Linda mentioned the rainbow appearing above the hills on that first night. It was beautiful, but my first impression of the beauty of this amazing land, came as the sun was just about set. I looked out of the van to my right and, not far away, I saw a red glow above the outline of the Black Hills. I immediately thought of my camera, but we went too fast to take a photo. It took my breath away and was my first inkling that God was truly present there. My second feeling of God’s presence was also at what the Native American’s call Potato Creek. We were up on a hill looking down into this small valley of yellow and green trees, a peaceful setting with no hint of the poverty of the res. Fred told us a story of a meeting and conversation he had with God as he sat on that hill and I really believe that he did because I felt HIM there myself.

The Wounded Knee Memorial site was a mystic and spiritual place. The weather was appropriate for the moment – windy and cold as it must have been the day of the massacre, except there was no snow when we were there. As I stood there behind the fence and looked at the stone memorial with the names written into it and then at what Fred called the mass grave, I felt a chill go through me. The chill was not because of the weather, but because in the quiet, I thought I heard voices speaking to me, but I’m sure it was just the wind blowing through the trees.

Linda has already covered much of what else I have to say, so I’ll be brief with the rest of my narrative. The reservation itself is vast, 337 MILLION acres – about 526,563 square miles, composed of nine districts (small communities) spread throughout the reservation. Linda and I were given a tour of the entire res. It took several hours to cover and if my notes and memory are correct, we drove through each of the nine districts. Think of it – 526,563 sq. mi. for Gail and Frederick to cover when visiting their clients, the Mom’s. There’s no transit system, no buses to take the Mom’s to the Healthy Start office. The Mom’s have to depend on others to take them in for their appointments, or Gail and Frederick have to visit them in their homes. They don’t all live in the same small area, they’re spread out over the entire reservation. When Fred told us that a visit to a client could sometimes take an entire day, he wasn’t kidding. It took us hours to drive the perimeter of the reservation. I had noticed that in Rapid City, the price of gas was about $2.60, so I will assume it’s the same on the res. $2.60 may not sound like much to those on the east or west coasts, but think of all the gas they must use driving those endless miles. $2.60 is expensive when you have nothing.

Linda mentioned our special luncheon of fried bread and buffalo vegetable soup. Both were homemade from scratch, the soup with fresh, garden grown vegetables, and yes, real buffalo meat. So good!! What an honor for us to be treated this way by people we didn’t even know. Some of Healthy Start’s clients came in while we were there, some to partake of the meal and some to pick up items they needed. In addition to what Linda mentioned being needed, Fred said the Mom’s badly need winter jackets, sizes XL up to 2X. The winters there are brutal, sometimes going down to 56 degrees below zero. Things come to a standstill at that temperature, even the schools are closed.

Linda also spoke of the Pine Ridge Hospital, which is no longer adequate to handle the medical needs for all the people on the res. Another thing I found sad is that all the doctors and nurses are recruitments from outside the res; none of them are Native American. A high percentage of kids on the res are high school dropouts - no chance for a scholarship to go the medical school so they can become doctors and come back to treat their own. I think they feel there are no jobs to be had so why bother to finish high school. Fred told us that a lot of the teachers in the schools there are woefully inept at encouraging and instilling a desire to learn in their students. Another reason why kids drop out.

We spent most of Saturday driving the entire reservation. As I said, it is vast. We drive miles upon miles without seeing anything. A lot of the land is owned by non-Native Americans and used for grazing cattle. I asked Fred the question that, if he owned the land, would he leave it the way it is, or would he develop it. He said he would leave some of it alone and he would build on the rest, homes or schools, perhaps, which would give not just education and housing, but also jobs to his people. Just a hypothetical question, of course, because that will never happen.

Now we come to the highlight of our trip. Saturday night. Fred placed two chairs in the middle of his living room for Linda and I. He made us sit in them and explained he was going to do a blessing ritual, something he only does for special people. He took out a large feather and lit something that smelled like incense and began to say the blessing in English. He prayed for us and our families, asking God to look upon us, to give good health to us and our loved ones. He then repeated the prayer in Lakota and then took the feather and began first waving it back and forth in front of us. Then he went around behind us and I could feel the feather causing just the slightest breeze on my neck.. He came around to the front of us again and placed the feather close to the floor continually waving as he backed away from us. Fred explained that he was wiping away our pasts and clearing a new path for us to start out fresh and new. It’s hard to put into words how clean and free of my past sins I felt. It was both spiritually uplifting and moving. Both Linda and I cried. We felt so special and loved by this family we had met just three days before.

By the time Sunday morning came, I was anxious to be going home. I was missing my family. Yet at the same time, I also felt as though I was leaving family behind. I have never met people I felt so comfortable with from the moment of meeting, as though we had always been friends. Fred took us a different way to the airport. It took us past a small canyon in the Badlands right at the side of the road. What an awesome sight it was. After I had taken a photo and before getting back in the van, I looked one last time at the canyon. I imagined the way the country must have looked about 150 years ago, with buffalo roaming free. I saw an encampment of people, with smoke billowing out of the tops of their tipis, children playing, people living off the land, but yet respecting it at the same time. We left then and continued our drive. At the airport, we were talking and then suddenly my flight was called and I had to rush off. There were tears in my eyes and a fullness in my heart that I still have today. Four days later and I have still not come back down to earth. In my heart, I’m still with my friends on the reservation. We were invited to come back and I intend to do that sooner rather than later.