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I'm from Isleta Pueblo, just south of Albuquerque, and one of the 19 Pueblos in New Mexico. I lived in Isleta all my life. I was born, raised, and grew up there. My parents raised us, loved us, and cared for us. I was raised by a wonderful mom named Prudence. She was such a beautiful lady-tiny, always singing, always happy, and always cooking for us, making us fresh tortillas, fried potatoes, beans, and chili, red or green. Those were good times. I had two brothers and three...
Rilla Unger, a member of the Intertribal Life Ministries team, was a picture of faithfulness-writing letters to her treasured, incarcerated friends until she could hold a pen no more, shortly before her death in February. She may have been 97 years old, but she was still committed to the outreach she started so many years earlier. Rilla served as a volunteer for ILM since the late 1980s, when founder George McPeek couldn't keep up with the onslaught of correspondence, many of...
I was raised on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in Eagle Butte, S.D. area. My parents were ranchers, my grandparents were ranchers, and I grew up in the lifestyle of ranching and rodeo. I learned how to ride when I was very young. When I was born, my mother bought me a saddle, so I grew up on horseback; I grew up with stories of the Old West, and enjoyed life in the country. I'm the oldest of eight children, and Mom worked very hard to make ends meet when we were kids....
My life story begins in a small log house in the middle of Berens River, a remote First Nation community on the southeast shore of Lake Winnipeg. My story actually started with my mother, Lilly MacDonald Everett, who became a follower of Jesus when she was 18. She was a great prayer warrior who gave powerful prophetic words. She married my father, Tashie Everett and had nine children. Five of those children were born before me. My mother told me it was a beautiful Sunday...
I grew up in a little village in northern Manitoba called Thicket Portage. There are no year-round roads into the community, but there is passenger service with the Hudson Bay Railway going up to Churchill. As a young boy, I would sit at the lake and look across into the sky, and I would wonder about this "God" that the minister was talking about. When I was about 10 or 11 years old, I would go to church and the minister would get me to read the Scripture for him. There was a...
Emmitt Mckenzie never thought he would live to see his 16th birthday. Growing up in the streets of Oklahoma and in a broken family, Emmitt found himself increasingly angry with God and others in his youth. At age 12, he started drinking alcohol. At age 13, he joined a gang. By age 15, he was hooked on hard drugs, including methamphetamine. Emmitt found himself stuck in a reckless life of crime, drugs and gangs. "I didn't understand the gospel and what God has done for me," he...
I'm from a little community in northern Saskatchewan called Turnor Lake, a hamlet and reserve where members of Birch Narrows Denesuline First Nation live. Most of my young life was spent around Buffalo Narrows with my grandparents, who had adopted me. I lost my grandfather when I was about nine years old. He was a trapper and lost his life out on the trapline, going through the ice. I got into a bit of trouble as a young person and ended up in a foster home for a while. When...
Marriages are under attack more than ever. No one can attest to that more than Sonia and Derek McLeod, who released their powerful book, Teach Me to War. This honest and stirring memoir brings the reader through the struggles and triumphs of their tumultuous Christian marriage-which included battles with lust, religion and pride. The couple was finally on the precipice of ruin, with Derek leaving the home. But at this point, God ushered in profound change, bringing both of...
Penn State University graduate and associate professor in Native American History, Julie Reed, PhD, also holds a Master in Theological Studies (MTS). Through this, she not only provides lay training in theological studies, but also provides services to churches and communities. An MTS degree also prepares a person to investigate, analyze and evaluate ways different aspects of religion relate to faith-based traditions, language, and culture; it further prepares one for...
TUCSON—At 83 years old, George Goode describes every day as a "blessing" as he makes the two-hour commute to Sells to teach local Native Americans farrier education. It was 1972 when Goode started his horseshoeing school in Tucson. Over a half-century later, he retired and founded the nonprofit Native American Horse Education Foundation in hopes of bringing a new mindset to Indigenous communities. "Out of all the years and all the reservations in the United States, there a...
It was not until 2005 that Northern Cheyenne storytellers broke their silence about what really happened at the Battle of The Little Big Horn-known mainly to Native Americans as the Battle of Greasy Grass, and to non-Natives as Custer's Last Stand. But it took more than a century before Buffalo Calf Road Woman, a Northern Cheyenne who was also known as Buffalo Calf Trail Woman-was revealed as the Native American heroine who played a pivotal role in the conflict's ending. When...
On May 6, 1946, the Church of the Indian Fellowship (CIF) was organized in Washington State's Puyallup (People of the Clear Salt Water) Reservation as a Presbyterian mission founded in 1881. It is still used today, but the building has been rebuilt over time and is still sponsored by the Presbytery. It is where Danielle Palomino-a Fifth Generation Native American-grew up and where she participated in singing hymns translated from English to the Puyallup Language by those of th...
My testimony is really that with God all things are possible. Without God, I would never be able to do any of the things that I'm doing today. A lot of my story has to do with the struggles I faced as a young girl growing up with abandonment and addiction in my family from generation to generation. I have lost a sister to addictions, and my mother is in addiction. I've never known my father. I am the oldest, and my three siblings and I were all separated into foster care. My...
