Personal Stories Part 3
Our engagement picture before I left for Zuni, New Mexico
The road to Zuni was not smooth, but full of difficulty. Zuni, New Mexico is a town which is actually part of the Zuni Native American reservation. I had been there in high school with our chamber choir tour and listened to the youth pastor as he described some of the difficulties there. By the Spirit I knew that someday I would be there and prayed a silent prayer that I might be a youth pastor there.
After the little revival in Lynden among the youth, I went to Seattle to seek God for the next assignment and Zuni was put on my heart again. My mother e-mailed me and said that there happened to be a job opening there for a youth pastor. So, after asking Rochelle to marry me, I set out in the wood-paneled station wagon for Zuni.
Unfortunately, on the way there the wagon broke down in Oregon. I found a cheap hotel and struggled with why this trip didn’t seem as smooth as the road to Mississippi. After the wagon was fixed I drove on and it broke down again in Utah. Again, I got a hotel and waited for it to be fixed, struggling with the difficulty even more. Then the service engine soon sign came on again, so I took it to a dealership and they got it running again as best as they could. This was becoming expensive for a poor traveler who didn’t know what lay ahead. By now I was becoming anxious that it would break down in the middle of nowhere.
I prayed and got to Zuni very late in the night, once again sleeping in the car.
The pastor of the church and principal of the Mission school met with me and offered me the job, so I was excited to get started. They wanted me to work alongside a Zuni fellow named Kevin and a Navajo man named Rhonan. We shared the youth pastor work together. But the first night I stayed the night there in the bungalow, I thought there was a huge snake in my bed. I jumped out and in the process my guitar was knocked over and split in half. It felt strange to tell Pastor Mike what happened, but he didn’t seemed phased at all. Apparently this sort of thing happens to others there. The elders decided to buy me a new guitar and I wondered, “what is this place I’ve come to?”
Very soon it became clear that something did not want me to be there. Often at night I felt evil spirits come into the room and try to bring fear on me and various temptations. I prayed and they would go away in the Name of Jesus. The people in the church there totally understood what I was going through and testified to similar things. So I knew I wasn’t going crazy, but this was all new to me.
While there I had the opportunity to minister to students, especially in the 7th and 8th grade, and to help disciple my fellow youth pastors and especially a couple of students there. There were also many opportunities to share the Gospel of Jesus, which some of the students hadn’t yet understood and a few of the new students had never heard before.
At times as we shared the Gospel there was resistance in the areas where it challenged the ancestor worship of the traditional beliefs there. I could tell many stories, some of which folks might not even believe if they read it, but I do remember a man who had a legion of demons cast out of him who had been a satanist and then became a Christian, who last I heard was ministering Christ on the streets of Gallup, New Mexico.
There were a lot of joyful times, getting to know the families and friends there, playing basketball, going to concerts with the students, having pizza and hanging out, and sharing music there. But at times it was also a lonely place for me, especially as I was waiting to be married to Rochelle. The Lord gave me opportunities to preach at the church, to make disciples, to share music, to teach Bible, music and even some history/geography, to share the Gospel and to encourage the church there. Those folks there are, by the grace of God, some of the most courageous, humble and loving folks I’ve ever encountered.
I left with tears, knowing I would miss them, but also with a growing anxiety that started with the wagon breaking down on the way there. By the time I got married in Lynden and moved with Rochelle to Iowa, the Lord began to heal me of anxiety disorder which had developed there without me even knowing it. It wasn’t until the Holy Spirit reminded me that we are blessed when we suffer for the Gospel, that I began to heal. In Nashville I learned the way of love. In Zuni, I learned the way of suffering for Christ. In Iowa the Lord gave me rest. More on that next time…