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Awesome Bill Miller CD
Bill Miller is one of our favorite Native musicians!
Spirit Songs: The Best of Bill Miller features 17 songs and every one is a winner. One of the cool things about Bill is that he never sings the same song twice, so even though we have all of his cd’s the songs that get repeated are never the same. Because of this, we always order the entire album instead of just the songs we don’t have.
He not only is an awesome musician and singer, but the songs he has written are straight from the soul and cut right to the heart of the listener.
You can get his “SPIRIT SONGS: The Best of Bill Miller” album by clicking here.
Choctaw Code Talker
Joseph Oklahombi
An American soldier of the Choctaw nation. He was the most-decorated soldier from Oklahoma during World War I. He served in the Thirty-sixth Infantry Division’s Company D, First Battalion, 141st Regiment, Seventy-first Brigade where he was one of the Choctaw code talkers.
Wanna Make Frybread Yourself? Here’s how…
A great movie!
Twenty-two Native American frybread makers, representing all twenty-two federally recognized tribes in Arizona, convene in Flagstaff to compete for the first ever, first annual, state of Arizona Frybread Championship! The film takes a larger then life turn as four contestants (Tatanka Means, Teresa Choyguha, Dey & Nite and Camille Nighthorse) battle their way to compete for the title in the championship round. This is the frybread competition unlike any you have ever seen and the movie you can almost taste!
What to do with Anger…
What to do with Righteous Anger
A Native News online article on August 27 told of five-year-old Malachi Wilson enrolling for kindergarten last June and being denied admission on his first day because of his long hair. He was finally allowed to attend on the second day after his mother proved that he was Native American and that cutting his hair went against religious and cultural beliefs, but even then the principal took it a step further.
According to April, Malachi’s mom, “The principal asked me if I could pull his hair back and even tuck it into his shirt to hide it,” said Wilson. “I braid it all the time, so that was not a problem to keep it confined. But, I would not agree to have him put his hair down his shirt collar.”
Ohhhhh this article made me angry on so many levels, and I’m sure it does you too!
What we do with that anger is what is important.
First, let’s look at why it makes us angry.
1. The length we choose to grow our hair …
…really should be nobody’s business but our own. It makes us angry that someone thinks they have the right to judge the worth of a person simply because of the length of their hair.
2. Not allowing a five-year-old boy…
…to attend his first day of kindergarten because of the length of his hair? That makes every mother’s heart angry…or, at least, it should. We all know that one day at school with long hair is not going to “pollute” the minds of other five-year-olds.
3. Let’s look at that word “pollute” or “contaminate.”
Isn’t that what this school seems to be implying by their rules? That a five-year-old boy wearing long hair might infect the thinking of other five year olds? Just what are they afraid of here?
4. And that brings us to the real reason for our anger.
This act is clearly one of discrimination in the worst sense of the word. We know this because when the principal is aware of religious and cultural reasons for the hair length, she asks the mother to hide the hair. What? Now, that makes us really angry. She is stating here that her choice of hair length for a five-year-old boy is preferred over the choice of an entire Nation. And it brings us back to not so long ago when Native American and First Nation people were torn from their homes, sent to government run boarding schools and “made” to cut their hair and not speak their language. Of course, we will not put up with this! And we shouldn’t.
But what to do with the anger?
Instead of letting it tear your soul apart…turn it into affective action.
Ranting and raving over this will not change things. It will simply embitter our own hearts, robing us of peace and causing more unrest and discontent among our people. BUT speaking out in the right arenas is a good thing. Policies at this school need to be changed.
We applaud Malachi’s mother, April, for several things:
1. Bravo for not cutting his hair!
Strength and beauty are found in keeping the hair long. Bravo for not cutting it ever, except to trim it and keep it healthy, and bravo for not cutting it at the demands of this principal and misguided school rules.
2. Bravo for coming back with all the information…
…needed to get Malachi going in his kindergarten. It would have been much easier to turn tail and run.
3. Bravo for not “hiding” Malachi’s braid …
…as the principal insisted.
We also applaud Malachi for keeping his hair long…
…and being brave enough to attend this kindergarten.
With that said, we need to pray:
1. For Malachi…
…that his thinking has not been “contaminated” by this principal and others behind the school rules who don’t know true beauty when they see it. Pray for Malachi to remain courageous and strong as he faces this kind of thing in the future.
2. For Malachi’s mother, April…
…that she will remain strong and not become bitter toward all “whites” because of this one school’s action. That she will continue to move forward and get things changed for the better at Malachi’s school, so that others will not have to go through this. That she will be aware of any changes to Malachi’s sense of well being and worth as a Native and nip it in the bud.
3. For the principal and whoever else…
…is a part of the rule making to experience a dramatic change in their attitude toward Native Americans.
4. For the school to change…
…their policies on length of hair.