LeeAnn Dreadfulwater could be described as a woman who "wears many hats." Although little is shared via the media regarding her family and personal life, LeeAnn does not mind others knowing is that she loves riding her gleaming white Paso Fino gelding-a naturally gaited horse originally imported from Spain and prized for its natural, four-beat, smooth and ambling gait. Dreadfulwater is married, lives in Park Hill, Oklahoma, and has also lived in Tahlequah, Oklahoma....
The American Bar Association (ABA) made history in 2023 when it installed Mary L. Smith as its first ever female Native American president. Prior to Smith's election to the ABA-which is the world's largest voluntary association of lawyers, judges, and legal professionals-Smith had already served on its board of governors and was its secretary from 2017 to 2020. Born to Cherokee parents, Smith is a member of the Cherokee Nation. She is also former CEO of Indian Health Services...
Although I am a member of Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation in north-central Saskatchewan, I didn't grow up there. My mother, Noreen, was from Ahtahkakoop, and my father, Donald, from Poundmaker Cree Nation. We never lived on a reserve because my father was disenfranchised when he was a teenager-so we were non-status Indians, with my mother losing her treaty rights when she married my dad. At the time my parents met, my dad was in the Army, stationed in Chilliwack, BC, where my sister a...
John 11:35: "Jesus wept!" The shortest verse in the Bible, yet profoundly moving in lowliness of heart. He knew the circumstances surrounding the death of Lazarus, yet He wept. He wept with love in His heart, which let all humankind know that He truly cares. Growing up as a child, I was taught not to cry, not to feel, and pretty much not to share or show any emotion that ridiculed my family or me. I had learned and taught myself to suppress my tears and show no emotion when li...
Ramona Lynn Sakiestewa was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico to a Hopi father and a mother of Irish-English-German descent. She attended Verde Valley School in Sedona, Arizona, and Santa Fe Prep, Santa Fe, New Mexico. As her interest in weaving grew, Ramona taught herself to weave through reading books and from the assistance of acquaintances who were kind enough to share their expertise. In 1970, she married Arthur Sze, a poet and creative writing instructor at the Institute...
I grew up in Cumberland House, northeastern Saskatchewan. It's kind of an isolated place, about 200 km northeast from Nipawin, a larger town. The community is on an island in a delta region of the Saskatchewan River. Some of the people are still involved in fishing, hunting and trapping. My father was mainly a fisherman, so I grew up eating a lot of fish! As a kid, many times I went out with him in his boat, and then in the winter there was ice fishing, as well. I wish I...
Lucy Martin Lewis was born in a mesa in Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico, to Lola Santiago and Martin Ortiz. Her actual birthdate is unknown. But when the eldest son, Ivan, joined the Marines during World War II, the family changed their last name to Lewis. Lucy would spend her entire life in Acoma Pueblo, and as a seven-year-old, she learned to fashion pottery in much the same way as many other Native American potters: through observing and experimenting. With young Lucy, it was...
Coming from a large family, I am the youngest of eight children. My mom was from Saddle Lake First Nation in Alberta. Her first husband died fairly young from a heart attack, after which she moved to Edmonton where she met and married my dad. Edmonton is where I was born and have lived pretty well all of my life. So, I came from my mom's second marriage and Steinhauer is my family's name, which is somewhat of a prominent name around Saddle Lake. Back in history, there was a...
Third grade classroom teacher Lynette Stant, member of the Navajo Nation, grew up in Tuba City on the Navajo Reservation. She is a 15-year veteran instructor on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Reservation in Scottsdale, Arizona. Stant earned her master's degree in elementary education from Arizona State University. She graduated Summa Cum Laude-the highest honorary academic distinction a graduating student can receive. Lynette Stant is also a Gates Millennium Scholar...
I grew up at Big Trout Lake, an isolated village in northwestern Ontario. When I was a child no one there spoke English, and I spoke only the Oji-Cree language until I was 12 years old, even though my father was originally from England. My dad had been sent there as a minister, so I grew up in the church. Every time the church doors were open, I was there! I'm the oldest in our family, and I have a younger brother and a younger sister. There was no school in our community at...
I grew up in southern Manitoba, mostly in adoptive care and some foster care. Where I grew up there were no other Indigenous people, except for other kids who were in adoptive or foster care. One year in elementary school our class was practicing for a Thanksgiving play. Some kids were supposed to be sailors, some pilgrims, and some Indians. When I volunteered to be an Indian, one of the kids across the room pointed at me and said, "Hey, he's already an Indian!" I still laugh...
When you stand to pray, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him. Then your Father in heaven will forgive your sins also. If you do not forgive them their sins, your Father in heaven will not forgive your sins. Mark 11:25 NLV The telephone rang. It was four in the morning. The voice at the other end said that my father had been lost in the mine. They were checking the hospital to see if he might have gotten sick and been taken there. At six, the phone rang again with...
