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Throughout each year we attend a good number of Pow Wows. A Pow Wow is an Indian social dance event which emphasizes our common spirituality as Native Americans. Our family has sang (on the drum) at Pow Wows and every so often I, (Randy) am asked to Emcee. Once or twice a year Edith or I or both of us are asked to be Head Man and Lady Dancers. Our whole family dances and most often we just go as a family to dance. About four or five times a year we are asked to hold worship services on Sunday mornings at the Pow Wows.
Many of the vendors and dancers at Pow Wows do not attend church.
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At Pow Wows we are able to meet other families, many of which do not have a church background but still maintain a spirituality based on their Indian beliefs. It is often a surprise to the people when they find out we are full time ministers of Christ. Immediately they feel a sense of curiosity - since they too have encountered "Christians" who condemn them for being involved in Pow Wow and Indian things. Recently, at the Mile High Pow Wow near Denver, Colorado, a man from a western reservation was astonished that we were ministers and that our family dances. His comment was, "Why can't more Christians understand us? We worship the same Creator as them, but some of them have told me that I worship the devil just because I don't go to their kind of church."
We believe we will see this man again, in fact he has invited us to come to his reservation and talk with him some more. Doors of opportunity to share the love of Jesus can not be opened when we go simply to minister TO the people. In Luke 15:2 it says that Jesus ate WITH the people. That is what bothered the Pharisees and Scribes so much. If Jesus would have merely fed them the Pharisees would have understood and approved - but He actually became one of them...
I also believe that Jesus loved the people He ministered among. They were not His
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