5. For Creator to do a miracle…
…in restoration among these people, which includes all of our hearts.
Speaking out in the right arenas, staying on top of what is happening and getting misguided rules changed, praying for specific things…these are all ways of turning our anger into something that can be used for the better. The Sacred Writings do not say to never get angry…they say, “In your anger, do not sin” (Ephesian 4:26).
The choice is ours. Once we hear of these types of things or experience them first hand, we must choose whether we will allow our anger to change us for the worse or the better.
It is the enemy of our souls, that evil trickster as Ghostdancer Shadley says, who darkens the thinking of people like this principal. We can pray against the trickster and his ways and ask for the blood of Jesus Yeshua to protect our own hearts from any root of bitterness.
While we’re at it, let’s thank Creator Yahweh that he has created us unique and has set us aside for a very special purpose.
Oregon Gulch Fire Prayer Request
Restoring the Heart team member, Sandy Cathcart, lives on the backside of Box R Ranch in Southern Oregon. The Oregon Gulch Fire is just a few miles away roaring through the forests surrounding this amazing land. Many of you have been praying and we thank you!
Due to the complexity of the Oregon Gulch fire, a unified command structure with Oregon Department of Forestry, the Oregon State Fire Marshal’s Office and CAL FIRE has been established. Here are some photos of part of the team setting up at Box R Ranch.
This is one of three crosses now buried in smoke on Box R Ranch. When Don Rowlette first saw this place he said, “This is a place where God dwells.”
If you have visited Box R Ranch for a retreat or one of the many art conferences, this is a familiar scene…however the helicopters in the field is not familiar. We are very grateful for these brave men who are helping to protect this land and people.
Landing in front of the pond.
A very short break.
Sylvia visiting from France, got more than she bargained for, but is being very brave and helping organize.
Getting a lay of the land.
Heading out soon.
Thanks to everyone for your prayers. They are making a difference! We keep hearing that wind patterns change unexpectedly in good ways and several houses that we thought were lost were saved late last night. Some are evacuated and some have lost homes, so please continue to pray for safety of all involved and healing of this land.
Now, I’m gonna go bake some cookies so I can spoil these guys to show how grateful I am they’re here.
Cheryl Bear talks about being a Native Christian
This is one of the best interviews ever on sharing what struggles a Christian Native faces. Enjoy!
Wailing Wall
We’re on Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall! Our hearts are so full…thank you Stella Quilala!
First Native American Woman MD
Dr. Susan LaFlesche Picotte (1865-1915)
Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte was the first person to receive federal aid for professional education, and the first American Indian woman in the United States to receive a medical degree.
In her remarkable career she served more than 1,300 people over 450 square miles, giving financial advice and resolving family disputes as well as providing medical care at all hours of the day and night.
Her Inspiration
Susan was the younger sister of Susette “Bright Eyes” La Flesche Tibbles, Standing Bear’s interpreter during his trial in 1879. Susan and the other La Flesche children were leaders who continued their father’s legacy of helping the Omaha people make the painful transition to white society while holding onto Omaha culture. Susan’s father (Omaha Chief Joseph “Iron Eyes” La Flesche. Last Chief of the Omaha Tribe.) had a very big impact on her life.
As a child, Susan had watched a sick Indian woman die because the local white doctor would not give her care. She later credited this tragedy as her inspiration to train as a physician, so she could provide care for the people she lived with on the Omaha Reservation.
Her Schooling
While working at the Quaker school, Susan attended to the health of ethnologist Alice Fletcher, who was working there. With Fletcher’s urging, she went back East to complete her education and earn a medical degree. She enrolled at Hampton Institute, one of the nation’s first and finest schools of higher education for non-white students. The resident physician there, Martha Waldron, was a graduate of the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania (WMCP) and encouraged her to apply to the Woman’s Medical College. Once again, Alice Fletcher helped Susan by securing scholarship funds from the U.S. Office of Indian Affairs and the Connecticut Indian Association, a branch of the Women’s National Indian Association.
After only two years in a three-year program at WMCP, Susan La Flesche graduated in 1889 at the top of her class. She remained in Philadelphia to complete year’s internship, and then returned home to provide health care to the Omaha people at the government boarding school, where she was responsible for some twelve hundred people.
Her Life
Susan La Flesche married Henry Picotte in 1894 and the couple moved to Bancroft, Nebraska, where she set up a private practice, serving both white and non-white patients. Along with her busy practice, Picotte also raised two sons and nursed her husband through a terminal illness. In 1906 she led a delegation to Washington, D.C., to lobby for prohibition of alcohol on the reservation. In 1913, two years before her death, she saw her life’s dream fulfilled when she opened a hospital in the reservation town of Walthill, Nebraska. It was the first privately funded hospital on an Indian reservation. Today the hospital houses a museum dedicated to the work of Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte and the history of the Omaha and Winnebago tribes.