August 2025 Helping Hard Rock Update
School Supply Drive Recap: July
This year our annual school supply drive opened up from partnering with just the Rocky Ridge Boarding School, to the rest of the Hard rock community. Leadership had asked for clear backpacks specifically, due to changes in security requirements in their schools. We were able to raise 100 clear backpacks, as well as lots of school supplies. High school and college-aged kids from the Youth Summer Program, led by Eugenia, met us to unload the van. They were then planning to sort through the supplies later that day to be distributed to the community.
For the Hard Rock Senior Center, we brought up large racks of ribs from our food pantry, serving trays, nonperishable food items such as flour, and appliances that they had requested in the past (slow cooker and coffee bean grinder), as well as a fan for an elder in the community who is living alone and when the Senior Center driver visited him, they found him covered in sweat because he had no means of cooling. We met with Sherlinda (driver) and Vernon (manager), and they shared that they were back to serving meals in the Chapter House instead of the Senior Center, as their water heater was broken. They were hoping to get it up and running in August. They also shared that since funds were still sparse, they hadn’t been able to go grocery shopping for two weeks, and were depending on the supplies we had brought up during the last trip.
While we were at the Chapter House, we were invited by Eugenia to visit the nearby church (Navajo Gospel Mission), where the Christian Veterinary Mission (CVM) were currently there for the week. CVM is an organization that sends voluntary veterinary professionals and students on short and long term missions to provide veterinary medicine to communities most in need. A group of about 35 volunteers were at Hard Rock for the week, providing mostly preventative care to the animals of the people in the community. We met Donna, the pastor’s wife of the mission, and she gave us a little history of the buildings of that property, some dating back to the 1920s. She invited us to lunch, where we connected with some of the volunteers, including a veterinarian friend of Pastor Joel who he hadn’t seen in about 10 years! She showed us around the property, where they were performing surgeries on animals in a trailer that did not have electricity or running water. We also met with the CEO of CVM, who also happened to be part of a Vineyard! He prayed for our team before we headed back on our four-hour drive back to Gilbert. It was truly a trip filled with divine meetings and connections!
For the Hard Rock Senior Center, we brought up large racks of ribs from our food pantry, serving trays, nonperishable food items such as flour, and appliances that they had requested in the past (slow cooker and coffee bean grinder), as well as a fan for an elder in the community who is living alone and when the Senior Center driver visited him, they found him covered in sweat because he had no means of cooling. We met with Sherlinda (driver) and Vernon (manager), and they shared that they were back to serving meals in the Chapter House instead of the Senior Center, as their water heater was broken. They were hoping to get it up and running in August. They also shared that since funds were still sparse, they hadn’t been able to go grocery shopping for two weeks, and were depending on the supplies we had brought up during the last trip.
While we were at the Chapter House, we were invited by Eugenia to visit the nearby church (Navajo Gospel Mission), where the Christian Veterinary Mission (CVM) were currently there for the week. CVM is an organization that sends voluntary veterinary professionals and students on short and long term missions to provide veterinary medicine to communities most in need. A group of about 35 volunteers were at Hard Rock for the week, providing mostly preventative care to the animals of the people in the community. We met Donna, the pastor’s wife of the mission, and she gave us a little history of the buildings of that property, some dating back to the 1920s. She invited us to lunch, where we connected with some of the volunteers, including a veterinarian friend of Pastor Joel who he hadn’t seen in about 10 years! She showed us around the property, where they were performing surgeries on animals in a trailer that did not have electricity or running water. We also met with the CEO of CVM, who also happened to be part of a Vineyard! He prayed for our team before we headed back on our four-hour drive back to Gilbert. It was truly a trip filled with divine meetings and connections!
What’s Next for our partnership with Hard Rock?
We are hoping to have our next load focus on the Senior Center again in September, where we hope to bring up as many nonperishible food items as we can! They are requesting:
Drop off items in our new Hard Rock room off the church lobby, during our office hours or Sunday morning service. You can make monetary donations via the link below:
- #10 cans of fruits and vegetables
- Aluminum foil
- Paper towels
- Face masks
- Trash bags (33 gallon and 13 gallon)
- Coffee creamer
- Sweet n low
- Bottled water
- Paper plates
- Plasticware
- Flour
- Egg noodles
- Cream of mushroom soup
- Alfredo sauce
Drop off items in our new Hard Rock room off the church lobby, during our office hours or Sunday morning service. You can make monetary donations via the link below:
Partnership with Not Our Native Daughters
Founded by one of our own, Lynette Greybull, Not Our Native Daughters is an organization created to address the Missing, Murdered, and Exploited Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) crisis. We have been meeting with their leadership team regularly through zoom to connect and pray for each other. We would like to raise money to buy First Nation Version Bibles for the organization to be able to gift to their community. If you’d like to donate to our fund drive for bibles, click below:
Matthew 6:9-13 (First Nations Version)
Instead, when you send your voice to the Great Spirit, here is how you should pray:
“O Great Spirit, our Father from above, we honor your name as sacred and holy. Bring your good road to us, where the beauty of your ways in the spirit world above is reflected in the earth below.
Provide for us day by day - the elk, the buffalo, and the salmon. The corn, the squash, and the wild rice. All the things we need for each day.
Release us from the things we have done wrong, in the same way we release others for the things done wrong to us.
Guide us away from the things that tempt us to stray from your good road, and set us free from the evil one and his worthless way. Aho! May it be so!”
Instead, when you send your voice to the Great Spirit, here is how you should pray:
“O Great Spirit, our Father from above, we honor your name as sacred and holy. Bring your good road to us, where the beauty of your ways in the spirit world above is reflected in the earth below.
Provide for us day by day - the elk, the buffalo, and the salmon. The corn, the squash, and the wild rice. All the things we need for each day.
Release us from the things we have done wrong, in the same way we release others for the things done wrong to us.
Guide us away from the things that tempt us to stray from your good road, and set us free from the evil one and his worthless way. Aho! May it be so!”
Posted in Helping the Navajo Nation