April/May/June Loving Native America Newsletter 2024

Hi everyone,
We wanted to share about our past trip, as well as how you can help with a current partnership effort in our work with the Hard Rock Chapter.

On May 6, a team dropped off a load for the Senior Center and the Rocky Ridge Boarding School. This trip, we focused on items that would make the dorms feel more like a home away from home. We brought up items such as floor lamps, area rugs, posters to decorate walls, shoe racks, bath towels, bedding sets, board games, and large storage bins. For the Senior Center, they requested large metal shelving, which we were able to purchase through money donations, as well as a lot of bulk rice and other non-perishable items. While there, we chatted with Verna, who is one of the supervisors of the Senior Center. She shared that the Senior Center is still not open for meals, due to some continued repairs that they are having done.  Verna was very thankful for the donations, reiterating that they use everything that we bring up to them!

It’s that time of the year again! Time for our school supply drive! This will be our fourth year that we will be partnering with Rock Ridge Boarding School to help out with school supplies for the students and teachers. Last year, we were able to raise 91 backpacks, which allowed for a new backpack for every student. This year, our goal is for 75 backpacks, which is how many students they are anticipating for the next school year! Here are the school supply items that we are requesting:

• backpacks
• notebooks
• lined paper
• pencils with erasers
• pencil sharpeners
• markers/crayons/coloring pencils
• staplers
• rulers
• calculators
• glue sticks or bottles
• Other classroom supplies: disinfecting wipes, kleenex, copy paper, dry erase markers, hand sanitizer, construction paper

The next trip is planned for the end of July. Please drop off all donations by Sunday, July 21! You can drop off donations in the church lobby during the week or during Sunday morning services, and make monetary donations at: vineyardgilbert.com/nativeamerica. 

On June 23, Terry Wildman shared an update about their ministry, and he also kicked off our sermon series on the Psalms of Ascent. LISTEN HERE

My much-loved friends, love each other, for love comes from the Great Spirit. All who love have been born of him and know him. Those who do not love do not know him, for the Great Spirit is love. Creator showed his love for us by sending the only Son who fully represents him into this world, so that we could live through him. This is love, not that we loved Creator, but that he loved us and proved his love by sending his Son to take on himself the burden of our broken ways.
My much-loved friends, if Creator loved us like that, then we should also love each other. No one has ever seen the Great Spirit, but as long as we love each other, he remains in us, and his love is made complete in us. We know that we live in him and he lives in us because Creator has shared his Spirit with us. We have seen and now tell you the truth about what our Father the Great Spirit has done. He sent his Son to be the Sacred Deliverer of the world. Those who tell others that Creator Sets Free (Jesus) is the Son of the Great Spirit are the ones Creator lives in, and they live in him.
1 John 4:7-15 (First Nations Version)