Control is an important word in our children’s and youth ministries. As believers, all of us need a healthy attitude towards authority. However, on the Reservation, concepts like control, authority, and respect carry special significance where there is tremendous lack of healthy examples. So, while my D-Group and I joke around a fair bit, it’s important for them to know I am the authority. I am in control.

And I am. Or I was. Until last Thursday. It started with Timothy J. Keller.

I had spent several hours with Toby trying to get some errands done so that he could get back into school. Everything took longer than I thought it should. I was hoping that the D-Group might spend some time looking at Galatians 5 and the Fruit of the Spirit. Toby and I were talking some about Revelation and Jesus’ return.

By the time we finished all of the running around, I was about fifteen minutes late picking up the guys. My D-Group is pretty spread out, so just getting them averages about 45 minutes. Toby and I picked up Chris and Eric at the Cougar Den. Then we went to get Kyle and Thomas. They were helping to build a carport at their house in the dark and cold and it wasn’t going well. At some point, in the midst of all of that - a dog bit me, but didn’t break the skin. My mood was souring.

Thomas had his Ipod, and had just downloaded a bunch of Christian songs. I asked him if he wanted to play some of them and he said he wanted to listen to a Tim Keller sermon about “The meaning of life” instead. Okay, i thought, lets see what happens. So we plugged in the Ipod, started the sermon and drove to get Anthony and Errol. Anthony couldn’t make it.

We listened to about half of the sermon on the way to get Errol, stopping every once in a while to ask questions or make comments. Even though he missed the first half, Errol jumped right in when we got him and we made our way toward Yakima.

It’s a great sermon. Thomas said it was his favorite and I can’t possibly do it justice here. But one of Keller’s main points were that when John says in his gospel that “The Word was with God, and the Word was God…” the word John uses is “logos”, which is translated as word but really means “meaning” or “purpose.” So, in a sense, Jesus is “the meaning of life.” Keller points out that the meaning or “logos” of a coffee machine is to make coffee - so if you use it to make popcorn, you are going to get some disappointing results.

The sermon ended just as we arrived in town. We stopped at a burger place, but I asked the guys to think about what they thought the “meaning of life” might be or what their friends might think it would be. Then we could talk in the car about it on the way home.

The burgers were great. We had fun eating together. We tried to sneak Hot sauce into someone’s ketchup. We laughed at how Eric wouldn’t stop eating french fries. Toby told me I was getting better at eating a Miner Burger (which can be messy for the uninitiated.) I told them a little about my grandparents. It was pretty random and we got back in the car.

“So what’s the meaning of life?” I yelled so they could hear me in the back.

“Its our purpose, the road we have to walk.” One voice said.

“We have to make our own meaning.” Added another.

“Love.” was a third answer. “God and our neighbors.”

Toby and Thomas had their Bibles so we read the first part of John 1 out loud. Toby had the NIV and Thomas had the Message. Toby read first, then Thomas.

The Word was first,
      the Word present to God,
      God present to the Word.
   The Word was God,
      in readiness for God from day one.

Everything was created through him; nothing—not one thing! came into being without him.What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by. The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out.

After he finished. Thomas exclaimed. “It’s Jesus. He’s talking about Jesus.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Did you know that?”

“I just figured it out.”

I had another version so I asked Eric to read it, but whenever he saw the word “word” I asked him to say “the meaning of life.”

In the beginning was the meaning of life, and the meaning of life was with God, and the meaning of life was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

“So, wait a minute.” Eric paused. “Is it saying Jesus is the meaning of life?”

“Sounds like it.” I answered.

Then we talked about all of the wonderful things John was telling us about Jesus in just a few short paragraphs.

• Even though all things were made by Him, He took on flesh and dwelt with us. Or moved into our neighborhood like the Message says.

• That He has always been and always will be. He is God.

• He is light and light always shines brightest in the darkness.

• His creation rejected Him. His own people. He was killed by the ones He came to save. But even in that, He purchased our salvation.

We talked about the first question of the catechism - that we were made to glorify God and enjoy Him.

“What does glorify mean?” A voice asked.

