An Evening on Pine Ridge...Twice!

 Pine Ridge Presentation

When: This Wednesday, December 12th at 7 p.m.
Where: The Journey Church
1285 South Fordham Street
Longmont, CO

Join me and those of us who work at LightShine Pine Ridge for a rare look into the lives of the Lakota Sioux of the Pine Ridge Reservation. I will share my stories and my pictures that will show you the beauty, the humor and the tragedy of The Rez. To be made aware of what is happening there today is to better understand our urgency in helping and our love for The People. You may very well leave the evening speaking the words "I had no idea."  Give me an hour and I will open up a place in your heart for the Oglala Nation. You will have access to a world that most of America doesn't know exists.

Lakota Art Show

When Monday, December 17th
Art Viewing from 3-7 p.m.
KC's presentation (an encore of the 12th)  7p.m.
627 Kimbark Street
Longmont, CO

For more info on the work we are doing on the Rez and to learn more about the workshops being offered here in Longmont and on Pine Ridge in 2013, visit our LightShine Pine Ridge site.


Please Share!

Rising Warriors

Prayers are needed every day for the people on the streets of Whiteclay and on the Reservation. It is our vision, put in motion by the hand of God, that we establish a teaching center in our building there, allowing regular workshops and classes on being empowered by The Word and offering a place for teachers to come and share their knowledge and love. We can see many people brought to the foot of the Cross through preaching and sharing, but what is sorely lacking on the Rez is a way for continuous teaching to take place; for disciples to be made as the Lakota believers grow in God's love and His power.  God desires to renew our minds...and that renewal is a process not an event. Yes, through his Word and the meeting of needs in love, we are shining God's light on these beautiful people, but God showed us recently that we must not overlook the light that is already there. The Oglala Nation has a light of its own that was long ago placed in their hearts and in their spirits and He longs to wipe away the tarnish of hopelessness that keeps it from being a light in and of itself...a light to all people.

Many years ago, Billy Graham said that Native Americans, the people of the First Nations, were a sleeping giant. Many on the reservation say the giant is stirring. And when it awakes they will see that Jesus did not come to abolish the Lakota Old Way. He came to fulfill it. Many Lakota believers refer to this as the Jesus Way. It is very different from the "Christianity" that taught them that everything about their way had to go in order for them to embrace the Gospel. Much of what they said had to go was cultural not spiritual. In trying to erase the culture Christians attempted to erase an entire People. A very simplistic way of looking at this is to say that if a Scotsman becomes a Christian he can never again wear a kilt. That is part of the Scottish culture. Nothing more. I will blog about this more as time goes by.

So after 500 years the people of the First Nations are becoming Rising Warriors proclaiming that they are no longer a "mission field", but are instead ready to stand tall in their faith and for the work completed on the Cross and they will become light bearers to their generations and to the world.

Please lift up the Lakota People in prayer daily and our ministry as we seek to teach, encourage and love them. If you would like to help us purchase Bibles, teaching materials and play a part in our setting up the teaching facility in our building shown here... you may send a payment to us via Paypal at lipstickranch@yahoo.com or call me at 719-510-3433 to use a card.


Thanks and blessings to each and every one who reads this blog and follows in their hearts what we are doing in Pine Ridge.

Rez Bedz

If I had ten bucks for every time a mother from the Pine Ridge Reservation comes into LightShine and asks for a mattress...I could get more mattresses! It is by far the main item they request. When I gave Liberty Yellowbird her sweet little bed that my mom donated....Liberty's mom said excitedly..."Oh her first bed!" Liberty is 10.

I just got home from the Rez a couple of days ago and am heading back Tuesday with hopefully another full U-Haul of furniture...and I hope 20 mattresses. That is my goal. If you live in Longmont or nearby northern CO and have a gently used mattress you can donate (frame and box springs nice, but not necessary) please let me know and I will pick up. If you can bring to me, please write and ask for my address. Share this e-mail with friends, family or your church. If you would like to help me be able to purchase inexpensive mattresses at yard sales, thrift stores or on Craigslist...my Paypal addy is lipstickranch@yahoo.com.

And thanks to those of you who made it possible for us to hand out hundreds of bottles of water last week.  There will be some relief from the heat over the next few days. The water was greatly appreciated.

