Missions: The forgotten ones

Photo: The indigenous people of Taiwan (masses slaughtered when the Chinese started coming onto Taiwan some 400 years ago).

This year, I’ve been attending the “Transform Missions” talk at Morling College on Tuesday lunch times. These are talks given by various missionaries about their work. I find the talks inspirational and it widens my perspectives about missions.

This week, we have Julie Reynolds (Apache ministry) from the Western Apache team of Pioneers speaking to us.

https://pioneers.org.au/

Her mission field is on a reserve for Native Americans in the Arizona desert. For more information about this reserve, please see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Apache_Indian_Reservation

http://www.wmat.nsn.us/

Ironically, the American Indians are very patriotic: there’s a higher ratio in the army than the rest of the Americans.

Julie observed that their culture is very different from the rest of the Americans. Most of the Anglo-Saxon Americans do not know that they exist. Furthermore, it is very unusual for Anglo-Saxon Americans to work in the mission field for these people. The people on Julie’s team are all in the retirement age and they really need new blood.

Life expectancy is 40s for males, 50s for females.

They have self-governing councils, which are often very corrupt. They created casinos, which made the situation worse.

The society is matriarchic: 2/3 men alcoholic. Most women have 6-8children, with 3-4 men responsible for it, and none of these men are willing to take up responsibility. Julie thinks what Australia is doing for its indigenous people is a bit better than what America is doing for its indigenous people.

The Apache churches tend to be tribal churches: one extended family, and outsiders are not welcome. There is also the tendency for the churches to be very legalistic or be brought astray by TV evangelists. A lot of the people there do not know about God’s grace. The Western Apache team had to spend the first few years building up relationship with the people and build up trust before they got invited to the churches there.

I suddenly remembered a song sung by Joshua Aaron featuring American Indians:

https://youtu.be/jpoBc-f4RIc

I don’t know what people think of when they hear the term “America”. Does American TV soap operas come into mind? Or Trump? “Make America great again”??

I think that when it comes to interceding for America, it is very important to intercede for the American Indians, the indigenous people of the land who are often forgotten by everyone!