5000 Miles to Despair
By Rachel Anderson-Vieau
Native Americans have become a forgotten people of our land. Most Crown alumni have limited contact with them, except perhaps for missions trips or driving past a casino, as Native Americans live in areas that many never step into. Yet, Jack Droste, a student in the Adult & Graduate Studies (AGS) program has dedicated his resources, time and energy to serve the Native Americans in a unique way.
It’s a haul from Florida to South Dakota in anyone’s book. But a 5,000 mile round-trip drive, multiple times each year, for 12 years? Now that’s a commitment. For Pastor Jack Droste and his wife Nancy, they attribute their motivations for making the trips to Jesus’ words in Matthew 25 – words which set them on a life-changing journey:
“For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.” (NLT)
During their years of travel, from 1995 to 2005, Jack and Nancy organized fifteen short-term mission trips to Indian reservations for the Navajo of New Mexico and the Oglala Lakota Sioux of South Dakota. They collected clothing, sporting equipment for the church school, toys at Christmas, and completed work projects at various churches.
What compelled them to travel such distances for ministry? Jack said he knows of no other response than what Isaiah had so long ago, ‘Here I am Lord, send me.’
“I am no Isaiah! I don’t claim to be,” said Jack. “But each [time] we would just settle in for the hours of driving that took us [there] and back, and enjoyed His creation along the way.” Much like the prophets of old, the Drostes do not have the financial support of a church or sending agency, so what they do in ministry is directly affected by the ways God blesses them financially.
In the summer of 2005, after much prayer and discernment, the Drostes sold their home in Florida and moved to Rapid City, South Dakota. They wanted to minister on a more permanent basis. “So many people thought we were crazy for moving out here with no jobs,” said Nancy. “It was a big step of faith, but God has not let us down yet.” 
Their ministry began in Wounded Knee, a town of much history. “Rapid City was a short drive of only 92 miles each way. However, there were some weeks we found ourselves making this drive two and three times during the week,” said Jack. “Because of the extreme poverty on the reservation, we ended up having to live in Rapid City, so we could get jobs to pay the bills, and then drive down to the church on weekends.
”Near the end of July 2007, Jack was asked to be the part-time pastor in White River, a 325 mile round-trip from Rapid City. The church would otherwise close, so the Drostes agreed to fill in. They left Wounded Knee, and for close to six months put the miles on their car and gas in the tank to care for the believers in White River. In January 2008, the Drostes moved to White River for Jack to become the full-time pastor.
Living near the reservation now enables Jack and Nancy to have daily contact with the needs there. The reservation is located in both Shannon and Jackson counties, and while Jackson does not rank well as the twenty-third1 poorest county in the entire United States, Shannon ranks lower yet as the second poorest county in the nation. If this eighth largest reservation were viewed as an independent nation,
it would rank in poverty-status second only to Haiti.2
“It appeared in many ways, God had prepared us for just such a ministry as this,” said Jack, referring to his experience with living in poverty as a child.
For the Lakota, there simply is not much industry near Pine Ridge Reservation. The closest Wal-Mart or Target is over 50 miles away, many are without cars, and the region is inadequate for farming. Yet Jack believes there is also an ingrained cycle of dependency on the U.S. government, put in place by the government when reservations were established. This dependency keeps many tied to taxpayer dollars for day-to-day living, a demeaning and self-defeating cycle. While government support does not make them wealthy, it leaves little motivation to do better. Jack notes that even the church is viewed as a place for hand-outs (food, clothing and even cash) rather than worship, spiritual help and true relationship,
and without true heart-change the problems will remain.
The physical needs for the Lakota are serious. In the poorest town on the reservation many of the homes have no refrigerators, no heat or insulation, no stoves and no running water, with the floors being mostly of dirt. These conditions may be hard to imagine, yet Jack and Nancy are proof that things are being done by God’s grace and guidance. Jack has made connections with a food bank in Rapid
City allowing them to purchase food at $0.18/lb. They collect clothing from outside groups, and the local furniture store has given them thirty to forty mattresses
and box springs.
