Apache Reservation (pt.1)

       It was while living in Alaska that the Lord began to lay a burden upon our hearts for the souls of native Americans. One of my mentors (and best friend), was Michael Curtis. Mike was half Upic Eskimo and half Athabascan Indian. His great passion for reaching the souls of his native American family had a great influence upon my own desires to take the gospel into the native villages of Alaska. That burden lead my family and I to ministry among the Tlingit people of southeast Alaska, and eventually also to ministry on an Apache reservation in New Mexico.

            We had traveled from Idaho to northern New Mexico to preach at a church in the community of Dulce. They were in search for a new pastor and we were testing the waters to see if this was the direction the Lord was leading us. Dulce is a remote community in New Mexico just below the Colorado border sitting at 7000 feet above sea level. It was at that time populated by about 1400 Jicarilla Apache Indians. Our denomination had a well-established church in Dulce, but had a continued difficulty keeping a pastor in the pulpit.  We would learn the reason for this difficulty in the coming months.

            We arrived in Dulce on a Friday afternoon with an invitation to preach in their Sunday morning service. The community was spread out along a bench that sat below the beautiful “Archuletta” mountain in the San Juan range that spanned both Colorado and New Mexico.  After driving through the community and surrounding areas that afternoon, we drove by the church property located along the highway just south of town.  The property included a church building that could seat around one hundred people, and a small but sufficient parsonage only a few hundred feet from the church. We were early for our Friday meeting with the elders so no one was at the church when we drove by.

            After driving through the community and at least seeing the church from the outside, we parked off the road just outside of town to pray. We were still not sure this was the Lord’s will for our next ministry, but we were anxious to find out. As we prayed, the Lord gave us a clear word of direction. He told us that we would know that He was calling us to this ministry by the one hundred percent vote we would get from the congregation. Our experience was that getting a one hundred percent vote of approval from a church body was almost impossible. Congregations were always divided in their opinions of pastors and therefore the bylaws of the denomination only required a majority to approve a new pastor. Because of the word the Lord provided us, we knew that we could not accept the pastorate if even one soul voted against us.

            We met the elders of the church that evening, they being three men and one woman. Three of these elders were Apache, and one was a Navajo who had married into the tribe. Although they were sufficiently polite to us, their stern demeanor was a bit intimidating. Later, when I had been approved as pastor of this small native church, the elders would approach me in our first board meaning and say with the same stern and serious faces we experienced that first day “be ready, we are a mean people”. 

            At the end of that Friday evening meeting with the elders, they walked us over to the parsonage where we would stay the next three nights. It was a comfortable three-bedroom home that just needed a bit of cleaning up.  They would treat us to dinner that evening at the only reservation restaurant before leaving us to ourselves to walk about the church grounds and inspect the church facilities.

            The next morning, as was my custom, I was up early.  I set out to walk around the “neighborhood” surrounding the church. There were between fifteen to twenty homes spread out across ten or twenty open acres near the church property.  As I walked along the dirt road behind the parsonage, I could see smoke rising from the woodstoves and fireplaces in several of the homes.  I then noticed a young Apache man walking down the dirt road in my direction. He was about 5’10” tall and had long black hair, and his name was Fermin. It was evident from the start that all was not well with this young man. It was early winter in the mountains and he was barefoot, had a torn shirt that was open down to his waste, and was staggering unsteadily.

As I drew nearer, I noticed that the torn shirt and bare feet were the least of his problems. One side of Fermin’s head was bloody with his long black hair matted and tangled with blood.  A closer observation revealed that part of his ear was gone also.  Approaching him to see if I could provide any help, he told me he had fallen asleep last night in his front room. He woke up to find his head laying in the fireplace. His ear, hair, and part of his shirt had all been burnt.  He was walking unsteadily down the street apparently unaware of the severity of his injuries.

            I took Fermin by the arm and began leading him back to the parsonage where I hoped I could contact some medical help. Before we had walked very far a vehicle that had “Jicarilla Police” written on the doors came driving by. Seeing Fermin’s desperate condition, they stopped and radioed in for help.  In less than an hour a LifeFlight helicopter arrived to transport Fermin to the hospital 90 miles away in Farmington. I believe this encounter with Fermin was a sort of preparatory warning of the things we would encounter during our time in Dulce.

            Service that Sunday was packed with many people showing up just to check out the new ‘potential’ pastor. A very gifted guitar playing Navajo brother lead us in worship before I took the pulpit to preach the gospel. When the service was over, Betsy and I and our children were led into an adjoining part of the building where we could wait while the congregation voted. Betsy and I again prayed, experiencing the Lord once again reminding us that only a one hundred percent vote would allow us to stay and pastor in this challenging but needy native community.

  It was a surprisingly short wait. One of the elders soon came out and told us the vote was finished and we could return to the sanctuary.   Betsy and I were both nervous, thinking of how hard it would be to say “no” if it was a majority vote but not unanimous.

            With my family back seated in the first pew and an elder leading me up to the podium, the congregation was its normal boisterous self, talking and laughing in their pews.  In contrast, Betsy and I were both quietly apprehensive thinking of the almost impossible odds of a one hundred percent vote and how we could possibly turn them down. We had been voted into another church in the preceding months and the Lord had spoken to us that we were not to take that pastorate.

The Lord clearly knew our apprehension that day, for when the elder announced that the congregation had voted to retain me as pastor, he also included that it was a completely unanimous decision! We could take over the pastorate of this native church with the full assurance the coming days of ministry would require. We could lead this congregation with absolute confidence that the Lord had placed us here, and that He would accomplish His will in the days to come.

(This is the first of my testimonies regarding the many amazing things the Lord would do during our time in Dulce)