Learning From Our Ponca Nation Brothers and Sisters

BY MARLYS CERVANTES

One of the greatest beauties of relationships between different congregations who worship Christ is the openness to learn from one another. Ponca City First United Methodist Church has a yearly dinner with a sister church, Ponca Indian United Methodist Church, a smaller church that resides just outside of town with a lovely congregation.

According to pastor Leon Veazey of PCFUMC, “Pastor James White, his lovely wife, his son, his family, and the beautiful people of Ponca Indian United Methodist Church have a vital relationship with First United Methodist Church in Ponca City that goes back many years. Every year they visit with our congregation, and now with the Presbyterian church which is in ecumenical partnership with us, and they share music and testimonies and words of great wisdom!”

There is a logistical benefit to this meeting. They come and cook a wonderful meal at our weekly Wednesday Night Live event one week, usually including Indian tacos that we all love. Their members serve the meal and then sit and enjoy it with us. Our members donate for the meal and the funds go to their church. In the past, there have been specific major needs for their church; other times, regular upkeep. Funds are always helpful. I will tell you, they are always appreciative, but we gain so much more from their visit than they likely do from us, especially the times when they are a larger part of the evening. Even after almost a year between the last time the members of Ponca Indian UMC had been to FUMC, Rev. James White greeted every one of our members as they came into the fellowship hall as if he sees them every week. His joy at having fellowship easily rubs off on all who enter that evening, and he has longer talks with many who come in as the food is finished being prepared by his church members, young and old alike.

“We feel a connection, which is a good Methodist word, when we come to your church, a brotherhood and sisterhood,” Rev. White said. “We are always welcomed into your kitchen. Making ourselves at home in your home is always the comfortable feeling we have.”

On some of our best evenings together, the members from Ponca Indian UMC sing hymns in the Ponca language. It is beautiful and meaningful. Last year, they even brought Rev. Dr. Louis Headman, who discussed the importance of members of the tribe learning the language, which had become spoken by only a few until he and other elders began teaching younger members. Several of the tribal members who came along discussed the various songs they would sing, what they meant, their importance. It was wonderful to see the different generations of tribal members sing together.

What do we learn in spending this time together? Besides the beauty of the language and the wonder of how it can feel so easy to be together when we only do so about once a year, there is great joy in seeing this wonderful culture thriving in our very own community. A revival of a language, a growing of a people, and a sharing with us that makes our spirits sing along with theirs.

When I am able to enjoy someone else’s culture and traditions, I always think about my own. I yearn for more. I think about Kiowa author N. Scott Momaday, who said, “I sometimes think the contemporary white American is more culturally deprived than the Indian.”

Sometimes, I wonder. We are deprived if we don’t hold on to the traditions of our past. - the love of family, the faith of our ancestors.

Rev. Veazey explains it this way, “Indigenous peoples have a greater understanding of spirituality than many of us Western European Christians because they understand the immanence of God and experience that reality more openly and freely than traditional Christianity from a European paradigm of faith. The Immanence of God is the truth that God is in everything in creation: the tree, the soil, the sky, the bird, the child, and everything that the Creator originated. This is not to be confused with pantheism, which is a belief that the tree, the bird, the air, etc., is god, but rather God, who created it all is connected to it, and it to all other life through God’s immanent presence. This was a hallmark of John Wesley’s belief, Wesley being the founder of Methodism, and it connects so well with the Indigenous experience of God in this way.”

We should remember our Indigenous sisters and brothers preceded us in Methodism in Oklahoma, in that the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference is older than the Oklahoma

Annual Conference. Rev. Veazey said, “Rev. White and his congregation serve to remind us of our connection to God, creation, and each other in deeply spiritual ties. I am grateful for our relationship with the Ponca Indian United Methodist Church.”

Remember where you came from, remember what they believed in, remember wherein lies your strength. I do believe the treasure we have should be in our relationships and how we can build them even stronger by sharing our cultures with others. Let’s. Let’s look to one another to learn.