Native American Ministries

It Only Took an Ember

Following is an excerpt from a chapter titled, “Branded by an Ember,” that is found in my book, Afterburn: The Kc Kopaska Story,  It read as follows:

“If you will come with me on visitation, I will teach you about my people.” I looked up from my teacher’s desk into the face of a Native American son. This was a man whose face told a story. He was one of the older students at Central Indian Bible College, and his name was Eugene King. Eugene was a full-blooded Nakota Sioux from the Sisseton-Wahpeton Reservation, located in the Northeast corner of the state. I was Eugene’s instructor, but he was about to become my mentor.

Pastor King, as he is most often referred to by his people, was and still is, the pastor of a small congregation in the village of Wakpala, South Dakota, which is located on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. I knew virtually nothing about Native American culture and was certainly not about to turn down his offer. “When do we leave?” I asked.

A few weeks into our weekly Saturday visitations to Wakpala, which primarily consisted of knocking on people’s doors and asking them if we could come in and pray with them (and occasionally providing food items if they were in really desperate straits), we drove down a rutted, dirt road to a broken-down house on the outskirts of the village. Close to our destination, we passed by the charred foundation of a house that, judging by the weeds and saplings that had grown in and around it, had burned down some time ago. Inside of the home we were visiting lived a frail, elderly Indian woman and countless cats that had long ago out-used their kitty litter box.  As I sat down on the couch in her living room, I noticed a blanket that had been secured over the doorway between the kitchen and living room, swaying slightly in the winter wind making its way through gaps around the windows and outside doors. Next to me, sitting on a stand, was a bottle of lice shampoo. I had followed Eugene into the world of extreme reservation poverty.

After visiting the elderly woman a couple more times and feeling comfortable enough to carry on a conversation with her, I asked her about the story behind the charred foundation, visible not far from her front door. With her head bowed down and her eyes fixed on the floor, she told me the story.

One very cold wintry day her daughter, who had lived there, got very drunk. In her stupor, she threw a few pieces of wood into the wood-burning stove that heated the place but neglected to close the stove’s door. Soon after putting the wood in the stove, she picked up her little infant and proceeded to pass out on the couch in the same room as the stove, baby clutched tightly in her arms. The stove was unforgiving of her carelessness.

An ember from the crackling fire popped out of the stove and landed in some tinder and papers on the floor nearby. The woman told me that she happened to look outside toward her daughter’s house and spotted dark smoke pouring out of it. She quickly ran to the house, made her way inside, and tried to awaken her. Failing to do so, she grabbed hold of her and tried to pull her outside but was too weak to do that, too. In a final act of desperation, she gave up on her daughter and tried with all of her might to free the baby from her daughter’s arms in an attempt to save at least one life. I could tell by the subtle shift in her tone of voice that she felt shame and responsibility for not having enough strength to even save her granddaughter. She raised her head a little bit and glanced my way when she finished her story by telling me, “The only thing I could do was back out of the burning house and watch as it took my daughter and grandbaby.”

There was a pause. I did not say anything in response. I didn’t need to. She knew I understood something about fire. It was my scars that had opened the door. The fact that she even told me the story meant that she knew she could trust me with it. I felt that by sharing it with me that a little bit of the sharp edges of her pain and grief had been dulled, even if just for a moment. That was the day I realized, as I drove away from her home, past the charred foundation, that I would always belong to these people. My calling to Native American ministries was secured, once and for all, branded on my heart by an ember. I had suffered much in life and now I saw a reason for my scars – they could proclaim Christ in a way that words never would. God would use my pain to bring healing to their nations. Ever since that day, I have carried with me a deep sense of privilege to bear these scars for His cause.

For me, the answer to why I minister to Native Americans is summed in three simple words, God loves them. Unconditionally. There is not a thing they have done that He can’t forgive and not a problem He that can’t help them overcome. I know. He has helped me overcome alcohol and drug abuse, third degree burns over sixty percent of my body, and hepatitis C Virus. Like me, God has a plan for their lives. I help them find it.