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 [...]

The past month we've been working on creating our job descriptions with AYM, and as a team at AYM we've been looking at the programs, the website, and all the things that we've been doing, and aligning them with the values of the ministry. The mission of AYM is: "Empowering Apache Youth to Impact the World." This may be seem to be an ambitious statement when one sees the condition and generational poverty on the Reservation. Our county (Navajo County) is #2 in the nation for Meth use among highschoolers. The conditions on the reservation create very bad living situations for the families there. From molestation among family members to violences, the weight of the condition [...]

One of my favorite albums is a tastefully deep, yet not well known, CD from Michael Card called "Poiema". Lately, a song from that collection has been going through my head. The song is called: "Things We Leave Behind", and it talks about abandon and reflects on the calling of the 12 Disciples by Christ. The line that keeps resonating in my mind is a line that melodiously says, "It's hard to imagine the freedom we find from the things that we leave behind."The things that we leave behind don't need to be negative things to experience freedom when leaving them. When we agree with the Apostle Paul to want to know Christ and the power [...]