HUNTINGTON – On Sunday, the First Congregational Church (UCC) at Norwich Hill and UCC churches throughout North America celebrated American Indian Ministry. Norwich Hill observed the day with a special offering, Native American hymns, and crafts by a local artisan celebrating the Native American heritage.
During the service, Rev. Carol B. Smith said she reached out to one of the UCC pastors in the Dakota Association, Rev. Michael Kills Pretty Enemy. She said he pastors three small churches every Sunday, that are 50 miles apart. One church that burned down in a prairie fire meets in a home. He also runs a horse farm and sells hay, although this year he had to sell some horses. She said the churches, which average 15 in their congregations, sing to drums instead of an organ. The pastor explained to her that the drumbeat is a heartbeat – the first sound a child hears, and the last. When the heart stops beating, life stops.
Liturgist Lori Belhumeur and Rev. Carol B. Smith look on as Chester woodcarver Ron Messier talks about the symbolism of the Kachina dolls during the American Indian service at Norwich Hill on Sunday.
Smith said that Rev. Kills Pretty Enemy also teaches the Lakota language to preschoolers up to 2nd grade. He said he is proud to teach the language, because it is dying. Like many other children, he told Smith he was sent away to a white school, where he was taught to hate the language “with a whistle and a rubber hose,” Smith said.
The offering taken during the service was “Neighbors in Need,” one-third of which goes to the Council for American Indian Ministry (www.caim.org), which she said pays the pastors’ salaries. She said the offerings in the churches themselves average $1 or $2 dollars a Sunday. Smith said she was also told it is not uncommon for a pastor on the reservation to bury 8 young people to suicide a year. She said the UCC ministry is about unity, healing and reconciliation with the past.
Rev. Kills Pretty Enemy’s churches are in the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, which was recently the center of a large and long protest against the Dakota Access pipeline, which threatens their water supply. Smith said he told her the protest is over, the pipeline has been pumping since March, and there have already been two leaks.
Also serving as liturgist in the service on Sunday was Huntington resident Lori Belhumeur, who has been involved year-round in a ministry with Little Eagle church in South Dakota for many years. Several times a year, Belhumeur organizes shipments of clothes, bedding and offerings to buy propane to heat the church. In 2007, Belhumeur visited the congregation for the first time, and was invited back the next year when she received an Indian name, ”She who keeps the Fire burning.” Norwich Hill has had a relationship with the Little Eagle church since the 90’s.
Local woodworker and church member Ron Messier of Chester also brought wood carvings that he has done over the years to celebrate Native American heritage, including Kachina dolls representing Native American religious symbols.
The service ended with the singing of Amazing Grace, first played in the Lakota language, and then sung by the congregation in English.
