Trying to have Faith Like a Child

Sunday, June 08, 2008

I finally made it to the Cookson Hills Center. After months of wondering where I was going to be this summer and what is was going to be like—I am actually here!

Some facts I learned today:

American Indians are the second poorest people in the Western Hemisphere. Hatians are the first.

Oklahoma is one of the three poorest states in the US. Louisiana and Alabama are the other poorest.

The area I’m living in is the 7th highest methamphetamine producing place in the country.

Driving back from the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Annual Conference was really interesting. I rode over Oklahoma’s largest lake, rode by Carrie Underwood’s hometown, Checotah, and saw many, many miles of open country.

I’m living in an older trailer at the Cookson Hills Center with Anna. After we settled in, I walked around the center a bit. It’s beautiful out here. However, I discovered that I shouldn’t walk around in flip flops outside after I stepped on a yellow jacket—very painful. I called Anna right after it happened and she helped me out.

Anna and I cooked Hamburger Helper for dinner. It actually turned out really well. We get 2 and a half TV stations and do not have wireless internet.

I feel like I’ve been so blind to the suffering that goes on in the world. Meri Whitaker, our supervisor, was telling us that there are people in this area who live on $2,000 a year. Can you believe that? She said 36% of the children that Cookson Hills serves go to bed hungry each night. There is a program here called Pack n’ Snack. Children get backpacks full of food like tuna and crackers, beef jerkey, etc. and take it home with them so they can have food to eat. Meri said that some of the children eat their food under their beds so their parents won’t take it.

There is a Cherokee children’s choir at Cookson and a local church invited the children to come sing during its service. After the children sang, the church offered to feed the children lunch and bought buckets of chicken for the children to eat. A woman from the church tried to get some of the kids to take off their coats, but they insisted they wanted to keep them on. The woman pointed out to Meri that one of the little girl’s was really hungry because she had gone back up quite a bit to get pieces of chicken. Meri told us that some of the children were sticking the chicken in their coats so they would have food to eat later.

Isn’t that disgusting? Not that the children were putting chicken in their coats, but that we can allow this to happen. I can’t fathom how much injustice is in this world.

Meredith