Joel

This June we will be attending a conference put on by the Alliance of Renewal Churches (ARC), and I will be speaking in a workshop and playing on the worship team for the event. The theme of this year's conference is "Not Forgotten". This theme is something that the Lord has highlighted in my heart for some time now, and is something I am passionate about. God has a lot to say about the poor, and has a special place in His heart for the poor, oppressed, and outcast. Working in Native America, Marissa and I are giving of our lives, time and energy to understand generational poverty, and to understand poverty, means to identify with [...]

Lately, Marissa and I have suffered the loss of a miscarriage. Now, one thing that I've noticed in the Christian community is that when loss happens, they try to diagnose it. Things haven't change so much since the days of Job. The most useful things that friends said in that time was, "I'm so sorry, I can't imagine what that is like. I'll pray for you." We were quite encouraged, also, by those who tenderly offered their story. It's always hard to know what to say when someone experiences loss. Some people offered secondhand advice, while I know they were trying to help, it was usually not helpful because they aren't us: they aren't missionaries on [...]

There are many challenges in ministering to Native America. The statistics show numbers that, in many minds, might look hopeless. These are not just numbers to us. They are faces, they are hearts, they are real teens facing real life; a life on U.S. soil so far removed from an "American Dream" that it is often unrecognizable to be within the borders of the United States. The needs of this generation of Apache youth are similar to the needs of the average post-Christian/post-Modern, in that, Christianity cannot be just a belief system but it must be a way of life. The American Christian in Native America must see that the Native community does not need another [...]