I had the distinct honor to travel with an amazing group of young people to White River Arizona, Apache Tribe.

I have to tell you now that I have made 3 video’s to cover this event and will show them to you over the course of this coming few days.

Midwest Movement is a group of select young people from my church that spend 10 months of their lives: giving, learning and doing. I can’t speak enough about the maturity that I saw, let alone the selflessness they exhibited in the days I was with them.

I said it so often they all just kinda looked at me, but honestly, there were 16 people together in some tough environment and I did not see one instance of anything other then love, help, understanding, kindness and dying to ones self. Sure, there were little things, but honestly so little I don’t even need to mention them. I’m so proud of what I saw and that I got to be a part of that. I’m also thrilled to have made 16 new friends!

I’m trying to figure out how to tell you all what happened in the days I was gone. I guess the best way is at the beginning. We left STL bright and early and boarded our plane to Arizona, When we got to Arizona we drove up and I mean UP to White River where they had just dug out from a major snowstorm… it was COLD!

The movement stayed in a small church where they would be working and ministering, and as things had it, nothing was meant to be the same and there were a lot of changes that took place. They slept on beds of 8-10 chairs put together. Breakfast was always good, in fact the food was always very good, we also had a chance to experience authentic Apache food: Fry bread, Oven Bread, Apache Burgers and more.

For me, it was all about pictures and it took me a couple days to get comfortable taking pictures of a people who were not accustomed to a photographer in their face, but… I said earlier, take a picture of someone and show them their image and tell them how beautiful they are, and they smile and you’ve made a friend!

I learned a lot about Reservation life and my heart soon opened wide to accept a people, I’d not really thought a lot about till now. I think daily about the people who touched my life, the faces I saw, and the things I experienced.

Hope took on a whole new meaning to me! I saw young people praying and I wondered, how hard is it to have Hope here? Unemployment 80-85%, suicide attempts increasing and drinking and drugs seem to be a normal way of life for most…then…then there are the people making a change, and they are! I heard countless stories of the power of prayer. In this small church, that was cleaned, painted and lived in is making huge dents in an otherwise hopeless situation. The power of prayer is one thing, but the power of a group of people acting, doing and giving is another….Actions!!!! Love was abounding and I was again, sooo very blessed to have been asked to go and experience it.

so part one…