I lived in
Birmingham, Alabama until I was six years old at which point my family moved to
be missionaries on the Yakama Indian Reservation in Washington state. Now, the
first thing most people say when they find out how young I was when we moved
is, “Oh, so you must not remember anything about Alabama anyway.” Unless of
course, that person knows me very well to which they say something along the
lines of. “I’m sure you remember more than most people would expect.” The truth
is, I’m in between the two assumptions as far as my memories are concerned. It’s the expectations I had, the vision for my future that I felt God had
pulled out of my reach.
Naturally,
I’ve changed a lot since I was six years old, but I’m told (by family members
and friends who have known me long enough to know) that these things remain the
same: I’m independent, I analyze anything and everything, and I’m serious, but
not to the point of having no sense of humor. Though these all seem like good
character traits, I have taken some of them to extremes and turned them rotten.
I was like this as a kid and I’m like this now. All this said to at least make
some sense of the fact that, by six years old, I was sure of what I wanted for
myself. I had a plan for my life and believed God couldn’t have any reason to
change it. I was six, so of course this plan wasn’t incredibly detailed, but
these things I knew for sure: I wanted to live in Alabama forever, I wanted to
write a big book, and I wanted to get married and live happily ever after. And
who’s to say the latter two of the three of those things could happen in
Washington? And who’s to say they would in Alabama? There was more to my little
plan though, something I hadn’t really put much thought into because I’d
assumed it was a given. This assumption was that my family would remain exactly
as it had been up to that point. That everyone I loved would always be close
by. As a six-year-old, you believe that you really are one big happy family;
every conflict, every stressful detail flies high above your head. Six-year-old
Morgan Granberry was determined to live a fairy tale. Not only did I think I
was in control of my future, but I also thought I’d be able to duck and weave
my way through hardship and pain. That was where my goal became an unrealistic
dream. Yet, when I was older, and realized there was no way to avoid sorrow, I
still longed for that future I could’ve had. Not because still living there
would be what I wanted when I was little, but because it would be easier than what my life had become.
Isn’t that humans for you: always wanting what’s easy. God has planned out each
of our lives ahead of time though, and He doesn’t give us what is easy, He
gives us what is good.
We moved to
Washington and for a while I still clung to those expectations, believing that
we would only be on the Reservation a little while before moving back and we
would pick up where we left off. Eventually it became clear that we weren’t
moving back anytime soon, so I decided I would simply go back to Alabama for
college and not come back to the Rez. Here’s the thing though: My parents put my
three siblings and me into the public school. That wasn’t easy to say the
least. Imagine what would happen if you were some of the only white kids in a
public elementary school on an Indian reservation. Now top us of by adding thick
southern accents. My oldest sister came home with a black eye on the very first
day simply for “talking funny.” I have two older sisters and one younger
brother. All three of my siblings had violent classes. My sisters were taken
out of the school to be homeschooled after two rough years in the system. It
wasn’t so much the violence in my grade that was a problem as much as it was
the language. I didn’t know any swear words going into the school much less what
any of them meant, but I did by the end of first grade. The kids loved to have
information that was beyond anything a second grader should know and they loved
to share it too, so I knew exactly how so-and-so had ended up with a new baby
half-sister, which was far worse than knowing the definitions to a bunch of
swear words. Of course, it wasn’t all bad though. I made friends and I learned
to blend in (as much as a white girl could). In fact my best friend to this day
is Marisol Romero who I met in second grade. Relationships were built and
that’s what went wrong with my master plan to move away as soon as I could.
Once a year we
take a trip back to Alabama. It’s a plunge into “would haves”, “could haves”,
and “should haves”. It’s ridiculously overwhelming. Anyone I would remember,
aside from family members, doesn’t remember me. My family, who used to all be
in one area, is now spread out mostly in the southeast. Everyone has moved and
everyone has changed. Of course I ended up expecting it, but the reality is
more bitter than the expectation. I’m not trying to say that all change is bad,
but it’s not my favorite thing in the world.
