I just returned at the close of last week from another successful season of discipleship on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.  For those of you who may not be aware, we are now going every 60 days  to disciple, train, and encourage new believers in the Wounded Knee & Manderson communities of the Lakota-Sioux reservation.  This task is challenging in every way, but I am so thankful for the overwhelming victory we have in Jesus Christ!

Challenging:  a tactful way to describe coming across one hindrance after another!  Each time I journey to take on ground that is supposedly “enemy territory” I encounter the enemy himself.  He disguises himself as chronic flight changes, delay of funding, the appearance of lack, schedule conflicts with the believers,…you get the picture.  But challenges and adversity become opportunities to build our faith and to watch God perform miracles, proving to us that we are in His will and that the battle is truly His.

The reality is this:  little adversity = little achievement.  Great adversity = great achievement.  The apostle Paul said, “Yea, in all these things, we are MORE than conquerors…” (Rom 8:37).  There are very exciting things on the horizon for the Pine Ridge reservation.  For the next year or so we will be discipling and training, bringing the believers together.  In about 18 months we plan to launch a church that will impact that entire area.  It will be the only Pentecostal church within 75 miles.  It will also be one of, if not the only, church in the area that does not mix Native Spirit worship with Christianity.

In the reports to come I will go into more explicit detail on the people whose lives are being changed and the plans for the church launch.  Thank you for putting tools in my hands and prayers behind us as a ministry team to make this work possible.

Yours for Souls,
Chresten