Part of our annual Ingathering Missions Offering goes to sponsor several mission trips we take each year. This past summer, several CRBC members trekked to rural South Dakota on mission to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. They teamed up with a group from First Baptist Church, Greenville, Texas. Activities included personal witnessing to adults, VBS for kids at a newly acquired camp, a women's self-defense training seminar and a women's Bible study. James Hunt preached and sang Sunday morning at Sharp's Corner Baptist Mission on the reservation. The group also encouraged North American Mission Board missionaries Mike and Monica Brennan and their two sons, Noah and Dakota.

Mike is a Native American church planter for the Black Hills Baptist Association in South Dakota and for the Oregon Trail Baptist Association in northern Nebraska. This is a joint effort between the two associations to advance declining works and plant new churches. Sharp’s Corner Baptist Mission is the main base of operation from which springs other efforts on the reservation as well as a hoped for Native American church plant in Gordon, Nebraska.
The needs on the Pine Ridge reservation are enormous. The poverty is very real and is passed down from parent to child – a poverty of spirit, mindset, relationships, a poverty of hopelessness and a cycle of abuse. Pine Ridge reservation reports a suicide rate approximately 150 percent higher than the national average. Additionally, in 100 square miles around the Sharp’s Corner mission are well over 200 gangs. In fact, Diane Sawyer recently aired a special television program on the plight of the people here.

The spiritual darkness on this reservation is thick. Our NAMB missionaries and supporting churches are trying to push back the darkness and bring the hope of the Gospel to people. An example of the success seen so far is in the life of 13-year-old Sage, a girl that was saved at camp this past summer. Her mother came to Sharp’s Corner Baptist Mission the next Sunday. She said she came because she saw such a dramatic change in her daughter. She wanted whatever miracle Sage had received. The mother was saved that day. Sage’s mom died unexpectedly and is now at home with Jesus. The missionaries feel the urgency of the darkness. The stakes are high. They are convinced that Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost and have a passion to see more Native Americans find the sure hope that only Jesus can provide.

In an effort to provide some hope this Christmas, CRBC’s Celebrate Recovery folks mailed an enormous care box full of goodies to the people on the reservation. If you have questions about how you can minister to the people there, contact James Hunt at jhunt@councilroad.org.Our Ingathering offering will be received through the end of December, and our goal this year is $100,000.