Summer of 2012 proved to be yet another summer of heart transformation on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. As YWAM Minneapolis Mission Adventures we have been taking groups out to South Dakota to serve the native people for 6 years and each year we see more fruit! Four groups were sent off from the Minneapolis YWAM base and came back having been used and transformed on the reservation this summer.
“Pine Ridge opened my eyes to suffering in America”, one student wrote. Most of our time on the reservation is spent in a town named Allen where we help out full time missionaries who live there. Groups that go to Allen help to lead a Vacation Bible School for the kids, help out in practical ways around the property and also get the chance to travel to Whiteclay, NE to experience the streets and talk to the people that call them home. To hear more about Whiteclay read one of our staff member’s accounts from this summer – Facebook notes - Midnight, Nebraska . We try to focus our attention on building relationships with the children in order to show them God’s love, a form of affection they have never experienced.
“I went to pick up kids in Allen. This girl named Elesha was waiting so patiently for us to go to her house. When we pulled up she started dancing and was so happy we came.”Many of the students who come to Allen have never witnessed living conditions like those of the children who come to the Vacation Bible School. “It was a very impactful experience. Seeing the conditions that the people here have to live in and how much they are hurting was sobering. It was fun to interact with the kids and show them love.”
These are some of the things that God taught our students in Pine Ridge this summer: “Importance of listening to His voice and following His lead, it’s ok to have a broken heart for others, America is just as much of a mission field as Haiti, His love for me is unconditional & it’s important that I receive that love so I can give it to others, prayer is easy.”
In front of this cross you see posts, each post has a word painted on it - strongholds over the reservation along with things Christ has already overcome. This is a place of prayer and peace to bring petitions to God.
YWAM San Diego/Baja | 
Photo by Martine TonnessenA couple of months ago, I got wind that Hedmarktoppen school in Norway was traveling to Mexico - to the base in Tijuana. Even though I am no longer working with YWAM and just go to school in San Diego, I pulled a few strings and was allowed to come down to help with “X-sport” team. Rumors would have it that the leader of that group was one of my friends from back home. The rumors were true!
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