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NCIW Meets in Tempe

Episcopal News Service. April 1, 1976 [76117]

Salome Breck

TEMPE, Ariz. -- Episcopal Indians attending the ecumenical Joint Strategy and Action Committee (JSAC) sessions recently remained at Cook Christian Training School in Tempe, Ariz., for an extra day and a half to hold their National Committee on Indian Work (NCIW) meeting.

The NCIW has had an eventful year. The Navajo Episcopalians are now organized as the Navajo Episcopal Council (NEC), forging ahead with theological education bot both lay persons and those interested in eventual ordination. National Indian work, through NCIW and NEC is now a part of Coalition-14 (See story in recent issue of The Episcopalian.)

Plans for 1976 include leadership training which will begin in the Diocese of Oklahoma. Sixth Province now has its own staff officer, Dr. Chris Cavender, and NCIW is getting ready for General Convention this fall and urging more province and diocesan support for Indian programs.

At General Convention the Indian committee will request that a Joint Commission on Indian Work be created, thus assuring work with native Americans of being an integral part of the Church's structure.

NCIW regional reports were given at the Tempe meeting.

Lillian Vallely of Fort Hall is director of the Northwest Region and also chairman of NCIW. It is in this area that some of the most dramatic work of the six-year-old NCIW has taken place. Much of it has involved Indian treaty rights.

Leo Alexander of Cooks, Wash., has been a leader in the recently successful struggle of First Americans to regain their fishing rights on the Columbia River.

With small amounts of capital, used as" seed money," NCIW has got numbers of large projects underway, to be financed later by other groups.

In conjunction with the Diocese of California, NCIW has sponsored urban work among Indians living in San Francisco's Mission District. The Rev. Robert Merril is in charge.

In the Northern Plains area Suffragan Bishop Harold Jones of South Dakota was chairman, until he was forced to resign because of his health. In this region, support for the Dakota Leadership Program is the main project.

Ever since the days of Bishop Hare, the Episcopal Church has worked among the Indians. More than half of the communicants of the Diocese of South Dakota are First Americans. The area recently had a grant approved for an alcoholic detoxification center program on the Standing Rock Reservation.

Alaska's chairman is the Rev. Luke Titus, who was unable to be present in Tempe. Ed Littlefield, vice chairman, who took an early retirement from his government job to carry on a full-time lay ministry in the Sitka area, represented the diocese. He reported on the program now underway with Bishop David Cochran. In Alaska many ideas for indigenous ministry originated.

Thomas Jackson of Window Rock is chairman of the Southwest Region and also executive director for the recently organized Navajo Episcopal Council. The growth of this program has been spectacular. Study groups now meet in 12 locations and some 350 Navajos are studying Father Bill Elrod's workbooks. The ordination to the diaconate of the first Navajo, the Rev. Steven Plummer, took place last summer. He is a deacon at Good Shepherd Mission, Fort Defiance, Ariz.

The Great Lakes Region chairman is Florence Jones of Oneida, Wis. Some of the most interesting work in this area is urban. In Minneapolis Episcopalians are part of an ecumenical social service program sponsored by the Council of Churches.

Louella Derrick of Nedrow, N.Y., is chairwoman for the Eastern Region. Work with elderly Indians in rest homes has been of importance here.

In the East, as well as in the Southeast Region, where Mollie Blankenship of Cherokee, N.C., is chairwoman, some of the greatest difficulty is in finding those Indians who need help and who live in crowded urban centers. In this part of the country they are a much scattered people.

The next NCIW meeting will take place this summer in Estes Park, Colo., July 12-16, while the National Fellowship of Indian Workers is in session.