I was in sixth
grade when it finally clicked that God had shut the door to Alabama. It wasn’t
the changes in Alabama that made it click, it was the relationships I had on
the Rez. I was torn and am torn between two places I will never call home. I’m
torn between people who are my family and people I call my family. It wasn’t
the changes in Alabama it was the changes in me. The Lord stuck the Yakama
people in my heart, never to be removed. You’d think my stubbornness had ended,
but it hadn’t. You’d think my heart had been softened, but it hardened. I was
furious with God. I blamed him for everything while I should have been thanking
Him. Blessed as I am to live on the Rez and know I’m where God wants me, it’s a
hard bite to swallow. There is no end to the pain and suffering in this
community. I couldn’t stand it. I can bear it now only because I truly trust
that God is our deliverer and healer. Though I said I did, though I had even
myself convinced, I didn’t truly believe it then.
Growing up in
a Christian home there are a lot of biblical facts you memorize, you can give
anyone the right answer and always be ready to illustrate an illusion of
Christianity. It’s deceiving and you fool yourself until God throws a curveball
and you fall to the dust in tears, gathering your idols near, and crying out
with the selfish anger of a toddler, “Why, God, why? What did I do?” Pitiful
isn’t it? Well that was me in full force from sixth grade to the beginning of
my eighth grade year. Not to say that I was nice and dandy in eighth grade, I’m
still trying to pull myself together. Trying, but of course I’m the one who
made a mess of me in the first place. No, my efforts aren’t getting me
anywhere; they never have and they never will, but I keep trying like Sisyphus and
his boulder. Except Sisyphus couldn’t stop even though he wanted to and at
least he got close to his goal each time. I on the other hand, have chained
myself to my boulder and get no further than the starting line. So if my
efforts failed, what was it that got me back on the right track? Well, as much
as I wish I could pinpoint it to one major event, I can’t. The Lord gradually
changed my heart and I fought against him all the while. Why do I associate my
turn for the worst with my sixth grade year? I started a new school.
My parents
pulled me out of the public school system after my fourth grade year. I had
come to like the public school a lot and I was sad to leave, but the education
wouldn’t get me far in the long run. I was homeschooled for fifth grade. From
sixth to eighth grade I went to a private school in Issaquah, Washington, about
three hours away from where we lived in Wapato. The school was Covenant
Christian Middle School (CCMS) and classes were only on Mondays and Tuesdays
then we took extra work with us to finish during the rest of the week. We drove
half way to Issaquah Sunday nights and met whoever had volunteered (either from
the church or the school) to drive us the rest of the way. On Tuesdays after
school another volunteer would drive us all the way back. At the time my family
had a Tuesday night Bible study in the community to which there was never a
small turnout and was probably 90% children who came without adults. More on
that later. The culture of the Rez and the overall culture of the families of
CCMS were polar opposites. The switch back and forth each week provided a
culture clash strong enough to make you sick to your stomach. No one at the
school had been to the Rez and it’s not something easily explained much less
understood, not that many people actually asked.
The school had
an average of twenty-two students each year from sixth grade to eighth grade, so
everyone knew everyone. I didn’t even try to like it my first year. My sisters,
Marisol and Beth, also went with me to the school. Beth’s last year was my
first and Ann Marie, the oldest sister, had graduated the year before. Our
younger brother, David, would come into the school the following year. Marisol
was taken out of the public school and homeschooled with us at her mom’s
request and has had the same school schedule as I have ever since.
Anyone who
knows Marisol (and Marisol herself) would agree that she is extremely social.
So she felt comfortable enough to jump right in and make friends with everyone.
I stuck close to Beth. I realize I’m painting a picture of my twelve-year-old
that gives the impression that I must have been the spitting image of Mary from
“The Secret Garden”, but that’s not really how it was. I realize now the faults
in what was my view of life, but at the time I thought, of course, that I was
perfectly fine. I was also very good at the “Smile and wave” (from the movie
“Madagascar”) so I didn’t look as pitiful as I was. Like I said, my sixth grade
year was Beth’s last, so in seventh grade I didn’t have anyone to cling to.
