American Indian Relationships Viewed
Episcopal News Service. August 9, 1979 [79251]
Salome Breck, The Colorado Episcopalian
Denver -- People meeting people within the Church, supervising, directing and loving them, that was the early model for ministry among the American Indians and Alaskan natives.
People meeting people, sharing ideas and cultures, growing together in faith -- that is today's concept of ministry among native Americans. It is the relationship urged and demonstrated by the National Committee on Indian Work (NCIW), of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church.
Two examples of people gaining a better understanding of other people through the common meeting ground of the Church took place this summer following the one last fall. The Niobrara Deanery met June 21-24 at St. Barnabas Church, Corn Creek District, on the Pine Ridge Reservation, at Kyle, S. D. Navajoland Convocation was July 12-14 at St. Mary of the Moonlight, Oljeto, Monument Valley, Utah, Alaska's Deanery of the Interior met last September in Huslia.
The Niobrara Deanery, older than the Diocese of South Dakota, held its 107th convocation. Half of South Dakota's Episcopalians are Indian. The "two Jones" -- the Rt. Rev. Walter Jones, the current diocesan and the Rt. Rev. Harold Jones, first American Indian to be consecrated and the retired suffragan -- have been bishops to Indian and non-Indian here.
For the first time Niobrara was ecumenical. Roman Catholics, United Methodists, Presbyterians and members of the United Church of Christ took part. Some 1,000 people met under the shelter of the "shade house," a framework of poles topped with great boughs of evergreens.
Father Francis Apple is the first Indian clergyman to be in charge of the 30 congregations on the Pine Ridge. Rev. Morris Bull Bear is priest at St. Barnabas. South Dakota's Archdeacon is the Rev. P. J. Davis. The Rev. George Harris is in charge of the Dakota Leadership Program, which helps provide indigenous ministry and lay leadership. Eleven clergy serve the 80 congregations of Niobrara.
Two men were ordained at this year's convocation: the Rev. Francis C. Cutt, to the priesthood, and the Rev. Cyril Rouillard to the diaconate. Bishop James Warner of Nebraska was the preacher.
"People meeting people" at Niobrara was more than simply another "church meeting." For many visitors it was the renewing of old friendships.
Twelve young people came 1,800 miles from Good Samaritan, Paoli, Penn., arriving with two vans and two tents. Since 1973 this historic parish has joined the Oglala Sioux on the Pine Ridge, furnishing some $10,000 to start a herd of cattle which now graze in the meadows surrounding St. Barnabas.
The convocation in July was the fourth for the Navajoland Area Mission. Originally it was the Navajo Council, and under the direction of three dioceses: Arizona, Utah, and the Rio Grande. Believing it could function more effectively as a separate entity, the Council petitioned the House of Bishops to become an Area Mission. Last fall Oklahoma's Suffragan, the Rt. Rev. Frederick Putnam, was appointed by Presiding Bishop John M. Allin to be their bishop. Thomas Jackson of Window Rock, Ariz., is his assistant.
"We are in the first stages of organizing, " Bishop Putnam explained. "Our first job was to develop a responsible fiscal policy. People from all parts of the country have been involved with our missions, contributing money, time and skills. We have had marvelous stories in The Episcopalian, The Living Church and in many diocesan publications.
"The Church School Missionary Offering for 1977 was sent to Navajoland, and a number of churches continue this offering. A group from Upper South Carolina is making it possible to hire a bi-lingual secretary. Young people from St. Christopher's, Milwaukee, spent a week renovating the old hospital building on the San Juan Mission grounds. It will be my headquarters and office space for the vicar and mission trainer we plan to bring to San Juan."
Convocation's host mission, St. Mary in the Moonlight, is the result of people-to-people relationships, volunteers who came west in the 1940s with the Rev. Canon Harold Liebler, now 89 years old. With Father Liebler is Miss Helen Sturges, part of the original group, and Brother Juniper, who joined them soon after their arrival.
St. Christopher's, Bluff, Utah, has a new vicar, the Rev. Dan Treece, who with his wife Jean, arrived not long ago from Colorado.
Many of the mission buildings were erected years ago by Father Liebler and his volunteers. Priests here have come and gone, and now there is much to be done. Dan Treece is doing it, repairing buildings and developing staff.
The Rev. Philip Allen, a Sioux from South Dakota, vicar at Good Shepherd, Fort Defiance Ariz., is also new to the Area Mission. Very little has been done until recently to update the mission compound buildings.
Twenty-five years ago the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation built the church and the rectory. The same foundation has now given $100,000 to provide new heating systems for the seven buildings and to renovate them.
Father Allen says two buildings will be rented to the tribe's Division of Health Improvement. The $80,000 per annum rent will provide for the cost of all utilities for the mission. Two-thirds of the sum will go to support the Area Mission. Staff has been added.
A solar energy gardening greenhouse project "will be a demonstration unit, cost us nothing, and provide employment for many of our senior citizens," said Father Allen.
The Rev. Steven Tsosie Plummer, first Navajo priest, is vicar at St. John's Montezuma Creek. Along with the Rev. Henry Bird, who until recently was at San Juan, Farmington, Father Plummer has been translating the Rite II Eucharist into Navajo. It is now on tape, and will be transcribed into written form by the American Bible Society. Father Plummer has a large youth group. All his services are in Navajo.
As a special mission project Oklahoma is paying half of Bishop Putnam's salary. A group from the diocese came out to help put things together for the Navajo meeting. Those who put up the traditional "shade house" -- this one of elm boughs -- included the Rev. William Wantland, rector of St. John, Oklahoma City and chairman of the diocesan Indian committee and the Rev. Gerald Mason, in charge of Indian ministries in Oklahoma City.
The third convocation, that of the Interior Deanery of Alaska began in a different way. People didn't arrive by camper or car. They came in small "bush planes," for there are no roads between the villages of the interior. Alaska's Bishop David Cochran flies thousands of miles visiting the 6,000 baptized Episcopalians in their 46 congregations.
This convocation also was ecumenical -- led by two Roman Catholics, Alaska's Indians and Eskimos love to sing. In summer they move up and down the rivers, bringing their music with them. The Church here sees alcoholism and drugs as constant threats to their people. But at Huslia there was music and sharing and joy. As with most native Americans these Indians and Eskimos know joy as part of their religious experience.