“Wow. Thats a big question. Worship. Honor. Obey. Serve. Praise. Love. And some other things too, but that’s sort of the gist - I think.”

“Abide in?”

“Yeah, that’s a great one.”

We pulled into Eric and Chris’ driveway as the conversation ended and prayed for them as they got out.

Now Thomas wanted to play one of his songs. “Guess which one? It’s your favorite.”

I have a lot of favorites, I thought as the opening lines started.

“He is jealous for me, love like a hurricane. I am a tree…”

“I thought that it would be good to listen to this song after the sermon. I sort of planned it.” Thomas said, under his breath.

“Oh how He loves,” I thought.

And I am glad He is in control.

Christmas is a wonderful opportunity to share the love of Christ with our friends on the Reservation. It also gives our youth group lots of opportunities to be involved, grow in leadership and really make me proud. This year, they really outdid themselves and I can’t begin to express how grateful I am for the privilege of being able to watch them grow in their relationships with Jesus.

This year, the youth decorated the Longhouse the night before the program. They read scriptures, sang the Christmas songs, and helped to serve food and drinks during the feast. They were our clean-up crew afterwards. They also helped make deliveries to the community during the cold nights after the feast.

These kids are so great, it was wonderful to see them celebrate Christmas, not just with each other, but with the rest of the community through their service. Please pray for them.

The Dream Team. These guys came in the night before the feast and decorated the Longhouse for our Christmas feast with paper chains, 3D snowflakes and lights. They were awesome.

Heather and Fishii start on the 3D paper snowflakes.

Manny tries to convince us that he should be a decoration.

Yaanibaah, Riata, Kassandra, Jade, and Veronica are going to town assembling our 3D paper snowflakes.

Alexis is putting together the paper chain that will need to go all around the Longhouse.

Sno makes a coffee filter snowflake for the window.

Miranda, Justine and Whitney have a long chain going.

Joshua and Jedi take a break.

Jesse helps Miranda with stapling the chain links.

Team 3D continues to stockpile snowflakes.

Kassandra and Jade deal with the unending demand for more 3D snowflakes!!!

Bill and Thomas check for a bad bulb.

Miranda and Latisha join the 3D snowflake team.

The night of the feast in the Longhouse. The shepherds arrive at the manger. Our youth choir sings “Away in a manger” behind the scene.

The wise men join as we sing “We Three Kings.”

Kassandra leads the wise men with a star and ribbons. Which shines brighter? The star or Kassandra’s smile?

Plenty of dessert for everyone.

The youth choir concludes the night with “Joy to the World.”

Chris with his new football.

Lexa with her new basketball.

Thelma has a new friend.

A week later, the youth helped us deliver Christmas goodies to the community. It was a great time.

This is late, but I love these pics. About a week before Thanksgiving, my D-group came over to the house and we celebrated together. We had turkey, green bean casserole and a huge pumpkin pie. At the table we read a Psalm of Thanksgiving. It was great to have a crowded table with Toby, Chris, Kyle, myself, Isaac, Neena, Asha, Eric and Thomas all the way around. After we ate, we watched Captain America and played chess. It was a great night!

Dear Friends and Family

There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears. – Philippians 1:6 (The Message)

We (the Clevengers) have just finished our third summer of ministry here on the Reservation and it was a wonderful time of growth in the youth group. There are more stories than I could possibly share in an email so I have included links to our blog with stories and pictures from the summer. Thanks to all of you for your prayers, support and encouragement that make our life and ministry on the Yakama Reservation possible.

I want to tell you about the fifth and last closing ceremonies we had at the end of the last team week. “Say so” is always a powerful end to every team week - we ask everyone if they saw God do something during the week to say so. The idea is based on our responsibility and privilege as believers to witness and then testify to the work of our Savior.

This summer saw Chis Granberry baptize 11 of the kids in the youth group as well as fifteen of them working side by side with the summer church teams - roofing homes, improving the new church building and playing with kids in Totus Park. A number of them were there at closing ceremonies that last Friday as well, and you could sense the power of God’s Holy Spirit as they testified publicly and privately to the way they, themselves, had seen God changing their hearts and minds. Closing ceremonies can sometimes be a very emotional experience but I have never felt as proud of our youth leadership as I did that night. I thank God for each of them and for the summer he gave us all.