About half way through the year though I realized that was sick and tired of
being gloomy. Marisol got along great with everyone especially the girls at the
school. I on the other hand, had one friend named Garrett, who was also a good
friend of my brother’s. So Garrett, David, and I were able to make the best of
my eighth grade year which, to this day, is still one of the best years of my
life.
So in sixth
grade I hit rock bottom, in seventh grade I realized it, and in eighth grade I
finally decided to let God pull me out of the pit I’d dug. If you think I’m
saying that it was a sudden plummet to the ground and a rocket ride right back
out of it, then I’ve gone about explaining this all wrong. It was a spiral
downward from the move to the Rez in 2003 and God isn’t done with me yet, I’m
still recovering and I’ve definitely given myself more bumps in the road. Also,
though CCMS had something to do with the turn of events, the Rez had even more
to do with it and of course God had everything to do with it.
I guess I’d
better explain our family’s ministry before going much further, so here’s the
long story short…ish:
In Alabama my
dad was the youth pastor at Oak Mountain Presbyterian Church. In 2000 he ended
up taking his youth group to White Swan, Washington; the “heart” of the
reservation. I want to go into the experiences he had there, but I said I’d sum
this up so I’ll talk about those more later. He came home and couldn’t forget
the Rez, not that he wanted to, but he felt, as he says, “haunted” by what he
saw. He couldn’t shake the feeling. When he realized the Lord was calling us
(not just him, but us) to move to the
Rez, he was terrified. All four of his kids were young, no older than eight.
Not to mention we had no one there to look to for help or comfort, we would be
all on our own. My dad fought against the idea but on June 9, 2003 we found
ourselves in Wapato, Washington; right on the Rez.
If you know
anything about Native American history, surely you must know that what was done
to them was done in the name of Jesus Christ. Native people don’t take too well
to white people in general but especially not to Christians. Who can blame
them? I don’t. So it made sense that we were told no one would want anything to
do with us and no one would talk to us about anything related to Christianity
for at least eight to ten years let alone let us start a church. Yes, that all
made sense, but you know who is not worried about “making sense” is God. So, in classic God fashion, He had us
set up for a Tuesday night Bible study at the White Swan longhouse (which is
the traditional place of worship, so it’s no small deal for us to be there
teaching people about Christ) at the request of an elder in the community. We
weren’t even the ones who organized it! A lady who knew who we were and what we
were doing on the Rez begged us to have Bible study because she remembers
attending one VBS as a little girl and feeling loved there. The love she was
shown by the church as a little girl effected her to the point of wanting random
white Christians to have a Bible study at the traditional place of worship 50
years later. This Bible study had twenty adults plus a bunch of children on the
first night and grew by leaps and bounds for nine years. On the Easter Sunday
of that ninth year that Bible study became a church.
It’s 2013, ten
years after we moved, and we have a church.
The building
for this church was purchased in the ninth year and nearly finished halfway
through our tenth year of living here. That’s a miracle. If you don’t believe
in miracles, then you don’t believe that anything can change for the better,
which means you live a sad life, my friend. If you think things do change for
the better and it’s just not a miracle, then you need to revisit the story of
the fall and take it a wee bit more seriously cause anything good in this world
is a gift from God and we don’t deserve it so it’s a miracle that He loves us
enough to keep on giving while we’re constantly chasing our idols like Gollum
from Lord of the Rings.
For ten years
now, Sacred Road Ministries has brought out teams of people from all over the
country to stay on the Rez for a week at a time, five weeks out of the summer,
to work on homes in the community and host a kids club (pretty much a VBS) in
Totus park (a tribal housing project in White Swan) and Adam’s View Park (a
tribal housing project in Wapato). These kids clubs have grown from 20-30 kids
each day to 80-100 kids each day.
Sacred Road
Ministries also as a summer internship that lasts twelve weeks (from the end of
May to early August). We wouldn’t be able to make it through the summers
without the interns. The girl interns either work under my mom preparing meals
for summer staff and the teams or they work under Joshua Tsavatewa (Joshua
moved to the Rez as the director of the Children’s ministry in 2010, before him
my mom did all of the children’s ministry prep and lessons while also being in
charge of the food preparations). The guy interns work under “Uncle” Dave
Koerner (Uncle Dave has been coming to the Rez for years working as the
worksite coordinator) who helps train them and works alongside them as they
lead the team members on the worksites.
