There was one special day with the teams from Highlands Presbyterian Church in Mississippi and Bellewood Presbyterian Church in Washington when we were asked by Jack Spencer if we could help repair his fishing scaffold on the Columbia River. There had been a big wind earlier in the week and it had knocked it down. About fifteen of us loaded up and drove down to the river and met Jack. It was a short drive on a dirt road along side some train tracks to Jack’s spot. None of us really knew how to build a scaffold in the river, but by the grace of God and some trial and error, we got a structure up.

Jack kept after me to take lots of pictures and telling me that we were making history. You probably have heard some of Jack and how he wants to give 80 acres of his land to Sacred Road to build a church on. Jack’s role in the community is someone who gathers traditional food (like the salmon) and brings them to ceremonies and gatherings. So you can see, for Jack, fishing isn’t just a fun activity on the weekend. He spends almost the entire summer on the river. When the new scaffold was up, he was visibly moved. He wants Chris to get a plaque to put on it with Sacred Road’s logo and a bible verse so that whenever someone uses it they will know it was built by Christians.

Jack told many of the teams of his new found belief that it was possible to be an Indian and a Christian. He talked about his first meeting with Chris and Mary and how everyone had told him that the white people always wanted to take something. His friends and family had all warned him about coming to the Tuesday night Bible study at the longhouse. Originally, Jack had just come to eat and left before the study began. He did this for many weeks. One day his five-year-old grandson, Dante, stopped him before leaving  and asked him about “spiritual food.” He siad this question stopped him in his tracks and he began staying for the bible study, but not participating. Then he began to participate more and more. Jack now believes that Jesus Christ is the Creator.

Before they left, Jack presented each of the interns with a gift at the longhouse and talked about how important their ministry was to the children in the community.  He is a very powerful symbol of how God is working on the Reservation through Sacred Road.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 23rd, 2009 at 1:02 am and is filed under Reservation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.