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American Indian Focus Group Back
Our purpose is to keep the congregation informed and involved in Indian issues, utilizing our skills and resources in serving the American Indian community - locally and nationally. This is done through various programs, service trips, personal involvement, volunteer opportunities, adult education classes, Challenge articles, and political initiatives.
Overview Our programs continue to focus on American Indian education opportunities, traditional Indian spirituality and religious freedom, prison programs for Indians, economic support of grassroots Indian causes and programs, political lobbying, and reservation housing. The sweat lodge that we provide and maintain on church property continues to be a valuable resource for the Indian community, as do sweat lodges at county and state prisons in the area. We work with the Minneapolis Council of Churches' Division of Indian Work (D.I.W.), with members on their board, advising their many programs, including parenting and family violence programs. We also work closely with Winona LaDuke on funding initiatives in the White Earth reservation community.
Service Trips We participate in several yearly and seasonal service trips to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota to share skills and work with the people of the Wounded Knee district. Our Pine Ridge Crafters visit Pine Ridge twice yearly, working with the women and men creating crafts and useful household items from donated materials, once in the spring and once in the fall. Our St. Luke Carpenters spend a week in late summer or early fall on the reservation, working on a variety of home rebuilding and new construction projects. Our Senior High youth trips during October are well attended, and set up key contacts between our youth and the youth and people of Pine Ridge. From 4 to 20 members participate in these popular trips, which are open to all, and afford participants the opportunity to meet with important tribal and community leaders, learn what is going on in these communities, and work with local people.
Prison Work Through the American Indian Focus Group, St. Luke Church has been instrumental in providing an Indian Chaplain/Spiritual Elder at the Hennepin County Adult Correctional facility who counsels Indian inmates and conducts sweat lodge and other traditional Indian ceremonies on the prison grounds. This we fund through our donations to the D.I.W. Our focus group also furnishes firewood delivered on the prison grounds for such sweat ceremonies. After many years of effort toward this end, our Spiritual Elder Program now serves both Indian men and Indian women at this correctional facility in Plymouth. We are working with the Lino Lakes State Corrections Facility in assisting with their sweat lodge program. As our focus group continues to fill financial gaps, lobby and study ways to help reinstate valuable programs for Indian youth and families in 2008, your input and efforts will be useful.
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Pine Ridge
Men's Trip to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation-October 2007
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