At Wounded Knee

Today, the service was held at Manderson village, which is part of the Wounded Knee school district. So our street ministry went to both Wounded Knee and Manderson. While at Wounded Knee, we stopped at the Memorial at Wounded Knee. God happened to place someone there at the same time who was able to tell us about the history of the place. I checked, and there are many websites devoted to the Wounded Knee massacre, so I won't go into it here, but it was a very solemn moment as we heard about the outrage that these people dealt with over 100 years ago at the hands of the US government.

Another thing we learned today was that the village of Pine Ridge and the village of Manderson are "radical" places - compared by other Native Americans to Harlem, specifically in respect to the gangs are that in those places. That said, God has obviously been watching over us and hasn't allowed anything to happen to anyone in the group. We're not going to take any chances though, now that we know. We'll continue to do the work God has placed us here to do, but we will be careful as we walk the streets.

This is cool - We got published in the local paper - the Rapid City Journal.

The service was tremendously well done tonight. Many people came up for prayer. All the food bags and gifts were given out. People were very excited that we were there. I pray that some of these people are giving their lives to Christ. I worry that sometimes, it is just about the food or the gifts, the charity in general, but it is supposed to be about the gospel message. I keep that in prayer constantly.

It was a long day and there were some emotional moments between the Memorial, the service and the prayers. Pray that we continue to have an affect on the Native Americans here.