Navajo- Thursday Update

On Thursday we had another great day. In the morning we woke up bright and early to a wonderful and beautiful day. Granted it was a whole lot less windy than the day before which included countless sandstorms. The day started off with half of the groups going to Ray and Darlene’s and the others working here at the church. The roof on Ray and Darlene’s house was almost completed by lunch and a few people went back to finish the roof after lunch. The groups working at the church did a variety of things including painting, relocating and digging up trees, and finishing odds and ends around the church.
That afternoon we hosted our second round of VBS for the Navajo children. We sang songs, danced, ate, made crafts, heard the Daniel in the Lion’s Den story, and engaged in countless games of intense kickball. We also taught them the infamous Grace Community Church game of “Cow, Cow Lasso.” The kids really had a fantastic time and could not wait to come back the next day.
After VBS, we hopped in the vans and headed off to the Hopi Indian Reservation on the Second Mesa, about 45 minutes away. The views from the mesa were spectacular and we learned a lot about the Hopi culture. We were told before getting to the Mesa that we were to put all of our cameras away. The Hopi believe that when their picture is taken, their soul is stolen from them. We looked at some of the beautiful artwork that the Hopi’s made including Kachina dolls and rock paintings. We also sampled some of the amazing bread made on the Hopi Reservation. Some of us negotiated good prices on the artwork and purchased our favorites. The experience was a lot of fun and definitely a new one for us.
The night concluded with our last worship service of the week. We sang worship songs and then listened to the last part of our four part series this week. After that we all went outside and washed the feet of out prayer group members as a way of humbling ourselves like Jesus did to his disciples. The night was great and we went to sleep after feeling a lot closer to each other. We look forward to our last day of work tomorrow and then the Grand Canyon on Saturday before heading back east.

Connor Pendergrass and Alex Fletcher