On Eagles Wings - Ron Hutchcraft Ministries

"Let's sing 'Victory in Jesus'!"

That's the request that kept popping up from the On Eagles' Wings warriors. And for good reason! I write to you, totally exhausted, but totally exhilarated by this summer of one victory after another. We were living the answers to your prayers from the first day of Warrior Leadership Summit in June right through to the final day on our tenth reservation!

The numbers help capture the sheer scope of what just happened...

They just started walking away during our Hope Stories. The drift continued during the Gospel wrap-up. What's happening here? This hasn't happened all summer!

That's what I was asking from my prayer-perch on the OEW bus. We'd been to nine reservations - several very challenging spiritually - but our Hope Stories have always quieted the crowd. But not here. Not in Braxton, the tribal headquarters on the Lake Emerson Reservation. Something was darkly different here.

"Over there is where a 22-year-old mother of two was shot to death in the middle of the night by the father of her little baby." That cold-blooded killing was the talk of the Roaring River Reservation - and the front page headline - the day our team arrived.

Sadly, that isn't an isolated instance of brutal violence at Roaring River. It's a hotbed of serious gangs - the kind that are hardcore criminal organizations. There have been assassinations, drive-by shootings, young men found with tattoos burned off their bodies. And drugs are big business. Young Native lives too often go for cheap in Roaring River.

But, thank God, there's a small group of caring believers there who want to fight for those lives. They invited On Eagles' Wings to come. And they've reserved Drum Park for three nights of events - right on the edge of The Heights, the most notorious housing area on the rez. It's so dangerous that many locals don't even want to go there.

"These are the nicest hard people I've ever met."

The people of the Sunrise Reservation really did receive our team warmly. But when it came to our Message, that was a different story.

These people are proudly traditional, convinced that Jesus is the "white man's god." There's one Gospel "lighthouse" here, and the pastor has seen hearts turn much harder and more hostile in recent years.