I’ve spent a lot of time since that night, filled with wonder, thinking about it and trying to remember how it all happened. I’ve written about several key events during the summer and included links below:

Summer Roof Number 2 - The second team week started in the middle of June after the school year had ended so it gave me an opportunity to take some of the guys from my D-Group to the work site with me … (more)

Promotion Monday - At the very beginning of the summer we had an ice cream party to celebrate our rising sixth graders graduating from the children’s ministry in the youth group … (more)

Camp High Rock - The week of Camp High Rock - the week of July 4th - coincided with a team week this summer, so we could only send Heather and myself with the high school junior counselors to camp … (more)

A Week in Warm Springs - I spent the fourth team week in Warm Springs with Eric. I had hoped to take my whole D-Group with me for the week but in the ten days leading up everyone but Eric had to cancel … (more)

Skateland Trip 3 - Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words - or at least several hundred. We took the youth group to Skateland in mid July. It was one of our biggest outing yet with 54 of us on the rink … (more)

Family:

All of the Clevengers are gearing up for Fall after a two-week break at the end of the Summer. It was a sweet time of rest and for us to have a long spell of quality time with each other.

Asha will start third grade next week which doesn’t seem to be possible. Her teacher is the pastor at one of the churches we work with on the Reservation so we are thankful that we have a friend in her classroom.

Isaac was moved to a toddler bed a week ago. Neena and I braced ourselves for a long night of him being able to get out of bed on his own, but he never did. The downside - he won’t get up in the morning without one of us getting him. So our mornings usually begin with him calling us over and over again from bed until someone comes.

Prayers and Praises:

We praise God for the arrival of Bill and Tina Yarbrough and their four daughters to the Sacred Road Team. Bill will be working as mercy ministry coordinator and has already built a bed for one of the children in his first week here.

As great as the summer was, it felt like it came to a screeching halt in August as we learned about two deaths in our Hope Fellowship family. One was a nine-year-old boy who was killed in a car accident in the closed area of the Reservation. We had just played kickball together the week before. He had been a big part of our Kid’s Club Bible skits and a regular attender on Tuesday nights. Please pray for his family and his little sister.

The father of three of the kids in the youth group died last week after recently being diagnosed with cancer in the stomach. The family had recently moved next to the Longhouse where he was working as the groundskeeper. He was always very kind to me when we showed up at the Longhouse to decorate for the Christmas feast and various interactions in the community. In a recent talk with Chris, he confessed a saving faith in Jesus and asked Chris to perform a wedding ceremony for him and the kids’ mom. They were married just a couple of weeks before his passing. Please pray for his family, especially his daughter, who has spent a lot of time with Chris and Mary this summer.

With the frenzy of summer behind us, I have more time to devote to support raising. Please join me in prayer that others might be as excited as you about what God is doing in the hearts of teenagers in White Swan and be moved to give generously so that we can continue to grow this ministry that means so much to us.

Thank you again and may God Bless you a hundredfold,

In Him, By Him, For Him

Chuck, Neena, Asha and Isaac

Address:
The Clevengers (for mail)
155 Kamiakin Avenue
Wapato, Washington 98951
Phone: 509-388-3669

Support:
Sacred Road Ministries
22116 SE 51st Place
Issaquah, WA 98029-9221

Links:
http://www.rustlings.com - Clevenger blog
http://www.sacredroadministries.com
http://sacredroadyakama.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/SacredRoad - videos

I spent the fourth team week in Warm Springs with Eric. I had hoped to take my whole D-Group with me for the week but in the ten days leading up everyone but Eric had to cancel. Summer jobs, summer school, official permissions all added up to Eric being the only one who could go that week. We joined the teams from Highlands Presbyterian Church in MIssissippi and The CHurch at Bradford Road in Alabama.

I had only been to the Warm Springs Reservation once before a couple of years ago and then only for a day so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Thankfully, the two teams were great to work with and it was a really good week.

