Indian Reservation

I don’t even know were to start about my trip. I had so many experiences that I cannot even put into words. However, the day we went to the Indian Reservation was one of the most touching times. We got there on Tuesday morning, broke up into groups, and started walking around the neighborhood with a translator to invite the families to “a free program for the kids with clowns, candy, dramas, and games” (this is what we did before every one of our “open air” services).

As we began to walk around the reservation I immediately was touched by their living conditions. All of the people seemed to be sick. There was poop (sorry Dennae) in the middle of the streets, and my translator started telling me that it was NOT from the animals, but from the people who did not want to get used to the living conditions (indoor plumbing) the government set up for them. I saw little kids who were wearing no clothes or shoes, just underwear. It broke my heart seeing these people.

When we came back, I started talking to the little kids. Suddenly, a little girl came running up to me and gave me a huge hug. I was pretty surprised, because most of the kids took a little bit of time of warming up to you, and she was not acting like that towards anyone else but me. We played football and blew bubbles. She tried so hard to understand my broken Spanish, and we had some great conversations. When the program started she would not leave my side. At one point I was up front and she came up and stood by me. Her eyes were glued to me during every skit I was in, and the ones I was not in she was sitting on my lap. At the end of the program she accepted Christ as her Savior, and gave her heart to him.

When we were done I played with her (as well as many other kids) for a little while longer. She asked me to come to the store with her and she bought me a piece of gum (really stale bubble gum) that was wrapped with a tattoo. She placed the “el espongebob” tattoo on my arm. She was really sad when I told her I had to leave. I gave her a big bottle of bubbles (I wish I had more I could have given her). She took my hand and walked me to the vans. She watched me as I went into the back row of my van, and waited until we pulled out. As the van drove away, she came running after the van. It broke my heart to leave her. I connected like this with many kids during the week, but this little 8 year old girl (whose name is too Hispanic for me to repeat) touched me in a different way. I pray God will keep her safe and put someone in her life to keep her near to Him. I was there to impact kids lives. I don’t know how much of an impact I made on her, but she made a pretty big dent in mine.