WE CONTINUE TO SURVIVE by Robert Soto

WE CONTINUE TO SURVIVE by Robert Soto

March 1, 2010

Genesis 49:7 "But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. "

Every once in a while when all is quiet and peaceful in my house, I stop what am doing, sit in my recliner and start to think and wonder. I wonder about the survival of a people whose history can be recounted thousands of times over by the indigenous peoples of North and South America. I think of my ancestors and all they did to survive that now allows us to live in what we call an unsecure world. I think of them hiding and running through the Texas and Mexican deserts, trying to get away from those who were out to get them. I thought of the countless people who did not make it to see our modern times. So as I sat there the other day I saw the little Lipan Apache children running and screaming for safety. I saw some of them coming out of their hiding places, wandering all alone without parents and family to comfort them. It was then that I opened my eyes and in my pounding heart I felt the fear and pain that the children must have felt as they looked into the future and saw nothing but hopelessness and insecurity.

But as I sat there that night looking into the ceiling trying to see beyond the cover of our home I heard a little voice in my heart, in my mind. I heard it say, "You have just seen the life of your great-grandfather." It was then that I remembered the story of Brijilio DeLeon who survived what is known as Mackenzie's Raid, when Colonel Ranald Mackenzie illegally entered into Mexico and raided our people while they were taking refuge with the Kickapoos. Yet as I pondered what I had seen that night, I couldn't help but wonder about the providence of God our Creator. As bad as things were for my people, in His providence, God allowed my great-grandfather to survive so that I could sit here by my computer and write these thoughts to you. As I wondered, I couldn't help but think of Joseph's words when he told his brothers who had sold him into slavery but now was second in command to Pharaoh: "But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance." God saved a remnant of our people that day on May 18, 1873 so we, the Lipan Apache Nation, could remember not just the survival our people, but the work of God our Creator in our lives.

Robert Soto, Lipan Apache and pastor of:

McAllen Grace Brethren Church
The Native American New Life Center
Chief of Chiefs Christian Church