Flagstaff hundreds of Indians come. In all the Navajo country, there is no bordering town with more Indian activity than this western city. It is a melting pot for different tribes. Navajos, Hopis, Havasupais, Hualapais, Zu- nis and Apaches are the principle ones with whom we deal. The mission headquarters is in the busi ness district, just two blocks from any point of the business section. At the same time, it is in a good region of the city. The people are lifted to a higher level as they are invited into the better part of town. It is a lift to their morale. Then as the Saviour is offered to them and they receive Him, lives are trans formed. This is the answer to the city’s prob lem of developing law-abiding citizens. Daily there is open house at the mission. As the Indians come, they receive a courteous, hospitable welcome. A missionary is on duty to give personal attention to their needs. Bible and sewing classes are conducted for women; a hi-schooler’s group meets there weekly; a Pioneer Girl’s organization comes each Mon day; a Bible study group for men and women is a regular Thursday occurrence; children’s classes and Sunday school are other enter prises which draw the people. Fifteen miles west of Flagstaff, this mission is the authorized Protestant work in a village of around 1,000 Indians who live on a mili tary reservation operated by the Sixth Army. A flourishing native church is there. The church building belongs to the mission. Mem bers are born-again Navajo Indians who have found Christ through the ministry of the mis sion. The church, as the mission, is undenomi national in character. Eighty-five miles north of Flagstaff on the Navajo reservation, the mission operates an out-station for the benefit of those Indians who seek to survive as semi-nomads herding their flocks of sheep over vast desert areas and living in their low dome-shaped mud huts called hogans. The Lord has drawn out many of these desert people for Himself; but there are yet others who “ sit in darkness” having not yet seen the great Light. The mission may eventually have its own land bordering the reservation. Until this develops, it is serving the people on leased property. Summer Bible camp work is made possible through rental of grounds a few miles east of our city. The Holy Spirit works in the hungry hearts of these Indian people bring ing new life and hope to them who for so many years have been “without hope and without God.” The Flagstaff Mission to the Navajos is undenominational in character and is sup ported by the freewill offerings of God’s people. END.
nality of the people but rather to the praise of His glory in the power shown in their deliverance. In fact, it is amazing to see the working of the Spirit in these hearts who have such a background, but it does not always come at once. Statistics show that we lose one-half our children before the age of six. Experience tells us this even more emphatically. In one district alone, we have buried 16 children in nine months. God often uses the heart’s loss of a child to give these simple people an un derstanding of Himself. Very often at a fu neral, we have seen one or both parents put their trust in the Lord Jesus. A young mother brought her beautiful lit tle baby into the clinic for help. Tears were flowing down her cheeks for she sensed that it was too late! Right there, the nurse, the native helper and the missionary pointed her to the Saviour. Bear in mind that her back ground is that which has just been pictured to you above, but she readily grasped for help, sincerely receiving the Lord with all the earnestness of her simple mind and heart. That evening the Christian native and the missionary talked further to both her and her husband. Together they joined heart and hands with Christ. Though God took the little one, there was hope now burning in the breasts of the parents. Enough hope, that they would attend the funeral, they would draw near the dead, even consenting to look at the body. Suppose you had been instructed always to make a line of demarcation and burn a border of ground to ashes, then hastily depart so that the evil spirits would not follow you after you had been near the dead? Would you have walked into the funeral parlor? Would you have looked at the body, even though it was that of your own child? Would you have gone to the cemetery and watched as the precious little one was laid to rest? This mother was trustful enough to do all this, and yet, inbred in her teaching were certain superstitions over which there was not yet victory. “ Please take the scissors and clip around the edge of all the blankets. Clip also around the sweater and the little hood which my baby wears,” was the request of the mother. “Why?” “ I do not want the devils to follow it in the next world,” she said. “ By cutting the blan kets, we have been taught to believe that we break all connections with this life, but if we don’t, the devils will follow.” Would you say she was not a believer? Would you want love and grace, patience and understanding shown toward you? Suppose you had been bom a Navajo! The Flagstaff Mission to the Navajos was born of God in June 1948. Into the city of
by Katherine Beard
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APRIL, 1955
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