It was funny to be on the Warm Springs Reservation with Eric. Like I said, the idea was to take some of the youth guys on a mission trip to another Reservation and it was great to see Eric grow and stretch as he faced some of the challenges that all of us have faced on short term trips. However, I sort of felt like I was on a short term trip as well as I played with kids that I had never met before and worked at locations that I didn’t know how to find.

The best part of the trip is when some kids in a tribal daycare essentially put on a pow wow for the team as a way of saying thanks for doing some weeding and clean up at their facility. The team was encouraged to dance and participate in the pow wow as if they were family. As we closed the week that evening at closing ceremonies a lot of the team spoke about how excited they were to see God working in Warm Springs. Even Eric talked about some of the kids he had made friends with at kid’s club. It was great.

But…

In all the excitement and novelty of what was happening in Warm Springs that week, God reminded me of all of the miracles we are seeing in White Swan:

• Tuesday night Bible study in the Longhouse - sometimes with over 100 people.
• The youth group growing in numbers and spiritual maturity.
• Almost 30 baptisms in just the last 3 months.
• The Sacred Road team growing with the Dempsens and the Yarbroughs.
• And so much more…

God is moving in the Warm Springs Reservation and wonderful things are happening. I hope and believe that God is on the move throughout Indian Country. However, I am so thankful to be able to see Him move first hand in the kids and people we love in White Swan.

Thank you for all of your prayers and support.

Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words - or at least several hundred. We took the youth group to Skateland in mid July. It was one of our biggest outing yet with 54 of us on the rink. A handful of the kids invited friends which was our first shot at outreach - which is the first step in learning to share their testimonies.

It was a whole lot of fun. The kids were great. Please keep praying for our youth group.

At the very beginning of the summer we had an ice cream party to celebrate our rising sixth graders graduating from the children’s ministry in the youth group. We loaded everyone into Veronica’s van and drove over to the new church facility.

Once everyone arrived, we played Link Tag and Duck Duck Goose. Before we sat down to eat we talked about what it meant to be in the youth group. We discussed our expectations of their behavior and all of the fun things the youth group gets to do like skating or bowling outings as well as weekly D-Group meetings. It was really neat to see how excited the kids were to be part of the youth group. Some of them had been waiting because their brothers and sisters were already part of the youth group.

After all the talking was done, we grilled some hot dogs and ate 3 one-gallon tubs of melty ice cream with all of the sprinkles and fixings. Then we gave each of them one of our new Hope Fellowship Youth Group T-shirts and showed them the youth ministry area downstairs. Just about all of the kids put on their new t-shirts over what they wearing right away.

There were twelve As they were leaving, one of the girls stepped up into the van and turned around to look at the building in the setting sun.

“This is going to be a beautiful church.” She said.

Postscript: A couple of weeks later we had our first large group Youth meeting with these new sixth graders and their behavior was amazing. They read scripture and answered questions when they were called upon. It was an amazing testimony to the work of our children’s ministry team and the Holy Spirit. I was so proud of them and our team.

The week of Camp High Rock - the week of July 4th - coincided with a team week this summer, so we could only send Heather and myself with the high school junior counselors to camp. Liberty Bay Presbyterian, Harrah Community Church and McKinley Indian Mission all sent teams and pretty much organized the week and meals and all.

About 80 kids from all of the churches (including ours) had a great week of Bible studies, crafts and games. Heather and I did the chapel talks on Jesus’ parables. We had about twelve high school kids from our youth group who served as junior counselors for the fourth through eighth graders who attended. The junior counselors were asked to help serve and clean up after meals, as well as help the kids with crafts, skills and games. They did a great job and a few of them even stepped up to help lead small group Bible studies. Heather and I were really proud of them.

The second team week started in the middle of June after the school year had ended so it gave me an opportunity to take some of the guys from my D-Group to the work site with me. The site for this week was a cedar shake roof that needed to be torn off and re-roofed. The shakes were supposed to be pretty easy to remove, except that when we began taking them off we found another layer of roofing and about a quarter inch of volcanic ash and dust. Yep, leftovers from Mount St. Helens.

