Stryper and Striping

Today started off with an amazing breakfast by Catelyn, CJ, and Maria involving breakfast bagels filled with cheese, eggs, bacon, and breakfast sausage, as well as fruit and juice.  We then went next door to the Navajo ministry building for their staff meeting at 8:00am and met the rest of the staff and the current president, Raymond.  He was a very funny Navajo man and “Everyone loves Raymond!  He gave us a tour of the building that had three or four massive murals on the walls of the local scenery and pointed out the symbolism and hidden pictures that were in it.  For example, the founder’s favorite bible verse was written out in some scattered rocks on the ground and there’s a pastor in the leaves of a tree with the faces of the congregation in the next tree to the right.  It was very interesting!

We then got to go inside their radio station, Vertical Radio 88.9 and they put us on the air to talk about our school and the VBS program we are doing this week.  It was so cool!  The DJ was very funny and they have the number one radio station in the area.  They used to be $20,000 in the red and almost shut down back in 1995, but they did a music style switch and in six months they were 20,000 in the black.  They play all different types and styles of Christian music now including hip hop, rock (like Stryper), contemporary, etc. and are very popular! CJ, Jesse, and Tyler got to sit in the interview chairs with headphones and talk on the air while the rest of us stood behind them.  The DJ called CJ a natural at this and he really loved Jesse’s deep voice.  Maybe these guys have a future in radio?!
After the radio time, we got after our service project. I made the mistake of assuming that they knew how to paint and quickly found myself giving individual lessons on what to do.  They didn’t lack for enthusiasm though and worked hard at painting the stripes on the upper parking lot.  The original stripes were nearly gone but there was enough there to give them a guideline about where to go.  There were also two speed bumps to paint.  The difficult part, was that there were a lot of little holes in the surface and it was hard to get paint into them with the rollers, so it didn’t look very clean.  We then switched to brushes which worked much better.  After a break for lunch, we did the same thing in the lower parking lot, but this time, it was using white paint.  The kids did a great job and the staff really liked the result. Now, no one has any excuse for parking in the wrong spot!

We had dinner at 5:00 pm with the house parents and their kids from the girls house.  The boys house was on a trip for a few days and they will be back on Wednesday.  It was fun to meet the young kids ranging in age from 6 months to 16 years old.  There were some strange things that happened, though. They wouldn’t give us their name when we asked for it and called themselves things like acorn, or barn, or Jeff when it was a girl.  We had to find out their real names from their house parents.  After dinner, though, they asked us to play games with them and our students had a great time.

Navajo ministries arranged for Ben Stoner to come by and talk with our group after dinner regarding Navajo culture.  He was very interesting and we learned a lot.  For example, if you ask a Navajo person a direct question, it is very rude.  If you ask their name, they will often not give it to you and make something up.  Until they get to know you, they are not very trusting.  You can also tell this by the type of handshake they give you.  You don’t do the handshake by shaking either.  Sometimes they will grip your hand, sometimes they just put their hand into yours but not grip it, and other times they may grip your hand and also pinch with the thumb.  It just depends on how well they know you.  If you are really good friends, they will talk with you without letting go of your hand.  No wonder we had such problems earlier!  Now, we have to do a little rethinking regarding our skits and VBS nametags!  He suggested that on day two, just lay out the nametags and let them find their own.  If you ask for their name, you won’t find it because they will make something up.  Also, we have to keep a close watch on our personal items, because in their culture, if something is just laying around, it is community property and they will take it.

What an amazing evening!  Tomorrow may prove to be even more interesting than we were imagining!


Mr. Worthington