The Problem with Beards

This is it. The last week of my summer internship with Sacred Road Ministries. It has been quite a ride, some things expected, some not. This week was a little different than the rest because I was leading a site with the youth of the community. we painted the home of a tribal elder and his wife named Slim and Sally. We also replaced 2 doors and built a wheelchair ramp for Sally. Leading a site with the youth is in many ways the same and in a few ways unique from leading a group of team members. Like the teams, the youth have to be directed as to what to paint and what not to paint, where to paint, proper technique, their work has to be checked, and they can occasionally be remiss in their duties. unlike the teams, the youth are not strangers in the community, this week they painted faster than the teams, and there is no way of knowing how many people will be on site from day to day. The fact we are able to have a site (actually two, but I never saw the other site) where the work is being done by the youth is an incredible example of how much work the Lord is doing on the rez. Having enough youth active in the ministry that we can have a work site where the labor is done almost exclusively by the teenagers of the community is a huge amount of growth over the last few years. talking with the people who have been around the longest, you hear that even four years ago, there were so few kids in the youth group the idea of them doing almost all the work on a site was laughable. There were only ten or twelve youth, and only four or five were engaged enough to want to be involved. This summer, the youth group has had over 80 kids involved in some way shape or form, and Tuesday night youth group usually have around 50 attendees. Over thirty youth have been on the work sites doing the labor. The goal for Sacred Road is to eventually have a church on the Yakama reservation that is run by the Yakama people. The Granberrys don't want to be here forever, there is a desire to work themselves out of a job by raising the leaders of the church from within the community. That starts with the kids and with youth group.

This week we had four work sites. Slim and Sally's house, where I was leading the youth group girls in a painting project and one team member with a construction background rebuilt a wheelchair ramp and helped Uncle Dave install two doors, the Site three houses down from mine where Sho was leading the team in repainting a home, there was a roofing site led by Justin and Beth, and the Youth group guys built a woodshed for a family under the tutelage of Drew and Taylor. The sites were all completed on time, and the biggest problems came in getting materials to the sites. (specifically cap shingles to the roofing site) and in the fact we had to re-cut the door frames on my site because the doors we ordered were an inch too wide. Everything came together beautifully in the end.

Oh, and the to address the title of this post: the problem with having a beard -at least a beard the length of mine- comes from the fact that we give a lot of piggy back rides to children at kids' club. The grip strength of a six-year-old boy with moderate Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and a mild case of Random Affection Disorder is amazing, and entirely sufficient to cause severe facial pain when applied to a beard.

Prayer requests this week: Smooth transitions for the interns as we head back to the life off the rez, prayer that we would have the words to tell others about the need that is here and the work being done, thanks for the work being done, prayer for the full time staff as they continue the Lord's work here on the rez, prayer that the Lord would continue to work powerfully here.