First Baptist Church of Eagle Butte
P.O.
Box 170, Eagle Butte, SD 57625
(605)
964-3617 (Office) / (605) 891-1704 (Pastor’s Cell)
February
8, 2013
Dear
Friends,
*It
was so cold that they closed the schools.
Mind you, there was no snow or ice on the road. But to go outside and wait for the bus was to
risk death.
*It
was so cold that the police picked up the homeless people in town and put them
in jail. Not because they had done
anything wrong, but for their own
protection.
*It
was so cold that the snowmen had frostbite.
That’s
how cold it was. And even though I am
happy to have experienced what a TRULY COLD DAY is like, I have to admit that
it makes you grateful that God invented “indoors”.
A
New Development at Off-the-Wall
When
the Off-the-Wall program was first started, it was intended as a means to give
young people something fun to do on Friday nights-something that didn’t involve
getting into trouble. It was hoped that
by providing them with a fun and exciting place to be within the context of a
church, the young men and women would learn to view the church in a positive
light, and be more receptive to the Gospel.
But we decided not to include any serious Bible studies in the event at
first, since unchurched teenagers would be frightened by anything serious
whatsoever.
All
of that changed recently when one of our volunteers, Christina Osthus, offered
to lead a Bible study for any young men and women who were interested. A year ago, I would have said no. But now that Off-the Wall has grown to
attract as many as 60 young people a night, and has gained a reputation in the
community for being a fun and exciting place, I decided that this was an idea
whose time had come. After all, what are
we doing this for, if not to advance the Kingdom of Heaven?
Since
that time, Christina has hosted two such Bible studies at Off-the-Wall. At the first, two people willingly showed up
and seemed to have a real interest in studying the Bible. The next study had three people
participating, who were very involved with listening and asking questions. We have high hopes for this new Bible Study,
and can’t wait to see where it might lead!
Native
American Christian Art
The
Lakota are famous for their remarkable skill in artwork. Whenever my wife teaches art to her
sixth-grade class, all she has to do is show the class a picture and ask them,
“Do you guys think you can draw this?”
Then they do-perfectly. But
despite all this artistic talent, there is very little Christian art produced
here. Our church decided to find a
Christian Lakota artist and get him to paint a series of pictures for our
hallway, showing scenes from the Bible.
The
artist we found was Bryson Dupris, a member of our church who is pictured above. To the right of him, you see the first
painting he did for us- a depiction of Genesis 1:1- “In the beginning, God
created the heavens and the Earth.” He
will be painting more such pictures for us in the future, and we hope they will
spark the imaginations of young and old alike.
A
Generous Gift from Good Friends
This
month, three boxes of socks arrived from our good friend, Ellen Mustoe, who had
been collecting them from our Christian Brothers and Sisters in Virginia. We are always pleased to receive gifts of
this nature, and we plan to distribute these socks, together with other
clothing items, to the community very soon.
Thanks to all who donated these.
God is using you as His hands in this world.
Back
to School
Long
ago, I graduated from seminary and said to myself, “That’s it. I’m done with school for the rest of my
life.” Boy, was I wrong! This month found me attending classes at the
Oglala Lakota College here in Eagle Butte, making a feeble attempt at learning
the language of the Lakota people. While
the Lakota have a distinct language, unique to their culture, necessity has
forced them to learn English over the years.
In fact, the primary language of nearly every Lakota on the reservation
is English. But many of them are sad for
the decline of their native tongue, and they are currently providing classes in
elementary school and the college to re-train their people in the Lakota
language. I signed up for this class for
two reasons. First, there are still some
Lakotas who speak Lakota as a first language, and who understand it better than
English. I want to be able to connect
with such people. Second, it is the
nature of leadership that people only listen to you when they respect you. And one of the best ways to earn respect is
to show respect for others. So I am
learning the language, hoping that the Lakota will feel respected by my
willingness to learn about them.
Baby
Shower!
Two
of our newer members, Adam and Rachel Cowan, had a baby girl about two weeks
ago. So the women of the church wanted
to hold a baby shower for her four weeks ago, and my wife volunteered to host
it. It turned out great! There were refreshments and gifts, as are the
tradition. But when it came time for the
games, they went a little unconventional.
After the women had given Rachel her presents, each of them wrote their
own thank-you note, addressed an envelope to themselves, and presented it to
Rachel as a way of lightening her workload.
A
New Ministry Tool
At
any given time, I have about a dozen ideas in the back of my head about ways to
help the church. One project that we
just finished this month is shown in the picture above. It is a map of Eagle Butte-about six feet
long and four feet wide-attached to the wall in our office. This would not be very useful in most cities,
but in Eagle Butte it is wonderfully helpful.
You see, while our streets have names, they don’t have any signs to mark
where they are. And while our houses
have numbers, most of these numbers are not written on the houses. The result is that it is next to impossible
to explain where anything is. But now,
thanks to this map, I can mark the house of all the church members, and find
them when I do visitation. Even better,
we can use it to mark the houses of all the children that we pick up for Sunday
morning breakfast-and then use the map to train new van drivers. It’s little things like this that make me
happy.
Plans
for the Future
On
March 10-13 of this year, First Baptist Church will be hosting a revival in
Eagle Butte. We will be getting a guest
speaker from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and together we will launch
an all-out effort to spread the Gospel, expand the church and reenergize the
local Christians. It’s going to be
awesome! However, as is the case with
every revival, we cannot be effective without the blessing of God’s Holy
Spirit. That’s why I want to ask all of
you to pray that God will move in the hearts of the people of this reservation
to win them to Christ. When you pray for
our evangelism efforts, it is exactly the same as being right there with us, working
alongside us for the furthering of God’s Kingdom.
So
perhaps you are wondering how you can become a partner with us in our ministry
here in Eagle Butte? If so, then we are
happy to tell you, since we welcome assistance from the body of Christ. Here is
what we need the most:
Prayer. It may be true that our
church is getting along very well at the moment, and that God is doing great
things here. But it is precisely when a
church is being used by God that Satan does all in his power to destroy it. So please pray, my brothers and sisters. Pray that our leadership will keep their
hearts pure and humble, and that we will live at peace with each other. Pray that we will be protected from the power
of the enemy, and that God’s Holy Spirit will shine through in our lives. Pray that the Lakotas in the community will
come to know the Lord, and that the commitment they make will not be a
superficial group of words, but a real change in their Spirits that will alter
the course of their lives for eternity.
E-mail addresses. For those of you who have e-mail addresses,
please send them to me. That way, these
monthly newsletters can be forwarded to everyone in your church who wants
one! Just send your name and e-mail
address to me at benfarrar777@hotmail.com,
and I’ll make sure you receive this newsletter as often as it comes out.
Financial Assistance. Our church is fortunate to have members who
are generous in their giving. But some of our most generous members are,
nevertheless, very poor. We have long
been blessed with assistance from outside churches and individuals, and we try
to use those gifts wisely and well.
If
any one of you wishes to bless the church with a financial gift, you may send
it to:
First Baptist Church of Eagle Butte
P.O. Box 170
Eagle Butte, SD 57625
May
God bless you all, and draw you closer to Himself each and every day.
Yours
in Christ,
Rev. Ben Farrar
Pastor
First
Baptist Church of Eagle Butte
