A friend who lives in an area of the country where there are many Native American Indian reservations, attended a church conference years ago. One of the workshops that he attended at the conference concerned the plight of the Native American Indian population as a minority group and how they have been completely forgotten. My friend decided to attend this particular workshop because he happened to live in an area where there were many reservations. His attitude at the time was that he simply wanted to learn more about the issue. He did not necessarily desire to do anything about the problem. Then, right smack in the middle of the seminar, a well-known member of the American Indian Movement entered the room where they were gathered and threw a brick in the center of the meeting table. The crashing monolith startled the assembly. The man from AIM said to the people that all they did was talk and study, study and talk, but they never really did a darn thing about the prevailing issues. My friend was certainly not impressed by this man's overt action. In fact, my friend was a bit offended. But when he returned home he couldn't get the incident out of his mind. He kept on asking himself, "Well, what can I do about it? I'm only one person."

Gradually his ears were opened and one day he decided to speak. In fear and trepidation, my friend boldly drove his car north to one of the nearby reservations to visit with a local chief. And that was just the beginning of a 25-year ministry to Native American Indians in the area of the country in which he lives. My friend has been very instrumental and active in the planning and implementation of WIRC (Wisconsin Indian Resource Council). He has also been involved in Operation Black Dirt, a corporation established to incubate Native American Indian-owned small businesses. Today, my friend tells me that Christ caused his deaf ears to hear and then gave him the courage to speak on behalf of the American Indian population. It has not been easy for my friend. As you can well imagine, his inclusive actions have caused him to be ostracized from former friends and associates. But he tells me that it has been worth it because, as he puts it, "I was dumb but now I can speak God's truth."