I was nervous about taking the guys up there. It was a lot of work and the ash made everything more slippery. I was nervous getting up there, but the guys worked really hard. Chris, Eric and Errol all stayed on Thursday when the team had they day off and worked with Uncle Dave, Kyle, Stephen and me to get us caught up in order that the team might make maximum progress on Friday.

This was a great start to what ended up being a really good summer with the youth. While the guys were up on the roof with me, the girls were at the new church facility making picnic tables with Heather. The made and painted over 20 tables.

During closing ceremonies at the end of the week, Dave and I gave the guys tool belts and hammers with their names engraved on them. They were really proud of them and immediately put the belts on.

We began the summer with a strategy of getting the youth to work side by side with the church teams in order that they could be seen serving their own community as well as give them some ownership in our baby church. That it came on the heels of Chris and Eric’s baptism - just a month earlier - was an added bonus. The Holy Spirit’s work is so visible in the lives of these guys. I thank God for them.

Please pray for them as they grow and continue to serve with Sacred Road.

Five gallon bucket of paint? - check

Four gallons of lemonade? - check
12 Large pepperoni pizzas? - check
75 New youth group tshirts? - check
24 Teenagers coming in 4 vehicles? - check
Lights? - uh oh

And so it was that our first youth meeting in the new facility was postponed about ten minutes before it was to start. All of our D-group leaders were in route and we had to redirect everyone. I felt like an air traffic controller. Chris and Mary graciously invited us to come to their house and play volleyball and eat around a bonfire. Heather and I had been planning the event for weeks - designing the shirts, picking the paint colors and scouting out the new youth room.

I had one kid helping me while we were waiting for everyone and when he hit the light switch, nothing happened.

So we ended up at the Granberrys and had a blast. It was so much fun playing with them and singing with them. At the end of the night I took my helper home while the rest of my D-group rode home with Veronica in the van. When we got to his grandma’s - he said, “I want to pray.”

“Sure, go ahead.”

He began a beautiful prayer and thanked God for the Granberrys and the fun we had just had at their home. He thanked God for everyone in the youth group that could be there. He thanked God that we can come to Him in unity. He then said that some couldn’t come in unity - that they weren’t able to interact with others or couldn’t socialize. He thanked God that he used to be like that but wasn’t anymore and he thanked God for his family and Sacred Road for reaching out and pulling him out of that. He finished his prayer and got out of the car and took some leftover pizza out of the backseat. As he closed the door, he cried in a funny macho voice, “I love you, man!”

It’s a neat story. But with some backstory, it becomes an amazing testimony to what God is doing in the lives of the teenagers we work with. I first met this kid a few months after arriving on the Reservation. Chris had asked me to go visit him. I don’t know if you can imagine the awkwardness of going to visit a teenage boy whom you have never met, but it was pretty high. He was alone playing video games at his grandfather’s house when I knocked on the door. He mostly lives with one grandparent or the other because his mom had taken her own life. He answered the door and let me in after I told him I was a friends with Chris. He offered me an ice cream sandwich and we played WWF for a couple hours.

We met like that two or three times over then next year. One time we went out and got something to eat, but he didn’t talk a lot. At Christmas, I stopped by with a small gift and we hung out in the cold for a little bit. He was never unpleasant, but never really friendly either.

Then he started showing up and other things: another kid’s birthday party, Tuesday night Bible study, youth group meetings. I invited him to go out with my discipleship group. We had a blast. One Tuesday night at the Longhouse - three little girls ran away from the group and I ended up having to run after them as everyone else was busy leading praise and worship. I didn’t think there was any way I was going to be able to stop them. When a figure blurred by on my right. I looked over and it was him running by me to cut them off around the corner. Since then, he has been a tremendous help with a lot of the youth activities - including the painting party that did happen on the following week.

One night he asked me if I remembered playing video games with him.

Yeah, that was a lot of fun. I said.

Yeah it was. He replied.

I thank God for this glimpse of His work in this youth’s heart. It truly is a miracle.

Youth Race from chuck clevenger on Vimeo.