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Left for Sioux Valley on Monday morning at 7:30am. Arrived last night around 8pm.
Thankful for prayers. Everyone was safe and healthy. Your prayers were with us.
Big thank you to 백은희 and 편희선 집사님’s hard work leading the kitchen team. Fed so many people – up to 160 people from community. Couldn’t have done it without them.
Theme: A Time for Peace.
Man did not have peace. He was tormented and controlled by a greater power.
We all find ourselves controlled by a power greater than ourselves.
We don’t do what we want, but what we don’t want.
Many indigenous people find themselves controlled by powers greater than themselves.
These powers take many forms: Hopelessness. Suicide. Drug addictions. Alcoholism. Broken families.
All of these powers are rooted in a message that takes root in their hearts: that their life is not worth anything.
History of residential schools and government policy – to assimilate them and kill the Indian in them.
The message was that who they were was not valuable. Their language, way of life were better off gone.
The ultimate message was that your life doesn’t matter. You are not loveable.
When that negative message takes root, it begins to take over like a weed.
Overpowers attempts to get rid of them.
The community has been trying to undo the damage done in the past. They have many programs in the community. They have counselling centres.
But that deeper power of hopelessness and despair often seem to overpower all attempts by the community.
When you receive a message that your life doesn’t have value, you don’t value other lives as well.
Jesus drove out the unclean spirits.
The man was clothed and in his right mind.
He had peace.
What is peace?
It is being in your right mind. It’s being freed from power that controls you in a negative way.
For the people of Sioux Valley: peace is being freed of that deep-seated belief that their life not worth that much.
It is an incredible challenge.
Meeting Lisa. Invitation to service: believe in the Lord, but don’t deserve it. Daughter had lice: couldn’t send her home to that.
There is a cost to healing.
The man was healed. Clothed and in his right mind. The townspeople should have been happy and rejoiced.
But instead, they asked Jesus to leave. Why?
The cost was too high. 2000 pigs was a great economic loss for the community.
They were not willing to pay the price for one man’s healing.
The cost of undoing decades and centuries of damage is very high. How do you undo generations of damage?
The message that your life does not matter gets transmitted from one generation to the next. From one broken family to the next.
It is an insidious weed that is hard to get out.
Healing, truth and reconciliation sound nice, but there is a cost to it.
Jesus was willing to pay the cost. He paid the cost with his life on the cross. It was not a nuisance for him.
He didn’t pick who deserves it. But he loved everyone, especially those who are deepest in sin. He freely and willingly gave of himself.
We believe in the gospel of hope. We believe that God makes new things possible.
We are there for only one week, but we could witness small signs of God’s presence.
Shannon: Met her for one day last year. She attended the mission camp when she was a child.
Her sister died three years ago, her mother passed away one month ago. She was going through a hard time. This year, she took the week off to find healing.
Cemetery: funeral service. First people to rally support.
Message: life of her loved ones matters.
There was a group of young moms who came to Bible study. Some of them had attended the mission camps as kids.
We had a time sharing and prayer. They decided to be baptized with their kids.
So on Thursday evening, we had a worship to baptize everyone. Record number of 18 baptisms!
Message of baptism:
No matter what the past, God offers new life in Christ. They die to their old life, rise again to new life with Christ. Their life matters so much that Jesus died so they could have new life.
It was a beautiful time together. Kind of hectic. The church was never this full in a long time.
The baptisms themselves were new and exciting. But right before service, a couple came up to me.
They saw my name tag – it said “Rev.” They said, “Are you a reverend?” I said yes. They asked if I could officiate a wedding!
Seized the opportunity because marriages are rare.
Amazing thing: they attended the camps run by Sarah and Joon long time ago. They remembered.
They had been thinking of getting married for about a year, but there was no one to marry them. I said I can’t legally marry them, but we could have a ceremony for them to commit to each other.
They also wanted to get baptized. Beautiful time.
No one else to celebrate with them. So we became the wedding party.
There were other little signs of hope.
The moms making amazing bannock for us. Gifts from the community. Cots, pillows and blankets. Donation from Shannon’s grandmother.
Connections with people like band council member. Kids doing traditional Dakota dance.
Dawn and Jodi: Met them the first year. They asked us to sign something for them.
Didn’t see them last year, was wondering. This year they came back: two little babies.
These are all small signs of hope for peace.
The man had peace – he was in his right mind. He wanted to go with Jesus.
But Jesus refused. This is what he said:
But Jesus refused and said to him, “Go home to your own people, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and what mercy he has shown you.” (Mark 5:19)
We need peace in our hearts.
When we find peace, we are sent by Jesus back to our families and communities.
My prayer is that more and more people will find peace so that there can be healing in families and communities.
Peace does not come easy.
There is a cost. It is hard work. It requires a lot of prayer.
But we trust that in God’s time, he will make all things beautiful.
We press on with that faith.
One day, there will be peace in our hearts and peace on this earth.
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