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Show THE LONG WALK our Christmas story this year is really not a very nice story but it is true and has a beautiful ending. We hope readers will remember it for a long, long time. BY 1863 more and more reports reached Washington, D.C., that the Navajo people were creating havoc among wagon trains and settlers of the Southwest. Behind this strife lay many misunderstandings on both sides. Since 1846 increasing control by the government had threatened the Navajo way of life. They retaliated the only way they knew - raiding, killing and capturing. Kit Carson was chosen to subdue the Navajo people. He laid waste and destroyed. Later he admitted, "It took me and 300 men most of one day to destroy one cornfield." In Canyon de Chelly the Navajos returned shot for shot as long as they could; then the women standing by handed out the arrows. It was the long, relentless winter which broke their spirit. The wailing .of the children was weak and frail against the blasts of wind and the boom of guns. By ones, by dozens, by hundreds the Navajos surrendered. They were herded, like their own lost sheep, into marching formation. The trail of over 300 miles to Fort Sumner was a "long walk." For four years, the living conditions there were as dreadful as those of Civil War prison camps in other parts of the country. Nearly 2000 died. In 1868, finally in desperation, the government released them to begin the long walk home, now the "Navajo Reservation." AS they straggled to within actual view of their native land (the man Blackrock could remember it) the returning Navajos started to chant. The light of spring lay on the mountains - just a sliver - caught in the dark of rock. As each of the long file looked up, the very sight of their sacred mountains brought a lift of the eyes, a toss of the head, a joy of heart they thought they had lost forever. Even little children, born in captivity, who had never seen these mountains of home, chanted. The canyons repeated the song, echoing and growing. The Navajos came home singing together as though their lives were magnified in them. L ast summer we asked our r eaders to write if they knew of anyone who could and would like to teach our pre-school until J anuary. Quickest to respond was Ruth Benson of Burlingame, Calif. After a short visit in September, Ruth r eturned home determined to come b a c k to begin school October 18, and that she did! Why did she want to come to the Mission? Ruth says, "I felt as if I must give some of myself to others if I could find a place where I could help." With a background of library and office experience, she now adds the teaching of little children. Sometimes that can be very frustrating! She has travelled extensively in Central and South America, but we all hope St. Christopher's Mission will be her home for a long while. Mrs. Sally will resume teaching in January while Ruth turns her talents to St. Christopher's Shop in Bluff. A nd here is the news we have all been waiting for: By the Grace of Almighty God THE RIGHT REVEREND RICHARD SIMPSON WATSON, D.D. The Bishop of Utah will ordain to the Sacred Order of Priesthood THE REVEREND ROBERT DEAN CAMPBELL on Wednesday the twenty-first day of December Nineteen Hundred and Sixty-six at t en o'clock in the morning St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral 231 East First South Salt Lake City, Utah 84111 Your prayers and presence are requested. , Saint Christopher's Mission to the Navajo Bluff, Utah 84512 Christmas Greetings from Navajoland 1966 A Mission of the EPISCOPAL CHURCH |