Dakota Presbytery

This past weekend, I had the joy of traveling to Sisseton, South Dakota, for the Dakota Presbytery meeting. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this, the Dakota Presbytery is a non-geographic collection of Presbyterian congregations that gather together for partnerships and administration.  For the Lutherans in the crowd, the Presbytery meetings are like Synod Assembly.  The Dakota Presbytery is non-geographic, which means that instead of being a part of the group because of location, such as the South Dakota Presbytery, the Dakota Presbytery (DP) is made up of all the "Indian" churches in South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota and Montana.

The meeting was held in Sisseton, which is located on the Lake Traverse Indian Reservation.  I was amazed by how much my mind has already been shaped by my time at Pine Ridge.  Being a Pennsylvania girl, I grew up around more Amish than Indians on reservations, so I had no real concept of what life on the rez looked like until I came here.  When I arrived in Sisseton, I didn't realize that I was on a reservation.  You see, there was road construction, building construction, nice houses, nice cars, healthy looking dogs, minimal garbage in the streets, lots of businesses and visible growth.  My understanding of life on the rez does not include those things, at least to this point.  It was a really uncomfortable feeling for me to realize that I had this box of what I expect reservations to be...and that box was not pretty.

The meeting itself was a fascinating experience.  It was different than any Synod Assembly gathering that I've attended!  All of the meals were cooked by the different local churches, which meant frybread...for every meal...which excites me.  There were some hard decisions made at the meeting that will affect one of the congregations that we work closely with, so keep the congregation in your prayers.

They also didn't plan out the worship services prior to the beginning of the meeting.  I am accustomed to "church" events where things are planned out to at least have the backbone of preacher/presider figured out; not here.  We went through each service and devotion on Saturday morning, looking for the volunteers to lead and preach at the different services.  Sunday morning's devotion was to be led by a "Corresponding Member," which I was one of about six CMs.  The Stated Clerk, the one who runs the meeting, said, "We need a Corresponding Member to do the devotion for Sunday morning.  I know we have a young lady in seminary, so I think we should ask her...."  Cue all eyes in the room turning to me, the tall, Lutheran white girl, easily the youngest person in the room.  My response?  "*breathe*  Okay."  I panicked for a moment, since I had to pick a text, come up with a message, some prayers and oh, lead the entire Dakota Presbytery in singing Lakota hymns.  No pressure at all.  I ended up leading the devotion and I think it went pretty well.

This is a star quilt hanging in the building where the DP met.  There was some debate over it, since everyone thought it was orange and blue for the Denver Broncos, since people around here are either Broncos fans or Minnesota Vikings fans.  I proudly corrected everyone to point out that it was actually Chicago Bears fabric.  Now, most of y'all know that I will claim the Steelers as my team when I'm in Chicago, but it's really just to antagonize my Chicago friends.  I secretly feel some home pride with the ole' blue and orange.  Just don't tell Zak Wagner.  Da Bears.