Compassion Series | Story Eleven: Food with Integrity
No Leftovers From the very beginning, food has been central to our ministry, not just as a necessity, but as a way to love people well. Delivering food to families in need and helping to combat food insecurity has always been, and will always be, part of who we are. We’re especially drawn to those […]
Compassion Series | Story Ten: The Piki Stone
Supporting Cultural Legacy Among the Hopi people, few traditions are as sacred — or as skillful — as the making of Piki bread. Piki bread is a paper-thin, delicate blue corn bread made on a special heated surface known as a Piki stone. The stone itself is sacred to the Hopi people, carefully crafted from sandstone, seasoned […]
Compassion Series | Story Nine: The Hopi Way
There’s Going To Be A Wedding We were out in the Hopi village of Bacavi, serving an elder as she prepared to host a traditional Hopi wedding at her home. It was a sacred occasion rich with meaning, rooted in heritage, and she wanted everything to be just right all of her family and friends […]
Compassion Series | Story Eight: Clothed In Dignity
Pressed and Not Crushed We believe clean, well-fitting clothing shouldn’t be a luxury, but something everyone should have access to, whenever needed. But on too many reservations, children head to school wearing clothes that are torn, too small, too dirty, or just worn too thin. We’ve seen kids in the dead of winter in flip-flops, […]
Compassion Series | Story Seven: A Table for 250
Extravagant Generosity In 2008, we launched our Annual Thanksgiving Outreach to the Round Valley Tribal Community, a small beginning rooted in a big promise: Isaiah 58. We started with just five families, a few turkeys, a few prayers and a few friends. But the heart behind it was always big. Year after year, it grew. […]
Compassion Series | Story Six: Holding the Heat, Letting in the Light
So’oh’s Gotta Cook! We pulled up to her trailer, a Hopi elder’s home, worn by time and weather but still standing. Still hers. There was no running water. A small propane tank and a few solar panels kept things going, barely. But the challenges were everywhere. Windows were broken, thin, or missing altogether. The roof […]
Compassion Series | Story Five: Ringing Bells and Mending Fences
Hope Still Lives Here Built in 1862, the Methodist Church in the Round Valley Tribal Community stood as a painful reminder. It was part of Fort Wright, where the U.S. Army processed Native people following the 1883 Nome Cult Walk, often called California’s Trail of Tears. By 1869, the government placed the building in the […]
Compassion Series | Story Four: Let There Be Light
The Power of Love We met a beautiful Dine’ elder living deep within the Navajo Reservation. Her home was like many we’ve visited before, no running water, no electricity. Meals were cooked on a wood stove. Every day was about survival. She was raising her 4-year-old granddaughter in these conditions, as many elders do, doing […]
Compassion Series | Story Three: The Fall
One Step At A Time She is a beautiful Hopi elder, strong, gracious, and fiercely independent. But when we met her, she was recovering in a full-body brace. She had fallen from her porch, a 4-to-5-foot drop onto the rocky mesa below. The fall fractured vertebrae in her neck and back. It’s a miracle she […]
Compassion Series | Story Two: The Keys
A Vehicle of Hope They were doing all they could to keep their heads above water. A young couple, she’s Hopi and he’s Diné, with a son on the autism spectrum and a baby on the way. Life was full, and heavy, and hard. And what they needed most was simple, yet out of reach: […]