Today there is
an ownership in the church amongst the adults and children but especially with
the teenagers. This is their church. Everyone knows and understands that this
isn’t a “White” Church or a “Native” church, it is simply “Their church.” We
are a family. Everyone who comes to this church sees the ownership and unity of
our church as something that is extremely unique, but also as something that
should be apparent in every church. I agree.
We have teams
and interns, but we also have full time staff members. After my family moved
out in 2003, Veronica Vasquez moved out in 2007 to be Sacred Road’s
administrative assistant. Heather German moved out in 2009 to help with food
ministry and youth ministry. The Clevenger family also moved out in 2009, Chuck
Clevenger is the director of youth ministry. Joshua Tsavatewa moved out to be
the director of Children’s ministry in 2010. The Dempsen family moved out in
2011, Jesse Dempsen is starting an after school program (Kingdom Kids) with
some of the children that attend our church. The last addition (for now) to our
team is the Greenslade family, Reid Greenslade will be working on the Warm
Springs reservation in Oregon during the summers and alongside Chuck and Joshua
the rest of the year. Eventually the Greenslades will move to Warm Springs so
that we can have a full time ministry there as well. (Sacred Road Ministries
branched out to Warm Springs in 2007 and has been sending teams there ever
since. The story of how we ended up working in Warm Springs is a powerful one
to say the least, but one I’ll have to share later.)
All this time
I’ve talked about what we do on the Rez but not about what the Rez is like. This
is because it’s hard to describe the Rez, which is why the Sacred Road
Ministries motto thingy is “Come and see.” So, try as we might to explain it to
someone, we always end up saying, “You just gotta come see it for yourself.”
I’ve tried time and time again to explain the Rez to someone who hasn’t been
here before, but I just can’t find the words. This place brings so many
emotions and it hits each person differently. So that being said, please
understand I’m doing my best; but how do you sum up ten years of chaos,
suffering, beauty, love, brokenness, and change?
The Rez is a
blend of beauty and brokenness and it can take years of living here to be able
to see both at the same time, and even then it’s hard.
I make the
videos for the ministry, which is at least five videos a summer (one for each
team summing up what they did while they were here), and at the end of each
video I add these statistics:
-100% of the Yakama
people are deeply affected by drug and alcohol abuse
-The
unemployment rate on the reservation is approximately 75%
-The life
expectancy of a Yakama Indian is only 39 years (the only place in the world
with a lower life expectancy is Angola.
The people there have a life expectancy of 38 years.)
-70% of the teenagers
are homeless
-The drop out
rate from middle school to high school is 65%
-There are
over three million American Indians and only 2% claim to be Christian
Many of these
are apparent the moment you step foot in the community. That’s just some of the
brokenness that affects the people here. There is so much more to be said for
the people that have come to be my family. There are so many stories to be
shared and that is my main goal in starting this blog.
Native
Americans feel like they don’t have a voice. They feel like the rest of the
country has forgotten that they are still here. More than once elders in this
community have come to us and told us that we have given them a chance to speak
up, that Sacred Road team members and staff have made them feel heard, but
what’s more is that they feel loved. Even though love is all we have to give
sometimes, remember the little old lady that begged us to start Bible Study.
Remember that she would not have done so had she not experienced the love of
Christ as a child.
I have nothing
to give to the people here, but Christ has taken hold of me and used me to show
His love. He has done this with every team member, every intern, and every full
time staff member. He has made us enough.
So I guess my
point is that, even though I was so helpless, angry, and broken, God used the
reservation to fix me. He took away what I wanted and gave me what I needed,
which was the Rez. Despite who I was and who I am, He is building me up to who
I am going to be and using the people here to impact me as much as He is using
me to impact the people here. This is my story up to this point, but God is not
done with me yet.
