By Christian Jagitsch
Every year, Oklahoma Academy sets aside a week for students to go out and do outreach. This year some boys went to Arizona to provide services on a Navajo reservation. Over a week, we did everything from wood splitting to a health expo. On Tuesday, we hosted a kid's program for the Navajo children. At first, we only expected to see five or six kids come. In the end, we had twenty-one children in total. The story of how this happened inspired me.
At about five o'clock, Mr. Anderson and I went to pick up some Navajo kids who needed a ride to the program. Our list only contained about three houses, and only two families actually answered the door. After picking up four kids, we started to make our way out of the neighborhood. One of the teenagers in the van informed us that there were many more kids in the community who they thought would come. We turned the van around and then, by the lead of the Navajo kids, started picking up random children. This, to me, was a foreign concept. In the rest of America, you would never see a parent let their child go with a complete stranger to a random kids program but here we were: a van chock full of Navajo youth. Even the trunk was full!
We did many activities with the Navajo, including crafts, games, singing, and stories. At the end of the program, Caleb told the story of the prodigal son and how he came back home. Then he asked the kids if they wanted Jesus as their dad, and in a single motion, all the kids raised their hands. This touched me. Navajo people are receptive to Christianity, but they do not like the way most Christians push it. After seeing this with my own eyes, I cannot but wonder how many more people there are in the world like that. Here we are, sitting in our comfortable homes when there is a world waiting eagerly to hear the good message of salvation. How long will you wait to answer the call?