When There's Nothing Left to Hold - #8642
February 25, 2020
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It was a stark picture of what's happening on Indian reservations across this country. It was the funeral of another Native American young person. There are so many of them, and I've been to too many of them. Their number one cause of death is accidental death. It's often attributable to alcohol or drugs, honestly, followed by suicide, and then homicide. Seventy-five percent of Native young people die a violent death, and James was one of those. Our On Eagles' Wings team of Native young people had brought the hope that they have found in Jesus Christ to his reservation. Later, James and his brother actually traveled with our team to other reservations in the early years of our ministry there. But one deadly night, James became one of those awful statistics. We were honored to be invited by his family to the wake, the funeral and the burial in a small tribal cemetery. The men there stepped up to the open grave and they threw a handful of dirt on James' casket. Then most of the folks there left, except for his family and a few close friends. We stayed. There was a large, homemade wooden cross at the head of the grave. I'll never forget the scene of James' brother, visibly just shattered by shock and grief, hugging and just resting all his weight on that cross, like hanging onto it for dear life.
