在新墨西哥州的纳瓦霍镇， 崔跨文化事工 graduate Tim Norton and his family minister to people of the Navajo Nation in the midst of high poverty, 社会问题，伟大的文化和自然美景. 在康考迪亚大学欧文分校团队和实习生的帮助下, Norton leads the people of Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church as they bring the restoring message of the gospel to the reservation.
“What keeps me in it is to see people being transformed from death to life,” he says. “There are a lot of people who still haven’t heard the gospel in a personal and profound way here.”
Norton recently received 欧文康考迪亚大学’s 2021 Great Commission Award.
他说:“获得这个奖项是我的荣幸。. “它来自晴朗的蓝天.”
The Norton family lives in Gallup, an hour south of their mission field. The church, founded in 1969, barely weathered the closure of lumber mills in the 1990s which put the town of 2,在“相当萧条的轨道上”,” says Norton. 90%的失业率很常见, and almost every person in the congregation has been affected by problems such as domestic violence, 吸毒和酗酒, or sexual abuse. The congregation had shrunk to a single family when the Nortons arrived in 2013.
Today, 它有35名受洗的成员, and the people gather multiple times a week to worship the Lord, 听神的道, 在爱中共同成长. Meetings usually end with shared meals which include Navajo favorites such as fry bread, 玉米粥炖, chicken, 还有玉米炖羊肉.
许多成员都没有基督教背景. One couple who lived just down the road visited the church with their children. 父母都曾在孩童时期遭受过创伤, 他们的生活方式反映了这种破碎. Living together, they were not married, and the household was rent with alcohol abuse.
在了解他们之后, Norton encouraged them to get married as a way to step forward together in wholeness. They did, and now their children all have been baptized at the church and are “little evangelists” who invite their neighbors to come. 这位父亲最近给诺顿发短信说, “要为生命赞美耶和华, 为了我的家人，也为了戒掉毒瘾, 也为你所做的一切, too.”
“你问的问题太多了”
The slower, more relational pace of church-building on a reservation had to be learned. 诺顿的第一个方法——问很多问题——失败了. “[Westerners] learn by gathering information, searching the internet, going to college,” Norton says. “That’s the way I approached situations in the community, to ask a lot of questions.”
他很快就知道，他服务的人不喜欢这样.
这就是上帝要我们去的地方. 我们可以看到我们的经历如何塑造了我们在这里的事工.
“他们希望我只是观察，不要那么多管闲事，”他说. Correction came through an older lady in the congregation who told him one day, “你问的问题太多了. 你只需要观察.”
“At first I was like, how else am I going to understand anything?诺顿笑着回忆道. 这时我明白了她的意思. 她说，这不是我们学习的方式. 我们通过观察来学习.”
Today, Norton can converse in Navajo, but can’t quite preach in the complex language yet. But he does speak fluent French and a West African language — due to his family’s prior calling.
途经非洲的新墨西哥
诺顿夫妇的传教之旅始于几内亚, West Africa, 在那里他们作为传教士向穆斯林占多数的人传教. Tim preached and conducted radio evangelism in foreign languages, 他相信自己将在几内亚度过余生.
“In Guinea you have to trust that you are planting seeds,” he says. “You keep at it and believe the Lord is going to use it even if you don’t see a bunch of stuff immediately.”
但是他和他的妻子开始注意到他们的儿子, Philip, wasn’t very social and had a hard time with things like unexpected changes of plans. Tests showed he is on the autistic spectrum, and the Nortons felt it best to return to the U.S. “帮助他站稳脚跟，”蒂姆说. Today, Philip, 19, 是内布拉斯加州大学的新生吗, 他妹妹也是, 盖洛普的一名高三学生. 但是离开几内亚让蒂姆很伤心. 他说:“我很难释怀。.
相信他们会过渡到对美国穆斯林的事工.S., Tim enrolled at Gordon-Conwell Seminary in Boston in 2011 and earned an MA in missions and evangelism with a concentration in Islamic studies. 但上帝并没有向那个方向敞开大门.
Norton admits being “very confused when the next call came from Lutheran Indian Ministries — a service organization of the LCMS — with an offer to serve down here,” he says. “我当时想，‘哈? 这是完全不同的. 我不这么想。.’”
But after visiting and praying, it became clear that “this is where God wanted us,” he says. “我们可以看到我们的经历如何塑造了我们在这里的事工.”
“风趣的人”
纳瓦霍是风景优美的地方, 非常适合蒂姆对徒步旅行的热爱, but his deeper fulfillment comes through connections with people.
“纳瓦霍人是一个随和、爱开玩笑的民族，”他说. “他们喜欢开玩笑和大笑. A lot of people have the ‘stoic natives’ stereo-type, but that’s not at all true. 他们总是开玩笑.”
Norton says the Navajo value for family is stronger than in American society generally. They keep strong friendships with members of their extended families, and consider elders and children to be their most important resources.
“长者将前人的智慧传承下去, 孩子是他们对后代的希望,” Norton says.
纳瓦霍人也需要一段时间来适应新来者, 几乎没有公共集会场所，这让情况变得更加棘手.
We 去了解他们，尽我们所能去爱他们, 圣灵就会打开门.
“When I first got here, there was no restaurant, no place for people to hang out,” Norton recalls. “了解别人的方式是私下的. 他们必须邀请你去他们家. You couldn’t just hang out at a coffee shop and notice new customers.”
When people began inviting the Nortons into their homes, true community began. In 2013, to bolster his cross-cultural understanding, Tim enrolled in CUI’s 跨文化事工中心她于2017年获得神学硕士学位.
“太棒了，”他说. “我很喜欢教授，也很喜欢我的同学. They are wonderful people from diverse ethnic back-grounds — one from China, another from Ethiopia. 我喜欢它的每一分钟. 我仍然和他们保持联系.”
诺顿和他95年的同学乔纳森·鲁赫斯的联系, MA ’15, 现在是亚洲体育博彩平台的教授, led Tim to invite short-term student missions teams from 欧文康考迪亚大学 to serve at his church. 两组康考迪亚大学欧文分校的学生, 还有三个学生暑期实习生, 祝福了诺顿夫妇的努力吗. 一个这样的实习生, Owen Duncan ’20, 今年是他在诺顿队的第三个夏天, 在圣路易斯的康考迪亚神学院的学术会议之间. Louis. 邓肯住在教堂的牧师住宅里, 与附近的人建立关系, and directs mission teams who help run Vacation Bible School programs and do other valuable local work.
“VBS对教会来说是一个伟大的事工，”邓肯说. “A lot of families started coming to church because of the program.”
Duncan says that Norton “really loves the people and the ministry. 他很有幽默感，而且很实际. He instilled in me this idea that missions look like people having conversations, making friends, 当福音发生的时候，随时与人分享福音. It’s relational.”
The Nortons’ daughter will be traveling to 欧文康考迪亚大学 with kids from the reservation to attend the weekend-long 横向研究所 this year. In all the work the Nortons do, “the real end is sharing Jesus with people,” Tim says. “我们只是试图满足人们的需求, 去了解他们，尽我们所能去爱他们, 圣灵就会打开门.”