I feel porous. Yet short on capacity to absorb much of
the great roiling mass of hopelessness that hangs like a cloud over this
reservation. The poverty here is second only to Haiti in the western
hemisphere. Yet, sitting in the
teepee-shaped gathering place at the Lakota Hope Center a brilliant ray of the
setting sun pierces the cloud and the day’s exhales breathes new hope into my
soul, even to the background sounds of drunkenness drifting down from the streets
of White Clay, Nebraska. I’m grateful for the cross of Jesus Christ, where the
Creator Himself absorbed all that is evil and condemned it to hell so that the restoration
of His love could blow through the darkest corners of our world. 
White Clay is one of those places. A mere 3 blocks long and 3 wide, just across the NB border, White Clay is primarily a place for the people of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota to buy alcohol. There are 2 inhabited houses, 2 ministry centers, 1 grocery store, a general store, a couple café’s and 3 liquor stores that sell 10,000-11,000 cans of beer a day. The beer companies even have a special kind of beer with higher alcohol content (8-12%) for White Clay. 1,000 of those cans are drank every day by the 30 or so men and women who live on these streets. They are the lowest of the low, forgotten and ignored. They don’t often shower or change their clothes. They smell of booze and urine. Rotting teeth, hair long and matted, skin scabbed and bleeding. And we were there to love them, the “Risen Warriors” as they were named by our ministry hosts.
Renée and the kids and I, and four other YWAMer’s were facilitating a Mission Adventures trip for two church youth groups, one Conservative Baptist and the other Converge Baptist. They spent their time: doing a kids club for the children of Oglala, SD, participating in two Suicide Prevention Concerts, hosting a ministry event called Night Of Another Hope, joining the local churches to pray for Pine Ridge, putting on a pancake breakfast for the Risen Warriors, as well as work projects around Lakota Hope. And we cooked and cleaned and organized, encouraged and supported the youth. I get shivers thinking of how they experienced God like they had never before. On the second night ten of our Baptist youth and one native guy asked to be baptized!
On Thursday morning I met a man named Brent at the pancake breakfast. He was one of the Risen Warriors especially on the hearts of our hosts. Last year he’d been in an alcohol-induced coma for a month. Our hosts visited him in the hospital in Rapid City. They’d felt led of the Spirit to say to Brent “Risen Warrior, arise!” at which he stirred for the first time, although he didn’t come out of the coma until later. Recently Brent had told them he’d heard God speak to him while he was in the coma, saying “Risen Warrior, arise!” Still, here he was drinking his days away on the streets of White Clay. Brent was quiet. Not pushy or begging like the others. We talked over pancakes and tea. He was embarrassed for his five kids to have a father in White Clay. If he could stop drinking for a little while he’d have money to take them to the carnival in a couple weeks. I laid a hand on his shoulder that had been broken years before but never treated properly. I asked Jesus for sobriety by the power of His Holy Spirit. That evening after returning from the burial site from the Wounded Knee massacre we gathered around the fire pit for s’mores, worship and testimonies. Brent heard the music and came down to the center and sat on the fringe of our circle. As I wrapped up leading a song, I saw Brent and asked him to join us. The youth pulled up a chair for him and he became one of us.
THIS is what we are called to do. Wrap our arms around the least of these and bring them into the center of God’s love. This is what YWAM Minneapolis does (see the “Fringes” funding campaign at ywam-mn.org).
So this simple act of calling Brent into the circle was significant for me. To our surprise, in the midst of the testimonies of the youth Brent spoke up. He talked of how uplifting it was to be with us. He thanked us for trying to make a difference on the ‘res’. He told us he’d only drank two beers that day and we erupted in cheers. He talked of how his mother and his uncle were in Rapid City in the hospital and how he wanted to be with them. An idea flashed through my being like a comet. I looked at Renée and she shook her head because she knew what I was thinking. With the OK of the youth leaders and our ministry hosts we could drive Brent to Rapid in the morning, only going a little out of our way to our free day in the Black Hills. But in the morning I couldn’t find Brent, only because I didn’t recognize his shoes sticking out from a blanket where he slept on a concrete stoop. We’d given up on the idea, but when we pulled our vans into White Clay there was Brent, sitting on the stoop wondering how he was going to get to Rapid. Praise God we were the answer. It wasn’t just a lift for a 100 miles, it was the potential start of a new life. Even Brent said so. Please join your faith with ours that on that day White Clay became one drunk emptier because that man was told he was a precious child of God with potential and a purpose in this world. There are other stories of God speaking love through us, through the youth and their leaders, and through our four children. We grew greatly in our love for the Oglala Lakota people. We grieved with them. But we also worshiped and danced with them in the way that comes from their heart. Because there is hope in the Wounded Warrior who lives that they may live. As we proclaimed during one of our worship times at YWAM with our hands stretched out toward Pine Ridge,
“You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” 1 Peter 2:9
In Christ, the Pikes.
