North American Mission Board (NAMB)
“We lead the country in everything you don’t want to lead the country in.”
If people know anything about South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Matt Hadden says it’s probably that.
“We have 80% unemployment, the average lifespan of an adult male is 50 years, and the teen suicide rate is 300% higher than the national average,” he says. “Several years ago, we had 26 teenagers take their lives in a three-month period. If that happened anywhere else in the country, it would be national news.”
Matt is a missionary with Send Relief, Southern Baptists’ compassion ministry arm. He and his wife, Amanda, along with their four kids, run the Čhaŋkú Wašté Ranch on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, home to the Oglala Lakota people.
“Čhaŋkú Wašté means ‘Good Road,’” he says, “and there’s a reason we call it that. The Oglala are essentially an unreached people group right here in the center of our country, and there’s so much brokenness here. Most people on the reservation, kids especially, have been through traumatic experiences or are living in crisis mode. And so, we are absolutely an evangelistic ministry, but our approach is through compassion ministry.”
Much of what the Haddens do at Čhaŋkú Wašté is built around an eight-week-long summer kids’ camp. “We do a really big, glorified VBS,” Matt says. “It’s a safe place for kids to learn and celebrate who God made them to be. They learn Bible stories, they play games, they do arts and crafts, and really, we just all have a lot of fun.”
When you give to the FUGE Missions Offering, you’re helping provide basketballs, Bibles, crayons, and anything else missionaries like the Haddens might need to share Christ in an unreached place.
Pray that Matt and Amanda will be fully supplied so they can meet needs and see God change lives in South Dakota. Giving to this project will go a long way towards making that happen.
To learn exactly what your offering dollars can do in places like South Dakota and how missionaries all over the U.S. and Canada are meeting needs and seeing God change lives, go to namb.net/lifeway-camps.