Thanks for all you do....Keep us in your prayers...See you back on the Rez.

KC



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To The Left Can Be Right

I don't know if you've noticed lately, but there is a bit of a revolution going on in the world of Believers who are not satisfied with what is being done today in the name of Christianity. It's a simmering stew of folks from all walks of life who are looking at this whole thing a little differently. And when I say simmering, I don't mean as about to boil into an angry mob, I mean simmering as in slow-cooking, great smells in the air all day, ready for a feast when it's ready-type simmering. It's a Love Stew and it's on the menu in cities big and small all over the country; a menu that does not say "we reserve the right to refuse service to everyone." Actually living the life of the Jesus we claim to follow is the main course and knowing we are walking His way is the dessert.

Way back in the late 60's, I was part of an amazing thing that moved across America. Hippies found Jesus and suddenly The Way of the Master was a cool thing and the Jesus Movement somehow made its way into even my little Southern Baptist church in Kenosha, Wisconsin. I was about 14-ish when I heard my first message by a groovy guy with hair long enough to give Moses a run for his manna...and being a girl who never in her life had the word cool attached to a sentence with her name in it...well I was hooked. Here was a way....One Way...as we groovy people called it...to love me some Jesus and be accepted all in one fell swoop.

But a revolution, as this surely was, by definition means turning the people around to a whole new way of life and leaving the old behind. The Jesus Movement didn't go over so well with the old guard who wanted things to stay the same. We had a new American Revolution on the march....one that took the words of Jesus seriously. ("The Red Letters are coming! The Red Letters are coming!") Some didn't like these young up-starts telling them how to love their neighbor. They knew perfectly well how to do that...as long as neighbor was defined as someone who looked like you, talked like you and didn't rock the boat you had built.  They were not so big on melding a family out of just any old material. The Anointed Groovy Ones tried to show them a different way....a way of accepting all peoples and reaching out to the least of these...not just bringing things to the poor every Christmas, but asking the poor to join them every day of the year. The Elders (those Non-Melders) didn't want those words pointed out to them...at all. They stuck to their preferred passages and ignored the ones about loving your neighbor and giving your coat to the cold. I think they were just a little more comfy with a God who was angry and cast people out...their kind of guy.

I see it happening again....this 21st century version of the Jesus Movement...complete with Jesus Freaks and enough Love to sink an Ark...and enough anger coming back at us to remind us that this Walk is not an easy one. That the anger is coming from fellow Christians is not surprising...disappointing...but not surprising. Guess it's hard to accept folks whose sin looks different from your sin.  I am old enough now to dig this new revolution in a way I couldn't at 14. This time I get the love-thing in a way that you can only get when you have spent your life looking out for you....selfish...self-absorbed...me with a capital M...like I have done. Suddenly there is an answer to the dreariness that long ago took over your interior weather patterns because YOU have been the only cloud in the sky.  Love 'em like Jesus.  Just set out everyday to be kind to those who cross your path. To help someone when you have the means to help them. You can join us in our work on the Pine Ridge Reservation or you can serve up the meal of love and and caring right in your own neighborhood. Do for one person what you wish you could do for everyone and we could put an end to what so many fear....taking care of the poor. That would be the war on poverty...and it would be won in the trenches of compassion.

When books like "Crazy Love", "Under the Overpass," Radical" and "Irresistible Revolution" are bestsellers...then I'm feelin' the winds of change and I'm praying for a big ol' storm. When you see it coming....don't run for the basement. Stand on the roof and say "Here! Over Here!"  I for one am truly welcoming this revolution that is sick and tired of things being done in the name of Jesus that don't have anything to do with the life He gave us as an example. Love. He was all about the love. Mercy. Justice. Walk humbly with your God.

 I won't get it right all the time...but I will be doing something that matters with the days I have left.

