One Church, One Tribe

Update on the Jensens

Hao Kola Bruce and Linda,  

We pray that this update letter finds you healthy and loving our Great Creator and His dear Son Jesus more and more as you see His creation up close and personal!  We have eagerly followed your blogs and now it is our turn to tell you of what God has been doing here in Rapid City, SD. Ron and I just finished helping at the joint Vacation Bible School between our church and First Nations Fellowship. We had the VBS in the evenings at the First Nations church so that the Lakota children in the neighborhood could attend.

The first few nights we had 30 children, and only 8 of them were from Black Hills Community Church! Praise God! Later in the week our numbers dwindled and on Friday night the numbers were the lowest. We were competing with a big Pow Wow in Pine Ridge Friday through Sunday, so next year we will schedule around the Pow Wow! The biggest lesson we learned that week was that we did not wait long enough for the Lakota people to take over leadership in the VBS. This is an unfortunate problem that white people have, taking over. We will do things differently next time.  

We met some wonderful people and children while at the VBS. The pastor of the First Nations Fellowship is Larry Salway, a Lakota and his wife, Dale, a Caucasian. We have become friends with them and are learning many things from them as a couple in ministry just like ourselves.  We connected with Lakota Christians that were passionate about Jesus and seeing their people drawn to Him. One couple that we met have a ministry out of their home. They help other Lakota people find food, work, clothes and Jesus. They told us of receiving a phone call one day from a man and his wife from Colorado. They were bringing a large trailer full of food, clothes, household goods, appliances and furniture up to Rapid City. Would they be able to find people to give these things to? Oh my, what a ministry they have among their people right here.

We were told by several people that there are about 25,000 Native American people living on Pine Ridge reservation and 12,000 to 15,000 Native American people living right here in Rapid City. So, this is where we plan to stay to serve the Lakota people in any way that they need serving.  On the weekend of October 26-28 there will be a First Nations Gathering in Rapid City at the Civic Center. There will be Native American speakers, and a pow-wow in honor of Jesus Christ. There will also be two local outreaches after this conference with the worship group Broken Walls, lead by Mohawk Jonathan Maracle. We hope to be able to assist the Salways in that endeavor.  We look forward to seeing what God has planned for us as we step out completely on faith in His work and take captive our own thoughts and agendas if they do not line up with His agenda.

Pray for us and for the Lakota people in Rapid City, they are truly wonderful people.  I have included some photos from VBS. The two wet guys are the two pastors, Ron and Larry (they were the targets of the Friday night water balloon fight!). They had as much fun as the children did!  God Bless you and your ministry of Life Path,  

Sue and Ron