When you drive along an Indian reservation in Montana, you
notice something missing out in the green pastures and rolling hills. Fences.
That may be the reason a big brown fence seems odd in front
of the Four Winds Ministry Center, where two Christian missionary families reach out to Native
Americans all over Montana. Drive through the gate and you see something even
less traditional: a basketball hoop. But like so many things, first glances
tell bad stories.
After you pass the basketball hoop, you start seeing barns,
trees, cabins, the director’s wife going to get her husband’s cowboy hat, and—after
school ends for the day—beautiful Native American children playing outside.
Then you hear names such as Red Cherries, Flatmouth, and Lame Deer, and you know
a good tale is underway.
Current Events
National headlines on Native Americans are common. Last May
scientists published findings on the most complete 12,000-year-old human skeleton ever found in the Americas. Divers found the skull and bones
of a teenage girl in a large underwater cave off Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. The
scientists named her Naia, and have linked her to the ancestors of today’s
Native Americans.
A legal battle started in Miami to preserve a Native American village discovered under the heart of the city. The village could
be 1000 years old, but some developers doubt its significance.
Government and non-government groups and individuals regularly
try to make the Washington Redskins NFL team change its name, calling it a racial “slur.” The team
says the name is meant as a tribute to Native American courage, and that many
Native Americans support the name.
The Supreme Court ruled in favor
of tribal sovereignty in June. The State of Michigan had sued a Native American
group for opening a casino off reservation land. The tribe said the property
was tribal land because it had been secured through a congressionally
established land trust. The high court agreed, and barred Michigan’s suit from
proceeding.
Tribes from Montana and Alberta signed in September the
first American-Canadian tribal treaty since the 1800s. The goal of the treaty was to reintroduce
bison, or buffalo, across all their shared reservation lands, which include
parts of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain Front.
And this winter NBC aired “Peter Pan Live!”—a new round with an old classic. A descendant of
the Cherokee Nation played “Tiger Lily,” a character often played by white
actresses in the past. Moreover, they changed the words of the popular song “Ugg-a-Wugg”—with
legal permission—to “True Blood Brothers.”
Missions 2.0
Back at the Four Winds—a 24-acre site a mile or two off the
Yellowstone River in south-central Montana—Director Ron Countryman and his wife
Kathy rarely follow current events. However, they have been serving Native
Americans in Montana for nearly 40 years.
In 1975 they moved from Illinois to Montana with all their possessions
in a U-Haul trailer. They had no support at the time, but they sensed God’s
call on their lives.
The nine tribes in Montana were not exactly waiting for the
Countrymans. They had to develop relationships slowly all over the state. They
had to follow through on every promise they made. They had to learn and respect
the tribal culture. They had to give up their own desires, and even accept
trouble from various sources. All this took 10-15 years, notes Kathy.
She and Ron smile as they recall their first convert, 25
years into their ministry. A Native man at a youth crusade listened to two boys
reading John 3, 1 John 1, and other verses. He was illiterate, but the words so
struck him that he became a Christian. But overall they have seen relatively
few conversions—most of their work is seed planting. They believe less than two
percent of Montana Native Americans are Christian.
The Countrymans have seen some prejudice in their ministry.
For example, three times they have had to wait at restaurants because Native Americans
were with them. As a kid, Ron recalls a sign outside a business in Wyoming: “No
dogs or Indians allowed.” He thinks God began coaxing his heart toward
America’s “First Nations”—as they like to refer to themselves—from a young age.
But the Countrymans’ Native American friends are both sociable
and hospitable. At a dinner one time, their hosts served them first since they
were guests. The elders came next, then the women and children, and then the young
men—if any food remained. In 2008, the Turnsplenty family of the Crow Nation
adopted Ron and Kathy into their family and tribe—a highly uncommon honor.
Now their names are well-known among all the tribes in
Montana. This makes their jobs easier—but not easy. They still have much to
learn, they say.
Four Winds
A few years after coming to Montana, Ron became an ordained
Church of God preacher. He has pastored three churches, and currently is the
lead pastor of Big Timber’s Church of God.