Project Pine Ridge

A little over a week ago I returned to my home in Colorado after a 15-day stay at my other home...the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. This trip was an amazing one in so many ways. First of all we opened the LightShine Thrift Store at the south entrance to the Rez in Whiteclay, Nebraska. This 4000 sq. ft. store offers affordable (and in some cases free) clothing and home furnishings, as well as a distribution center for giving away food and diapers as they come to us. In the first 2 days of having our doors opened, we found homes for nearly every piece of furniture we had trucked in from Colorado (and we had a lot of it!). Furniture will remain our highest priority as the need for beds, couches, tables and housewares is huge on the reservation. It is essential that we get as many families squared away with beds, rugs and home repairs before the long South Dakota winter sets in. One grandmother said to me as we were loading dishes and pots and pans into her car...."Thank you for doing this." 
˜

 LightShine gives the Lakota people a place to meet the needs of their families without a 50 mile trip to the closest Wal-Mart or a 90 mile trip to the closest city, Rapid City. This fact is a very big deal in a place where half the residents have no vehicles. Thanks to all of you who donated items for the store. We continue to round up art supplies, clothing, housewares....pretty much anything we can get out hands on. If you would like to help you can send items to KC Willis/Lightshine, PO Box 36, Whiteclay NE 69365. Northern Colorado friends can contact me about picking up donations or you can drop off at my home. Contact me at lakotacenter@yahoo.com

Summer is an important part of the year for getting things done on the reservation. In large part due to the number of "work teams" that are present from AmeriCorps, as well as church and youth groups from all over the country. These young people come to work...and I have seen first hand how hard they work. They are dedicated to service and much is accomplished. We were able to open the Thrift Store 4 days after unloading the last U-Haul because of their amazing work ethic and diligence. It is a once-a-year chance to get major things done without the cost of labor, which to many of us working on the Rez is a very big deal.  When I return to Pine Ridge on July 25th, we will have at our disposal, several groups ready to work.

Here are pictures of one of the main projects we are determined to accomplish....repairing the home of the Pipe On Head family. Their home is one of the few stucco homesteads on Pine Ridge and was built several generations ago. It is a remote home and they have no place else to live. Lovely Pipe on Head is 3 years old and her little bare feet walk across floors that are literally rotting away. There is no running water and no working windows.  If you would like to personally play a part in seeing to it that we end the summer with this home ready for the winter, please check out the ways you can help listed below.

And last but not least....while I was away on the Rez, my friends and family here in northern Colorado brought enough donations of furniture, household items and clothing to fill yet another 26' U-Haul! I will be heading back to Pine Ridge in a little over 2 weeks and have no money at this moment to rent a truck. I am not a non-profit, but an individual...some use the word missionary...I prefer the word revolutionary :-) trying to make a difference in what is essentially a third-world country within our borders. Eventually we will acquire non-profit status. A 26' U-Haul with gas to Pine Ridge runs about $650.  Hopefully this will be the last time we will need the expense of a U-Haul. We were able to acquire a "box truck" a couple of months ago and your contributions will help finish the repairs on it, so it can be the vehicle I drive back and forth. I hope to drive it back from the Rez this trip!


My hope and prayer is that we can find 50 big hearts for Pine Ridge to donate $50 and we will be able to accomplish our immediate plans. Any amount would be awesome. Please help if you can.

Here are several really easy ways to help....
*Send a contribution through Paypal using "Send Money" to lipstickranch@yahoo.com
*Call me with a credit card number (MC, VISA, Discover and AMX) to 719-510-3433
* Via check made out to KC Willis Ministries and mailed to LightShine, PO Box 36, Whiteclay, NE 69365 or PO Box 603, Longmont, CO 80502.
* Send a gift card for Wal-Mart, Home Depot or Loew's to me at the same address.
* Share this letter with your friends, family, art groups and church leaders.

I am available this fall to speak at your church or group and share the stories and images of these amazing people who live in the most beautiful and desperate place I have ever seen.


Thanks for believing that it does not have to stay this way....

KC Willis
www.kcwillisministries.ning.com
www.trailerparktrinity.blogspot.com

The Book of Eli

They call him the "Godfather of Whiteclay."  He chuckles when someone refers to him that way....but his eyes don't smile. He can probably think of a lot of other things he'd rather be called than the king of the streets in a place where the streets are dark even in daylight; the place where the Lakota have committed death by Budwieser for decades. I can usually smell him before I see him...and still I am happy to see him. If you look at him through eyes that don't see him as the gift he is, then he is torn and tattered and beyond saving. But look again. His spirit shines through. With human contact and the calling of his name...his spirit shines through. When he sees me he says "There she is!" and my spirit shines through. I love him like the Son loves me...fully, joyfully, even when my sin makes me stink too.

