From Navajo Nation to Uganda, Africa

I recently met a young family from the Navajo Nation who are headed to Uganda, Africa to share the gospel of Jesus Christ.  So much of their life is very different from my Plateau beginnings, and yet a lot is the same.

Now, why would I want to tell y’uns about these Native Americans on Tennessee Mountain Stories?  I’m so glad you asked!

Because many of us in Appalachia have Cherokee roots, and we’ve talked here before about how those first inhabitants of our mountains shaped our lives even today, I took the opportunity to ask my new friends about their own genealogies.  The answers were a little heartbreaking and even with the gaps and questions in my family tree, I realized what a blessing I enjoy in the family legends that I share with you every week.

As “Americans” moved west, and missionaries of the late 19th century reached out to the native peoples, laws were enacted and schools established to “Kill the Indian, save the man,” as Colonel Richard Henry Pratt put it.  I’ve known this information from history books, but to meet these folks and learn that his grandfather was taken from his Navajo Reservation when he was 3 or 4 years old, given a new name and forbidden to speak his native language really gave those book-facts a face.  This man was given a “white” and he was so young that he never remembered his family name.  So genealogy searches seem impossibly difficult for his family.  By the time the young man came home to the reservation, his parents had died and there was no one within the tribe to return to him the family history the Indian Boarding School had stolen.

Our heritage is worthwhile, even the heritage of people whose conquerors called savage.  In 1918, Cherokees were employed to use their native language during the Second Battle of the Somme.  In 1942, the native tongue of the Navajo people was called into the service of the American people when the Code Talkers were established to encode Allied transmissions for protection from Axis eavesdroppers.  That same boy, who no longer had his native name, was one of those Code Talkers – and some of them would marvel that the United States needed them to speak the language they had previously been forbidden to speak. 

I cannot argue with the missionaries who trekked into hostile territory to tell the Navajos, Apache, Comanche, Chickasaw, Creek…there were more than 500 different tribes…about the love of Jesus Christ and His sacrifice on the cross that paid for their sins.  In fact, I heard these folks expressing gratitude that there are still missionaries going to the Navajo people, for thru those men they heard the gospel and committed their lives to God.

In fact, this young couple is now leaving their western reservation to take the same message of repentance, love and forgiveness to the people of Uganda.  Their methods are certainly different than the people who first reached out to America’s indigenous peoples but the message has not changed in the century-and-a-half.  They will learn Swahili (at least that’s the official language of Uganda, along with English), their children will learn to play the games of Uganda youngsters , eat the local foods and be greatly enriched by the culture of Uganda.  And the people of Uganda will receive the greatest gift of all, the gospel!

Matthew 28:19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”