On Eagles Wings - Ron Hutchcraft Ministries

There are 4,500 people on the "Grant Pass"* Reservation. And 40 gangs.

It couldn't be more starkly different from our last reservation - "Red Rock," where you feel like you've been transported to heartbreaking Third World poverty. Grant Pass, on the other hand, is near a major city and generates great income from a casino. If you're a tribal member, you receive an allotment check of several thousand dollars each quarter. Have their sudden riches brought them happiness? Forty gangs tell the story, along with pervasive, high-end drugs and all-too many suicides.

The houses are nicer. The people have more stuff. There's more to do because they have money and access to all the nearby city offers. But the pain and the personal battles of these Native young people seem all too familiar. As far as the heart issues, we might as well be back at Red Rock.

I met with a handful of Native leaders, representing three churches that had invited us to Grant Pass. We were together for the Youth Ministry Roundtable that we conduct with the local leaders on most reservations we go to. The agenda is to help them seize the moment to follow-up commitments to Christ and to make this OEW moment into an ongoing movement of reservation youth ministry.

Sadly, when I asked our inviters to tell me about whatever youth ministry there was at Grant Pass - they all shook their heads. Zero youth outreach on a reservation where more than half the people are 18 or under. This small group of leaders wept openly as they described the total apathy they found as they approached the reservation churches about doing something for the young people. No one is fighting here for this lost generation. That's why they asked On Eagles' Wings to come.

The team has already faced the challenge of a sprawling outreach site at our first reservation and the physical danger of our second reservation. Grant Pass offered another environmental challenge - withering heat that drained the young warriors as they canvassed homes under a merciless sun. But the greater difficulty was the outreach location itself - in a gym located far from any housing area that would give us a natural walk-in crowd. It was what our local hosts could secure and the battlefield we would fight on.

Indoor outreaches are always tough - the local young people can't just hang out like they do at an outdoor court. They are either in or out, and when they drift, they're out of reach of our program. Also, we miss the buzz that the outdoor event generates. But no one could be sure if the locals would come to play basketball outside in this heat - or if our team's health could take more of the heat.

Honestly, Night One was really hard. A small turnout. A depleted team. Gym acoustics that made Hope Stories harder to hear and personal conversations very difficult. And for a team that's used to the energy and dynamics of an outdoor court, they were clearly struggling with how to carry out their mission.

When On Eagles' Wings hits a wall, we know where to go. We had a special season of prayer to hear from God on how to adapt our approach and reset our hearts for this reservation. God rejuvenated the warriors in the early minutes of Night Two - with a crowd nearly 2 ½ times larger than Night One. We adjusted our sound, our program (to encourage some activity outside the gym where conversation was much easier), and our preparation of the team to connect in new ways.

There were some "hard cases" there on Nights Two and Three, but God enabled this team to break through to some of them with dogged persistence. And with some local Native leaders who refused to give up in the face of discouraging apathy from their brothers and sisters, we were able to celebrate the beginning of the first youth harvest anyone could remember at Grant Pass. And with our "Four Summer Nights" follow-up strategy, they have the tools and the momentum now to launch an ongoing rescue operation for a reservation generation that has had no Christian witness.

The story of the Summer of Hope 2009 is increasingly becoming the story of a team of young warriors who simply rise to meet every challenge thrown in front of them. No two reservations have been alike - and no two will be. The environments, the challenges, the spiritual beliefs have been different every time. The heat has been oppressive and the support vehicles have been dropping out one-by-one. But these amazing warriors have found a way to rescue dying young people everywhere they've been - whatever it takes. In many ways, their resilience and rescue passion shame many of us who've been with Jesus a lot longer.

All they've learned in these first six days of outreach are about to be seriously tested. For the first time this summer, this team will become two teams, meaning we have to accomplish all the same tasks with half the people. But the geography of the reservation calls for events in two widely separated areas. And the reservation we're headed for is known across the Native world as one of the spiritually hardest in the country. Every soul will be a battle. But you are praying. And that has made the difference every step of the way. "The battle is the Lord's."

*Names and locations changed for privacy