Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

I pray this letter finds you well and enjoying the Lord's blessings.  We are all doing good.  I find myself in Switzerland this morning.  My wife and I were blessed and were given a free vacation by some good friends so here we are.

Since I last wrote to you I had knee surgery.  The surgery was done on March 23 and the surgeon found more damage to my knee than expected so it took me longer to recover.  I had hurt my knee back in April of 2006 and had been dancing with a busted knee since then.  But I would like to share with you that after twelve weeks of physical therapy, my knee is doing really good.  I still have some problems but they are mostly from losing muscle mass while I was recovering.  But I was excited because on June 1st I was given permission to start doing my hoop dance again.  It just so happened that I had a presentation on that day.  I must confess, it was a scary day as the drum started to go and I had to start dancing.  At one point in the routine I have to quickly fall on both knees and then bounce up again.  As I got to that point I stopped for a quick moment and prayed a small prayer that seemed like an eternity.  Then I said, "OK God, here we go," and down I went and as I bounced back up I realized that for the first time in over a year, there was no pain. Wow, what a blessing!  As I continued the seven to eight minute dance routine, all that went through my mind was "Thank you Jesus, Thank you Jesus."  The only problem I had was I was weak from lack of strenuous physical activity and will have to build up my muscles again.  But six hoop dances later, I feel that I am on the way to total recovery.

It is hard to remember everything that has happened since I last wrote.  Even though I was disabled because of my knee surgery, the ministry still went on, it just changed a little.  In the first week of May, we traveled for twelve days and visited four reservations, two in Washington State and two in British Columbia, Canada.  The first reservation I visited with my friends John and Gerri Grosvenor.  What a blessing it was to hear as he shared his vision to reach the people at the Covil Reservation for Jesus Christ.  I love what he says when people ask him where his church is and he responds, "The reservation is my church."  It was such a blessing to be with them and visit with some of their people.  I was given the privilege to participate in their weekly sweat lodge.  What a blessing it was to sing, pray and even laugh with the men he has been working with.  I must confess, the two and half days I spent with him was too short.  God gave a greater burden to pray for them as God helps both John and Gerri through whatever is placed before them each day.  Then we traveled back to Seattle where we met up with the rest of the team and with Mark Smith, missionary to the Lillooet people, and slowly made the six-hour trip to Lillooet, BC.  We had some trouble at the Canadian border and had to leave one of our dancers behind with some of Mark's friends.  Although I travel all over the world, it seems like I have more problems getting into and out of Canada; but as I always say, everything is in God's eternal plans and life goes on. When we got to BC, the men in my group spent the weekend with Chief Bradley Jack, Chief of the River.... Reservation and a faithful member of the Lillooet Indian Fellowship Church.  It is always a blessing to hear and feel his dreams and burdens for his people.  What a blessing to stay with a man who truly lives in three worlds as an Indian.  To hear his struggles and blessings as God allows him to walk in his traditional Indian world, the white man's world and his Christian world; and God gives him the power through the Holy Spirit to work and survive in all three.

Our team of dancers went to BC Canada to participate and sing at a pow wow at the Fountain Reservation just outside of Lillooet.  Even though I could not feather dance, I took out and dusted off my Southern Traditional outfit and as my knee allowed, I would get up and dance a little.  It was not my normal aggressive style, but just a slow traditional step.  We also set up our drum and sang.  We were one of six drums that had set up for the weekend.  We sang all our church songs pow wow style.  At one point we sang one of our new songs.  It is called "Be Still" which is the title to our next CD that prayerfully will come out at the end of August.  As I started the song the chief of the Fountain Reservation who happened to be singing on the drum next to us turned around and leaned on his chair, folded his arm on top of the back rest and just listened to the song.  By the second time we repeated the song he was singing with us. When the song was finished he looked at me and said, "Boy, that was the most powerful song I have ever heard.  It really touched my heart."  I told him as soon as our new CD comes out I would mail him a copy.  One of my dancers was adopted last year by one of the families and he got the opportunity to share a short testimony of the grace of God before the people.  One family asked me to be one of the four elders to pray for his son who was going to stop dancing for a while. That was a very emotional time for the whole family and for me as I prayed for this young boy who had to make this difficult decision and give away his grass dance regalia.  God blessed our time with Mark and Babe Smith and the Lillooet people.

Our drum was also the host drum at a pow wow on Memorial Day.  What a privilege it was to sing our songs all weekend long.  The Lord opened the doors to pray with three Indian friends.  I was asked to sing one song which was written in honor of the brother of the founder of the pow wow.  He asked us if we could sing it and if I could explain how the song came about.  I got to share the testimony of the song and with the testimony the doors were opened to share the gospel before both Indian and non Indian people that were at the pow wow.

After I finished my time in BC I dropped my team off in Seattle to fly back home.  Then I and my friend Steve made our way to the Yakama Indian Reservation to spend a couple of days with Pastor Mark and Deborah Fielding.  Our two days were spent visiting with Pastor Mark and just talking about his vision and dreams for the Yakama people.  While there I met with Youth Pastor Corey Greaves from Wapato, Washington.  He is the youth pastor of the largest American Indian youth group called Mending Wings Ministries.  We sat down and just talked about how we could help each other in any future ministry trip.  Also while in the area I ended up in a Wal Mart where I found two things: one, I found five pairs of hot pink shorts.  Then while looking at the hot pink shorts I met a man by the name of Jim.  His claim to fame was that he was in Wounded Knee in 1973.  He invited me to his home and shared with me of his time at Wounded Knee and shared what the Lord was doing in his life today. He works with a Mission and delivers food and clothing to needy American Indian people at the Yakama Reservation.  As I left, his son came to me and asked for prayer and so in his front yard we prayed.  My time in the Yakama Reservation and with Pastor Mark Fielding was a blessing and God gave me a greater vision as to how to reach into that community with the Gospel.