaders we have identified who are pursuing theological training. Will Main, of the Sioux tribe, is enrolled in distance-learning seminary training and now is serving his vicarage. He and his wife, Patricia, who is Cree, minister to Native American college students at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas. Patricia is also pursuing leadership training through the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Cathy Benzler, of the Cherokee tribe, is training to be a deaconess; and her husband, Tom, of the Ioway tribe, is training to be a deacon. Park Timber, of the Northern Cheyenne tribe, currently is serving his vicarage in Lame Deer, Montana at Circle of Life Lutheran Church on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. We are blessed with the addition of Winston Wilson to our team on the Olympic Peninsula, who is training to become a licensed deacon and will become ordained through the Lutheran Church. 

Please pray for all of our staff and the men, women and children they serve. We are committed to standing with Native Americans as the Holy Spirit works in their lives.

Yours in Christ,

Rev. Dr. Don W. Johnson (Makah)
Executive Director