Eli is writing a book. You won't find it on Amazon, but you will see it laid bare chapter by chapter if you will just take a few minutes and speak to him.

This chapter is entitled "Hell in a Handbasket."

"Look at our young men!" he cries out in a rare moment of sobriety, pointing to the constant stream of the Seventh Generation coming and going at the liquor store across the street from the building that houses my new ministry. "They have no direction. No one to tell them go this way...don't go that way."  He shakes his head and mumbles in Lakota. "I have been here for 28 years...longer than they have been alive. I would tell them don't come here...but they won't listen to me."

We talk about how the respect he has on the streets could be used to change the lives of these young men...but then we agree that the next time he gets clean and sober he needs to stay away from here. "Yeah, that's where I go wrong everytime," he admits. "I get sober and then I come here to help before I am well enough to do that."  We nod our heads in unison and watch the stream across the way turn into a river. Someone needs to put a "Deadly Undertow" sign on its banks.

The last day I was on the reservation, Eli had a seizure on the front porch of our building and wrote a chapter called "All Is Grace."  A woman from the tribe came in to tell me. She spoke with the same urgency that someone might have used to say they had found a pair of sunglasses in the parking lot.   Someone else called 911 and I went out to Eli. By the time I got there he was coming out of it and his muscles were hurting badly from the spasms. He was shouting to God at the top of his lungs.

"Grandfather! Grandfather! You want me? Come and get me! Please come and get me! Why do you leave me here to suffer?" I held his hand and he just hung his head and whispered. "Grandfather. Grandfather. Grandfather."  I found myself praying for God to save Eli from this place. He drank three bottles of water and quickly ate the sandwich we got for him. I went back inside to help someone who had stopped by and needed diapers, and came back to check on him. I heard him chuckle. "I can feel you coming. I know you are there before I see you," he said. Spirits shining through.

Once he had collected himself he began to talk to me of a Father's love. Not his earthly father...but Tunkashila...the God who created the man called Eli.  The eternal Grandfather. "I sleep in that old abandoned house over there," he says. "I got nothing. But every morning when I open my eyes I say thank you my Father for another day. Thank you my Father for this gift. Today maybe I can help someone." He lowers his head and clasps his hands together. "Just like this...I say thank you my Father. And He takes me in his arms, brings me in the fold and says he has not forgotten me. And I say again...thank you my father."

And I say thank you, my friend.  I think of you everyday. I pray for you everyday and I can feel you praying for me. And now I will ask you, dear reader, to dare to repeat Eli's words every morning yourself. "Thank you my Father for this gift of another day. Today maybe I can help someone."

Do that...And you will see The Spirit shining through...on the wings of Eli Bald Eagle.








To see a 2 minute video of Eli on my Facebook page...click here.

La Vida Lakota

My husband, Logan, took his time off and went with me to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota last week. His first trip to a place most of America will never see. I wanted to share with you his perspective of the Rez I have come to know and love through the eyes of my spirit. This is a note he posted on his FB.



Freshly returned from vacation trip to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Great learning experience. Gaining perspective was the whole point. Awesome discussions with new friends. Among other things, I saw why KC is excited about the potential for the artists there to re-shape their community's future (while supporting themselves, also).
Personally, I discovered that the Lakota culture is not American culture, nor should it be. There are problems on Pine Ridge that have rooted themselves firmly into the fabric of Indian society. Most of America acknowledges this simple description from a distance, and without much reservation, to use a pun.

However, most of America doesn't know this: The problems on the Rez need solutions that come from the Rez. There are so many stories (but also haunting physical effects, and even memorials -- more on that in days to come) about well-intentioned whites coming in and orchestrating reforms as they see fit. Iraq, anyone? Afghanistan? We arrogantly attempt to rebuild nations in our own image, without much thought to what already works. Or what's fair.
Let's be blunt: These people have had their asses kicked. The reservation is what's left of a prisoner of war camp. Look it up. The tribes were broken apart, spread across a desolate landscape, and threatened with death if they left. When gold was found on their land, US gov't claimed it.

If you think getting repeatedly screwed after being nearly wiped out would be a "downer" to most any race, think of how it affects a people of warriors. This, to me, is one of their greatest afflictions. While the majority of the women seem to be lively and motivated, many of the men are lost souls. Their spirits, by and large, have been crushed so deeply and so often, what's the point in trying to fight anymore? Pride is gone, honor long forgotten.

