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In March we
delivered a load of
goods to Pinon. The people send their thanks to all who donated
clothes, sewing materials and other items.
The Navajo
Nation, like others,
has been battling increasing youth violence since 1996... about the
same time that electricity came to the reservation. Modern
appliances, lights, etc. being a blessing; some other things not so
good.
The
following is taken from a report in the Navajo Times Newspaper:
| In
1996 there were 67 people killed on the
Navajo reservation, when a series of gang-related slayings made
the remote Indian territory one of the deadliest spots in the
country. Over the next five years. while crime rates fell
elsewhere in the U.S. the nation's Indian reservations became even more
dangerous, particularly for teenagers. Isolated, impoverished,
dispirited, disconnected both from their traditional culture and
western society, American Indian youth have grown increasingly violent,
drug dependent and depressed. |
The signs of
youth troubles are seemingly everywhere across America, with a list of
familiar factors to blame...from violent video games and
television programs to broken homes. Among the more than 550
federally recognized tribes, adolescents have even more to contend
with. Indians 12 to 20 years old are 58 percent more likely to
become crime victims than whites and blacks. Indians under 15 are
murdered at a rate twice that of white teenagers. Indian youth commit
suicide at more than twice the rate of non-Indian youth. Deaths
related to alcohol are more than 10 times higher among Indian teens
than those of other races. With jobs scarce on reservations,
poverty and unemployment levels are the highest in the nation.
Alcoholism is an epidemic and domestic violence is soaring. Add
cultural confusion to the mix and you have a generation stuck between
two worlds, says Tom Goodluck, a counselor
at the Four Corners Regional Adolescent Treatment Center in
Shiprock, New Mexico. “I see a lot of young people come in with no
spirituality, no belief in a creator. They don't even know how to
pray. These children are hungry for something.”
The Department
of Justice has a
grant program of $8 million this year to be given to Indian communities
for prevention of violence and substance abuse, but resources are
stretched thin. For example, there is on average just under one
tribal police officer per l,000 residents patrolling the Navajo
reservations 16.2 million acres where 169,000 people live. That
is compared with 2.3 officers per l,000 in comparably sized non-Indian
communities.
The Navajo
Nation, with the
help of some federal funding, built two new facilities in Chinle to
address the youth problem. One, a 48 bed youth detention
facility, was funded in 1989 but was only completed last October. It
remains unopened as tribal leaders squabble over who will operate
it.
Elsewhere
across the
reservation, after-school programs have been implemented to tutor
at-risk
youth. In Chinle, teens conduct community service projects
through Horizons Unlimited.
The real
answer, as we know, is
Jesus Christ. Those that have responded to his call are turning
their lives around and find that which they hunger for the truth of the
Restoration gospel. We have much work to do and it takes prayer and
determination to continue in this battle for the souls of this covenant
people. Many are responding, but the work is hard and the
laborers few.
Now we quote from 3 Nephi as Mormon
is
speaking:
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“....I am
Mormon, and a pure
descendant of Lehi. I have reason to bless my God and my savior
Jesus Christ that he brought our fathers out of the land of Jerusalem
(and no one knew it save it were himself and those whom he brought out
of that land), and that he hath given me and my people so much
knowledge unto the salvation of our souls.
Surely he hath
blessed
the house of Jacob, and hath been merciful unto the seed of
Joseph ...yea, and surely shall he again bring a remnant of the seed of
Joseph to the knowledge of the Lord their God.
And as surely
as the Lord
liveth will he gather in from the four quarters of the earth, all
the remnant of the seed of Jacob, who are scattered abroad upon
all the face of the earth.
And as he
hath covenanted with
all the house of Jacob, even so shall the covenant wherewith he
hath covenanted with the house of Jacob, be fulfilled
in
his own due time, unto the restoring all the house of Jacob unto the
knowledge of the covenant that he hath covenanted with them; And
then shall they know their Redeemer, who is Jesus Christ, the Son of
God.”
III Nephi
2:102-109
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