On Eagles Wings - Ron Hutchcraft Ministries

Update from Team Canada

As the caravan of vehicles left our first community enroute to the Canadian border, we were filled with gratitude to God for the way He used this team in the past three days. With these being our first outreaches, there are usually kinks to work out, gaps that appear, and rookie team members trying to fit in to a high energy series of outreaches that tax even the most seasoned veterans. But this year is different. There’s a tremendous level of both spiritual maturity and self-initiation built into all the team, both veterans and first timers.

I would often look out of the vehicle we pray in during the outreaches and see some of our team working the perimeter of the venue, going from car to car sharing one on one the hope we’ve found in Jesus. Others were moving in to someone standing all alone, who was looking for someone to connect with, to find out what was going on at this thing called On Eagles’ Wings. Thankfully, our team members face their fears and in the power of the Holy Spirit go and as God opens their mouths, He also opens the hearts of the local folks to hear a message of hope so desperately needed. It’s awesome to see some of the young influencers, with the hardest of hearts, come to the event as critics, skeptics, and, yes, even antagonizers, only to be drawn to the cross of Jesus Christ by God’s love demonstrated through a faithful team member.

This first Rez was reeling from the suicide we mentioned before and you could feel the pain in the air as those close to the victim shared their pain and hurt with our team. But just as God came down to visit in Moses' generation to rescue his people, so too, did He come down on this hurting reservation with power and hope from on high!

One of our team members is from one of Canada’s most devastated Reserves, and he truly is hope for his community. He alone has lost several siblings to suicide, and as he shared his hope story, there was complete silence among the crowd, who just moments prior were very boisterous in the activities we had going. But when Monty spoke, you could tell hearts were being touched by the story of his hope in Christ.

Along with Monty’s hope story, other team members throughout the days communicated the Gospel very powerfully, and by the end of our days there, many lives were touched, and an encouraging number of youth had prayed to receive Jesus Christ as their Savior!

Now these local churches have new believers to follow up on, and we need you to be praying for this crucial time that immediately follows these spiritual decisions. As Ron Hutchcraft often says, “Satan believes in immediate follow up, so how much more do we need to!” That’s so true.

Canada, Here We Come!

If you ever have crossed an international border, you’ll know that you never know what to expect. And that’s when you’re traveling alone. Imagine the challenge of bringing a bus load of Native youth from all over North America, all the resources, equipment, food, multiple vehicles, some minors, etc., through the border crossing experience. About three and a half hours into the stop at the border, I commented to our bus driver, “Crossing the border is like kissing your sister. You only do that when you have to!!!”

Thankfully we built a whole travel day to get to our second community. We were welcomed by a local church in a neighboring community to the Reserves we would visit in this second round of outreaches. Our border delays had us arriving close to 1:00 a.m., but the host pastor welcomed us graciously, and got our team settled into his church facilities. These were wonderful folks who hosted us, and they refreshed us with their hospitality and acceptance.

The Reserves we were visiting next are two side by side Reserves, with deep animosity towards each other. There’s a culture of violence that permeates these two groups, fueled by years of hatred and anger.

The climate was made more tenuous by a tragic event that happened only a week prior to our arrival. There is one faithful missionary couple that live among these people. This is a very isolated and traditional community, and the Gospel has been met with resistance for many years. This couple have made the ultimate sacrifice as three of their children are buried right behind the little chapel that they lead. We received a phone call during WLS from this couple sharing that a tragic accident had happened, and could affect their being able to stay in this community. As the missionary was picking up children for their VBS program, a two year old girl had gone behind the van and as he backed out, and he ran over her. She was airlifted to a big city hospital and was in critical condition. We knew as we were making our way to this community, this could be a very difficult place to do our outreaches. We and the missionary couple could be run out of town because of this tragedy.

Praise be to God, the child made a remarkable recovery, and was actually running around and playing at our outreach events! It’s truly a miraculous work of God!
We had an amazing Night One, with close to two hundred youth in attendance. For the first time in their lives, these young people heard about Jesus Christ in a way that spoke so powerfully to them. But we were soon to realize just how strong the walls are that divide these two communities.

Our outreach venue was the high school on the one Reserve. Bordering the grounds we were on is a road that divides the two communities. That dirt road was spiritually more like the old Berlin wall. Those from the other community were asking why we were on the other side, and a number of them stayed away because of that reality. As long as the team was on the ground, peace ruled, but once the team left for our lodging facilities, fights would break out between the two communities.

Our final night can only be described as a true visitation of God. Our crowd numbers had gone down, which is very unusual for us, but we came to see that God had drawn to that final night a group of people who would be ready and open to hear the Gospel. One of our gals, Darlene, is a powerful communicator of the Gospel. But I never heard more passion and empowerment of God on her as she opened up, and from the depths of her heart powerfully shared convicting words of life that could only be described as totally of God. She challenged the long standing hatred of each other by sharing that Christ’s death on the Cross not only reconciles us to God, but can reconcile us to each other.

When the invitation was given to make a public surrender to God, just about everyone in that crowd came forward, and God visited us with what can only be described as a holy presence that descended on those grounds. After thirty-seven years of serving God, I can probably count on one hand the times I’ve seen God’s Spirit manifested in the way we saw that night. What amazed me even further is those who did not come forward didn’t get away without one of our team members going to them directly, with the boldness of God’s Spirit, as we compelled men and women to come to Jesus. OEW is the only place I know where if you don’t respond publicly, we’ll come to you! It reminds me of what Proverbs 24:11 says, Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter.

After all was said and done, God moved not only in the hearts of many of the people in these two communities, but helped to further strengthen and build bridges between this isolated community and the Body of Christ in the region, who are more willing to see this community as their Samaria.

Pray for the continued building of bridges, and the tearing down of walls, for the Glory of God!

Thanks for praying!