There is also a spiritual poverty hanging over the reservation. The emptiness
that alcoholism leaves—absent parents coupled with spiritual confusion and a
lack of connectedness—is causing many youth to despair. Suicide rates of young
Native Americans are among the highest in the world, with neighboring Rosebud
Reservation counting 201 suicides per 100,000 in 2007 for males age 15 to
24. Compare that with 11 or 12 per 100,000 as a national average for the
United States.3
A Different ReligionThe Native American religion incorporates many gods, including: Mother Earth, Father Sky, the Four Winds, the Indian Flute, the Peace Pipe and Indian Drums. Worship is ultimately offered to the great spirit, and religious ceremonies (formal Sweat Dances, Pow Wows, Sun Dances) are often a testament to their faith. These gods and practices are age-old, yet Romans 1:19-24 gives insight into their origination. Paul’s plain words speak to those who would rather worship creation than their Creator; the traditional beliefs and practices make Christ’s grace difficult to grasp.
According to Jack, many Natives believe that Christianity does not answer their questions or meet their needs, and feel that to become Christian is to lose their heritage. They see a religion divided within itself, with so many denominations all believing in the same person. Unfortunately, the church holds responsibility for some of the animosity. “Over one hundred years ago, the church came in on the heels of the government and essentially wanted to take everything out of the Indians in order to make them Christians,” said Jack. “But it was more to make them white.”
Those who converted were forced to give up their language, hairstyles and names, among other things. The change requirements left many without a spiritual connection; if they did not practice their tribal religion, they had nowhere to turn.
“They’ve been hurt so many times and have lost trust. They are going back to the Indian ways of spirituality,” said Jack. “How does the church effectively tell them that they can have Jesus as a Savior and give up their religious ways, but do not have to become like a white man?”
Nine years into their ministry, Jack found Crown: “It is only because of the nature of the online program that I have been able to pursue my studies. Without this program, I would not have been able to finish my undergraduate degree.” While he has yet to meet a Native American who is impressed by the fact that he has a degree behind his name, Jack fully understands that doors are open to him because of those degrees. “I have always been a firm believer in the thought that college is not as much about what you learn as it is about the fact that it teaches and helps you to develop the hunger and drive to learn,” said Jack. He may have forgotten specific concepts, but says, “I now know the joy of exploring and ‘learning how to learn’ from Crown’s professors; lessons that will go with me to the final days of my life.”
“There were times he wanted to quit, but I encouraged him not to,” said Nancy. “He has received his B.A. and now is going for his master’s. It’s been a blessing for him to be able to do the classes online, which has made it easier for him to finish.”
A unique bond exists between the Drostes; Nancy’s support of Jack’s calling coincides with his honor of her as his beautiful wife – and they work together in everything. “Without Nancy’s involvement and support, I would not have the ministry here I am blessed to be a part of. I would not have made the move here from Florida. I would not have been able to finish the studies which she has pushed me to complete. This ministry here is as much hers as it is mine. Without her by my side, my ministry and service to God would be incomplete.”
Relationships: EssentialJack’s passionate motivation is relationships, the venue through which he believes God can be most active. Consider Charlie, a man Jack now considers a close friend. He had asked for Jack’s help to get running water in his mobile home, heated only by a little wood burning stove in the middle of the living room, where he lived with his daughter and three grand-children.
“I like to think that because of the time I spent with Charlie on those cold September nights, helping him to have running water in his house, I was able to earn a little of his respect and to then further minister to him later on.” That hope materialized just a few months later when one of Charlie’s daughters was killed in a car accident. He specifically asked Jack and Nancy to be at the funeral. “I am continually amazed at how the Native Americans have accepted me into their lives when they are generally quite skeptical of ‘white people.’”
As Jack lives out his faith, he sees that Jesus’ words in Matthew do not imply that Christians meet physical needs for the sake of meeting physical needs. He believes the key message is lived out in showing honor and respect to others while meeting their needs, which may ‘earn’ us the right to share Christ’s message of hope with them when the time comes.
“In my ministry with both the Anglos and the Native Americans of my church, and of the nearby reservation, I believe the most important aspect is found in the relationships we work on building. Hopefully these are based on the heart of a servant leader,” said Jack. “The old saying: ‘I don’t care how much you know until I know how much you care’ is very true here, working with the Native Americans.”
1 www.answers.com/topic/lowest-income-counties-in-the-united-states
2 en.wikedia.org/wiki/pine_ridge_indian_reservation
3 www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?aid= /20080921/reservationssuicide/309210003/1001/rss
