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Show 4 $4,000 for purchase of a camper four wheel drive which will enable us to open up remaining four stations, in order that we might cover the complete area on a regular basis. Upkeep on all vehicles, gas and oil, $2,000. $2,000 for renovation of our schoolrooms, storage and printing areas to prepare for opening of school in September (we have been closed for two years) . School program for one year, $3,000. $350,000 for 20·bed adequate and accredited hospital. $100,000 for beginning endowment to provide for doctors, nurses, supplies for one year (this amounts to about $5,000) . We have come to a point where some of our stations can now be manned on a permanent basis. To open one of these this year or next, we would need: $5,000 for priest (with family) $10,000 quarters and church to be built. $5,000 for ca ~ and transportation. Inopportune that a birthday announcement should contain such an appeal? This is a sort of pre-birthday card, in fact, and a very frank appraisal of where we must be headed in the next ten year s. We know that your birthday gifts will be generous as always, whether small or large. And now Father Liebler pens A GLANCE BACKWARD - AND FORWARD ON the way to N'avajo Mountain there is a place where the road leads over a high ledge between two deep canyons, and the Navajos call the place alts-aan jide'i, or "one looks both ways." The Vicar has asked me to do this as we look forward to our 20th Anniversary and backward to the crude beginnings in 1943. In preparing to write the book which still takes much of my time, I have had occasion to look backward more frequently and more critically than I would ordinarily do. THE BEGINNINGS of St. Christopher's Mission antedated by far that historic day when Mass was first offered at Mexican Hat in a tent on St. Christopher's Day, 1942. That was in a sense the culmination of a life's ambition, for then I saw the possibility of trying to bring our Holy Religion to a People who as yet knew it not. A year later, under the blessing of Bishop Moulton, six of us pitched our tents a few miles from Bluff. Hardly had we driven home the last tent-peg when Navajos began to arrive, and our work began to be. To minister to the whole man - sores and wounds, hopes and dreams, sins and ignorance -to these we were to bring the love and grace of Incarnate God. School, clinic, Church would be the answer. We began as we knew we must: as soon as a site was selected, we erected a stone altar, 5 symbol of permanence and strength, symbol of the centrality of the Eucharist. Mass was offered daily out-of-doors for four months, the first school had neither chairs nor desks, and only a piece of wall-board painted with slating compound for a blackboard. "Make-do" was our motto, and we enjoyed the challenge to our resourcefulness. We had some radical ideas about IndiaR Missions, and we were out to put them to the test. Ten years later we felt that we had done so, and that our ideas were sound. The full Faith and Practice of the Catholic Church could be presented to the Navajo; respect for Navajo ways which were not inconsistent with sound hygiene or Christian was good; ministra-tion to the whole mind, spirit - ~~~:~=~e~q;~~!e;catholic. We cover, if 3,000 square area. help from younger pr iests, medical worker s and teachers, and with the increased zeal and generosity of our benefactors to whom we owe undying gratitude, great things lie before us_ The new Vicar is still, as I write, in his first year of office; he has earned the loyalty and r eady co-operation of the older staff members and we feel that under his guidance the feeble beginnings which we were privileged -to make will bear fruit to God's greater glory and the salvation of the Navajo people - salvation not merely from sin and death, but from fears, frustration, the indignities of being an "inferior" race, from incompetence in facing integration, and from all that holds them back from that wholesome selfexpression that is found in the consciousness of incorporation in the Mystical Body of Christ_ FORM OF BEQUEST: I hereby give, devise and bequeath (here state the amount of your legacy) . . .. , . ..... . . .. ... . unto Southwest Indian Mission, Incorporated, a corporation created and existing under the laws of the State of New York with offices at Post Office address: Southwest Indian Mission, Little Portion Monastery, Mount Sinai, New York. 1 9 4 3 you are invited 1 9 ~~ 6 20th anniversary july 25th saint christopher's mission to the navajo bluff, utah |