They bought the Four Winds property in 2001, with funding
from the missionary branch of their denomination. The center opened in 2004,
and they now have more than a dozen buildings. They offer adult discipleship
and leadership training, and week-long summer camps for young people.
Many Native American children come from tragic or unloving
backgrounds. This can be evident in their words and actions when they come to Four
Winds. But after a week of fun and love, they usually soften considerably. One
summer 26 agreed to be baptized!
But kids are not the only people who change. Some volunteers
from big cities can hardly grapple with rural Montana. They avoid the creek at
first, for example, but wash their hair in it by the last day. Moreover, the Countrymans
say you “cannot be around those Native American kids without falling in love
with them.” Volunteers say they come to serve, but they end up getting served.
Fall to spring is more relaxed, but not wasted. They
communicate with their supporting churches. They visit reservations, bringing
food, clothes, and school supplies—only things they would use themselves—as
well as Thanksgiving turkeys and Christmas shoe boxes. Ron preaches at Native
American churches, and of course he shepherds his own church all year, too.
The Second Family
Personally, Ron and Kathy had to deal with their own child’s
apathy toward God for many years. Their son Justin rebelled against his
parents’ lifestyle and influence. He turned to anything other than God for many
years, until he learned he was digging his own spiritual, if not physical,
tomb.
He accepted Jesus as his savior and his life changed nearly
overnight. At first, he told his parents he would not join them in their
ministry—he wanted to find his own calling. Ron replied, “Never say never.” After
spending two more weeks with Native American kids, Justin changed his mind.
Later, Justin fostered children on a reservation for two
years. Reservation life is “like third-world countries,” he says. He heard
gunshots at night, lone toddlers ran around at 10:30 p.m., a drunken man tried to
break into his home, and he sensed a constant spiritual warfare taking place. Yet
this very atmosphere drove him deeper into foster care. When he can share Christ
with foster children over an extended period, he witnesses enormous and eternal
change in their lives.
Amid all this, Justin met a young woman named Jessica. She
came to Four Winds with her youth group from Virginia in 2008. She felt God leading
her toward Native Americans in Montana, and she visited the following summers,
too. She and Justin wed in 2012—and now they foster several kids together and
live in Big Timber.
During the interview, Justin invited little S*****ty into
the office. Her eyes were timid, but kind. She was about four years old. She
slowly offered her hand in greeting, then permitted a priceless smile to escape.
Justin has also become an associate pastor under his father.
He says he would never be where he is in his faith or his ministry without his
parents. Now and then tension arises, but generally they work well together.
Justin says he enjoys being accountable to Ron as dad, pastor, and employer.
Perspective and
Conviction
The two Countryman families are hardly wealthy. Ron and
Justin have a modest monthly income as pastors. But they raise most of their
support and simply don’t spend when they don’t have. No debt is part of their
routine, but so are old cars and living week to week.
But they know greater poverty among the people they are
serving, which gives them perspective. Moreover, they see God as being very
faithful to them. Sometimes Justin has prayed about a bill, and that very day a
seemingly random source gave him exactly the right amount of money for it.
“I don’t feel poor, I don’t feel left out, I don’t feel
neglected by God,” explains Justin. It is a hard path to take, but “God has
proven Himself enough to us.” Ron adds, “We don’t have abundance, but we have
plenty.”
All the same, tempting job offers come along now and then.
Other temptations include giving up, impatience, not saying no, balancing
family and ministry, following through, and feeling alone— since few major
ministries exist to reach out to Native Americans. But they press on with a
sense of urgency. Their goal is to build enough homes and find enough foster
parents to house 100 kids at Four Winds.
Names are terribly important to Native Americans, the Countrymans
explain. “Four Winds” has three sources. Part of the property used to be called
the Four Winds Restaurant. It is in the center of Montana, near the crossroads
of the reservations in the state. Most of all, their key scripture is in
Ezekiel 37: “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain,
that they may live.”
Kathy sums up their mission, with Native American
decorations on the wall behind her: “We are living our dream!”
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(Originally published in the Big Timber Pioneer.)
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