This is where alcoholism begins to take root. For those of you who don't know, there is an 80% rate of it here. It is not the primary demon, as most social workers will tell you. It is a symptom of a larger problem.

This is when the word "empowerment," so overused today, actually applies perfectly.
Getting these people to help themselves is paramount. Finding effective means of recovery from within is essential. Americans pride themselves on hard work, of "pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps." The Lakota, psychologically speaking, are barefoot.
Now, I've never been big on charity. But I recognize the difference between living and surviving. During my wife's winter trip, two people froze to death. It didn't even make the local paper, it's so prevalent and accepted. That's why I don't mind handing out coats and toilet paper. It's an emergency. But I'm always keeping an eye on the goal of empowerment.
I don't want Lakotas to put on suits, open savings accounts and trade stocks. I want the Rez to have it's own economy, not America's.

This Rez is such a food desert...what I found to be the most promising efforts there were gardens. Bruce Bonfleur is starting a greenhouse, and will give the people there the know-how and the tools for growing their own food.  Shannon Freed (Colorado State alum, too) is creating an immensely self-sustaining system of composting, and has planted a "food forest" (not an orchard!).

These are vital solutions. And certainly an improvement to the barren neighborhood I drove through in Sharp's Crossing. Here, where the food comes from the only convenience store within 20 miles, the families were watering dirt front yards in an attempt to imitate suburbia.  

That's a good deal of darkness to speak about, but there were many moments of levity also. There are bright, shiny people on the Rez like there are stars in the night sky. Good humor is often hard to come by with a serious-natured people in a bad situation.
-- Leon Matthews, during a spirited discussion about Christianity's rejuvenation of, well, spirit...said Jesus had something of a "housing issue," too.
-- One very large and presumably homeless Lakota woman, upon learning of our supplies, wondered if we could offer her a bikini. Her eyes disappeared when she broke out in laughter, her smile taking up all of her face.
-- A proud father, Tyler LaForge, boasted of his 14-year-old son's academics while the young man, Justin, looked down and away. I was disheartened by Justin's lack of eye contact, his poor posture, his withdrawal. But when I prodded him to stick his chest out and brag for himself, he looked my in the eye, and grinned. A full-scale smile broke out when I encouraged a fist-bump. I will never, ever forget how quickly and fully he responded to me. He ran through the door when I opened it.
Tyler, incidentally, cried on my wife's shoulder because we purchased a fan belt for the muffler-less '70's Cadillac that became his only mode of transportation, and which allowed him to work.
Their family still lives without running water.
-- We drove through Wounded Knee one time while the native radio station played "Funkytown." Hmmm...
This station also played a full-length version of the old Hawaii 5-O theme song. Out...STANDING!
-- My eyes watered at the sight of so many American flags on native graves. Veterans of all our wars are buried here. They fought for the country that almost exterminated them.
One of the most promising artists here, Joe Pulliam, is a veteran. He told us he fought to honor his ancestors, all of whom had fought in their lives. His grandfather was especially proud of him, to know that he "had seen battle."
Joe, a fantastic, up-and-coming watercolor artist, is cousin to Crazy Horse and great grandson to Black Elk, both legendary warriors.
Today, Joe struggles with the idea of his military service, and shakes his head.
-- I saw an article about a Native American music group that puts its own spin on blues, jazz, and rock. They tabbed it, Alter-Native.

Lastly, KC and I stayed at the home of Bruce and Marsha Bonfleur (and son Brent). Fourteen years ago, they left family in Florida and moved with their two young children to the Rez, sight unseen. They were called, they say. Extremely hospitable and beautiful people.
They are investing themselves in the Lakota. They are there 365-24-7. These are the people worth supporting. I wish all the missionaries, who come in the spirit of selflessness but then leave to return to their own lives, would grasp this: The Natives are weary of temporary intervention that does more to soothe the faith-based pursuits of well-wishers and do-gooders than it solves any real tribulations of the tribes. Missionaries are kind people, but to be effective, they should follow the guidance of the permanently entrenched like our Bruce and Marsha.  "Lakota Hope," in case you want to see more.