Thanks for Giving School Dance

TseBit'Ai Middle School - Shiprock New Mexico

Happy Thanksgiving

Thursday morning - freezing rain falling from the not so often grey New Mexican sky.
It's Thanksgiving, and I have so much to be thankful for. We've been here, at the "Mission" for 16 months and still I am amazed that the LORD has given us this place and this opportunity to serve Him. And then there is my job. It is such a blessing to have a job you love. It's not an easy job. Middle school students are challenges where ever they live. As they grow up, as they live through this crisis or that, as they fall in and out of love, learning about adjectives and adverbs is not a top priority. We just finished our unit on poetry though,and when free to express their ideas without having to worry about sentence structure or punctuation, what they come up with is incredible. My school is 97% Native American, 90% Navajo - but I think in many aspects they are just regular teenagers. At least it seemed that way at the Thanksgiving dance I chaperoned last week. It was called the "Thanks for Giving Dance" because it was tied in with a canned food drive. My "homeroom" won the pizza party for bringing in 157 food items that would be donated to the Shiprock home for battered women and other needy families on the Navajo Rez. And, as much as I love my job - I am thankful that we get a five day break for Thanksgiving. Today is a day to lay back. We had our feast on Wednesday - 52 people, mostly Indians - in our beautiful cozy fellowship hall. I always wanted a big family. Tomorrow I'll take down the autumn decorations and put up Christmas. This is my favorite time of year. And it is all to honor the King of Kings! Let's not forget that. He is the Source, the Reason, the Author of our lives. Those simple steps of obedience lead us through dark times and hard times, through frustrating times and exhausting times and always there is the Peace that Passes understanding and the Joy that carries through times when it is hard to be happy...Joy and Peace - what I am most thankful for and what I pray for those who I know and love and miss and care about. Not a happy thanksgiving - but a Joyful one.

God Bless Them All!

Matthew, Malachi, and Merilu
I have a lot of time to pray as I drive to and from work every morning. It’s a 30 mile commute across some awesome, if somewhat barren land. The rising sun behind me casts beautiful shadows on the rocks, mesas and distant mountains. I pray mostly for my students, past and present. And this week the LORD has brought to mind 3 particular individuals whose stories I love to tell.
Matthew – one of my first Navajo students, nearly 10 years ago. A beautiful child with a long, thick braid down his back. Not very many boys still wear their hair long. It’s usually a sign of just how traditional his family is, and Matthew was the eldest son of a very traditional family. One day Matthew came up to me and complained that his ear was hurting. I sent him to the nurse, who suspected an ear infection and told him to tell his mom to take him to the doctor. The next day, a Friday as I recall, he was back in school but I could tell the pain was much worse. I called him to my desk and asked if he had told his mom what the nurse had said. “Oh, yes Mrs. Brokop, but don’t worry, tomorrow she is taking me to a medicine man.” When I first told that story to some of my friends back east they asked if he didn’t have enough money for a “real” doctor. Actually – through the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) all registered Native Americans get free medical. And there is a very good hospital in Shiprock. Medicine men cost quite a bit. But to some – many, that is the first and preferred form of healing. Just over a year ago I saw Matthew again. He was working in a local restaurant , having just graduated from High School. He still had that lovely long hair, and enthusiastic smile. What a wonderful blessing when he told me that he was saving up money so he could go to Bible College and learn to teach his people about Jesus.
Malachi – from one of the many children’s ministries I’ve been involved in over the past several years. This is actually his mother’s story but I think it says a lot about the identity crisis that so many Native Americans have. It is one of the reasons our ministry strives to encourage individuals to find their identity in Christ without losing their self-worth as Navajo – Dine’. When Malachi was barely 4 his family lived in Albuquerque. He was attending a rather multi-cultural Head Start program. One evening he was watching an old-time western with his parents and commented that he wished he were an Indian. That statement took his parents – both full blooded Navajo – by surprise. And they proceeded to explain to their little son that he was in fact an Indian. A revelation that seemed to thrill him. The next day he ran excitedly up to his mother after a morning at Head Start, declaring that he had just found out that his best friend Billy was white. Wasn’t that amazing???? It is a good thing, that left on their own, without the influence of adult prejudice, most children are color blind. And Malachi’s realization did not affect the fact that Billy was his friend. His parents have since moved back to the Reservation, partially so that Malachi, and his little siblings will have a better chance of realizing the proud heritage from which they come.
Merilu – a very typical, somewhat melodramatic middle school student. A beautiful young woman, who runs into the rising sun each morning with her brother, uses corn pollen to bless her day, and listens to tunes on her iPod. A simple interaction with Merilu reminded me, yet again, what an unusual situation in which I find myself. Truly unique. One day she came to school extremely depressed and distracted. I asked what was wrong – and with tears in her eyes she told me that Grandma was going to butcher her sheep. Now, Merilu knew full well that that was the ultimate destiny of all the sheep in grandma’s flock. They would provide wool for rugs and blankets, and eventually end up roasted or stewed. But this was Merilu’s own favorite sheep. Sooooo Sad! The next day, in skips Merilu, all smiles and giggles, with her cell phone in hand. We don’t allow cell phones in class, and Merilu knew it. But she just had to show me the pictures of Grandma butchering the sheep. I bet not many other middle school teachers in the USA have had that particular experience.