White Earth 2012 Recap

Redfeather is the little guy with the pink br

Redfeather son of Redfeather was my camper last year. Stoic, noble, and 8 years old, it took him days to speak a word. Then one day he quietly crawled into my lap and sat there for most of the week. I saw the same attributes in Red Senior this year at the community dinner celebrating the 17^th summer of Hope Camp at White Earth Indian Reservation in Elbow Lake, MN. He stood bemused next to our elastic water balloon launcher mounted to an 8-foot A-frame we lovingly dubbed “The Bad Idea.” I knew “Big Red” was joining fully in our mischief, flinging apples a hundred yards into the lake because he stood there, a single lock of unshaven hair running down his back, regarding The Bad Idea calmly for at least 5 minutes, offering quiet advice on structural upgrades.

Meet "The Bad Idea."

Red senior shows us his eagle wing.

The next day Big Red arrived at Hope Camp with a small handful of eagle feathers: one for each member of our team as a sign of his gratitude for our involvement in his community. He was deeply touched by our team’s 17 years of service, putting on Hope Camp for all the kids of Elbow Lake Village (including his son, Little Red). He had ordered the full wing of an eagle over 8 months ago for ceremonial purposes. Only natives can request them and even then, it can take years. For a non-native to receive these feathers is an enormous honor, a symbol of deep kinship and acceptance in the tribe. “The feather symbolizes trust, honor, strength, wisdom, power, freedom and many more things. To be given one of these is to be hand picked out of the rest of the men in the tribe.” (http://www.indians.org/articles/feathers.html)

"Hip-hip-hippopotamus!"

This is my second year staffing Hope Camp. This year, I was cook, counselor, and worship leader. I’d like to say my 4 teenage boys thawed out over the week and embraced Jesus. To be honest, I think they’re still trying to figure me out. Both their culture and their age prevent them from showing weakness. But small signs of affection and respect emerged amidst the teenage angst, giving me hope for future relationships and softening of hearts.

We built this picnic table for the community with the older boys

We had record numbers (61 kids) and a great response overall. But the huge payoff for me was the ministry within our team. I got to see 2 friends who have struggled with heavy depression this year come out of their shell, smile, and flourish in the acceptance of a group of Jesus-followers working toward a common goal. I watched several of my former disciples express deep pain and begin to accept God’s love and purpose for them. There were impromptu midnight prayer gatherings, outbreaks of worship, and lots and lots of tears.

I’ll admit that a good chunk of those tears came from me. Around bedtime on Thursday, a small group of trusted friends gathered around to pray for my sinus infection (which was becoming a fever). As often happens in the Vineyard, “safe” prayers for physical healing quickly become riskier prayers for deep emotional healing. All week I had been playing spiritual papa and healer. But a tension was building: if I cease to perform, to be a leader, to be profound or fatherly, to be funny or talented or caring… will I still be accepted?

It wasn’t hard for my teammates to pick up on this tension and they constantly reminded to take breaks, relax, receive love. So I think when they had me trapped in prayer, they weren’t going to let me go until I let them care for my soul. Reluctantly I allowed them walk me through some deep roots of fear and grief and anger from childhood wounds. I’m very familiar with inner healing but I still find it incredibly difficult to entrust my pain to a group of people no matter how safe they are. But I realized that this was the safest and most accepting group I’d experienced and if I was going to release this junk, that was my chance.

Our team!!

So I let the floodgate burst at some point. Most of it is too personal to share here casually. But suffice to say I sobbed for an hour and dug deeper than I’ve ever allowed myself to go. There was no resolution, no “nugget of truth” to take away from that moment. But a kind Welsh-American woman my mother’s age dropped to her knees and held me for 10 long minutes while I cried and others laid hands on me and simply accepted me, even though I’m a total mess. Only the experience of acceptance can begin to reverse the expectation of rejection and heal the heart. That’s as much as I’ve got right now: a beginning.

I think the caption was "this was BEFORE the kids arrived!"

But I hope you won’t think we sat around and cried all week.  We also launched Diet Coke cans against trees, blew up fireworks, hit each other with swimming noodles, and initiated epic water balloon fights.  We even made a game out of digging out our backed up septic system! Oh yeah, and we loved on a really tough group of kids, fed them, sang with them, swam with them, and friended them on Facebook. Not a bad way to spend a week.