Our Mission: An Overview
We Encourage, We Tell The Stories and We Provide Financial Support for Ministry
We Encourage
Being a source of encouragement runs through all of the work of the Red Mesa Foundation. The leaders in Red Mesa churches often feel isolated, sometimes hearing more discouraging than uplifting words in a given day. Trends have shifted in the government and church from full financial support to limited or no financial support. In this new environment, some church leaders and members can feel a bit abandoned. The Red Mesa Foundation stands with our Native American Christian brothers and sisters, communicating that God has not abandoned them and that they are important ambassadors of his love and grace in their communities.
We Tell the Stories of What God is Doing in Red Mesa
Many times throughout the Bible, God tells his people to witness to what he has done in their lives. The Red Mesa News is one way for Christian Native Americans in Red Mesa to proclaim how God is working in their lives and ministries. The Red Mesa News goes out three times a year to a mailing list of interested people in the broader Christian community and also to each of the Red Mesa Churches and Missions.
We Raise and Distribute Financial Support for Christian Native American Ministries
The Red Mesa Foundation is involved with the following efforts to provide funding for important Ministry effort:
Christian Native American Leadership Training
Through the Red Mesa Foundation, Classis Red Mesa provides scholarships that enable members of Classis Red Mesa to participate in conferences and workshops. It is enabling Randy Freeland, a young Navajo church leader to work on his seminary degree through taking classes on-line. Several people from Red Mesa, including two Rehoboth Christian School students attended the Calvin Worship Symposium in January 2007. As a follow-up from that experience, Rehoboth Christian Reformed Church hosted a workshop on drama in worship, attended by over 60 Red Mesa church members. Most of the seed money for this fund came through the Southwest Bible and Missionary Conference.
Grassroots Church Building Effort
The Red Mesa Foundation is supporting the efforts of the Toyee Congregation to build a modest building where they can welcome the community. Their goal is to have at least enough money to put in the foundation this summer.
Pensions for Native American Lay-pastors
During the transition from governance by the Home Missions board to self governance, there were some unintentional lapses in funding pension programs for two pastors. The Foundation is supporting Classis Red Mesa in raising the necessary funds to redress this lapse so that these pastors will have income in their retirement years.