Navajo Christmas 2008!
Preparation: Delivering the presents is probably the easiest part of bringing Christmas to Navajo families. However, heading to Walmart between winter snow storms and Christmas crowds was much more difficult. Kellie Van Eyk, John Van Eyk, Rebecca Shirley, and Elizabeth Kelly spent about 8 hours finding and then buying the Christmas presents and food. But the preparation starts even before that! Caring individuals is were it all started. This year approximately $2,500.00 was raised to support the Christmas program. In addition, a ministry from the Spirit Lake Reservation in North Dakota sent three large boxes of supplies to make Christmas Shoe Boxes. Once families were selected to receive Christmas presents, then each family was notified and asked to provide shoe, shirt, and pant sizes of all the family members and submit a wish list of toys. From that list, one toy was selected. Once all the gifts were purchased, they had to be wrapped and the shoe boxes put together. It takes a minimum of 40 hours of preparation to get to day of delivery!
Christmas Blog 2008: This year we are going to have a white Christmas and 10 families will actually have a Christmas! There is nearly a foot of snow on the ground, with more falling. It is the perfect atmosphere to play Santa Clause. Monday, December 22, 2008 the first delivery was made, supplying 6 kids and their mom with Christmas presents. The second delivery was made at 11:00 at night in near white out conditions from blowing snow. I drive a 1986 Toyota Land Cruiser affectionately called Blue Bessie (It's blue and I bought it from a cattle rancher) that can go through anything! The second delivery consisted of primarily food as this is what was needed. It made my day to make that delivery. The refrigerator had been turned off because there was no food to put in it. The individual had eaten popcorn for supper! The refrigerator was turned back on as I help load it up with food. It was a great feeling knowing someone would eat well for the next several weeks. Since the economy has slowed down, we have noticed more people requesting food assistance. As food prices have risen, the items bought on food stamps no longer last the month. Many people are out of food with two weeks left before they can purchase more.
Tuesday December 23, 2008 - This day came way too early. Kellie and I had finished putting together shoe boxes, wrapping the last gifts, and loading the Land Crusier early that morning. I think I finally crawled into bed at 1:15 am! It was still snowing, at times very hard. I put my three-year-old daughter in her car seat and picked up three Navajo kids, Leon, Shalayne, and Shane, to help me. I needed some help delivering for two reasons, I had a lot of stuff and I needed someone to help if I got stuck! I woke all of them up, 9:30 am really does come too early so I took them to McDonalds for a nutritious breakfast!
First stop!: Our first stop of the morning was to drop off shoe boxes for the kids at Hogan Hozhoni. We were not able to interact with the kids this trip (Apparently 9:30 is early for them too!) but the staff were very appreciative. The kids each would have a gift box for Christmas morning.
Second, third, and fourth stops: We left St Michael's and headed over "The Summit". This is a big deal in a snow storm because at an elevation of over 8,000 feet the snow gets serious. There was nearly two feet of snow, wind, and blowing snow. One of the kids said a prayer for safety and we proceeded. We delivered presents to 3 families in the Kinlichee area.
Fifth stop!: All the other stops were easy compared to the 5th stop of the day as they were just yards off a major highway. The fifth stop was for the Herders. To get to their house, you had to leave the highway and take a dirt road about 15 miles into the wilderness. As you go further into the woods, the road goes from gravel to dirt to whatever was available to make the road! Then you leave the "road" again and take a two-track "driveway" further into the woods for approximately 2 miles. Then you leave the "driveway" and literally find a way through the trees to a house in a clearing. This is challenging on the driest days, but in blizzard conditions with easily 24-30 inches of snow on the ground actually making it there a Christmas Miracle. About 5 miles into our journey, we left all signs of civilization and we were now breaking snow. This means that no one else had gone before use since it snowed. This is fun but can be dangerous as it usually means everyone else had more sense than to go on down the road where we were headed. It also means that if you get stuck, no one will be a long to pull you out. We made it all the way to the "driveway" and got down it almost the entire way before we got stuck. Blue Bessie can go through a lot, but ever she has limits! It was now 12:00 PM and snowing harder than ever. The road in was terrible but I carry shovels! It only took us about 10 minutes to get unstuck and turned around. By trying to run through a four-foot drift, It wasn't the car that got us stuck but the operator...me!. We got as many of the gifts as we could carry and head up to the Herder's home. It was a half mile walk through unbroken snow. We got our workout. I carried Josie on my shoulders as well as carrying presents. The family was home and very surprised to see us. They had just figured it would be well after Christmas before we were able to get out there due to the weather. The kids were happy because they were going to get Christmas on Christmas afterall. We made a trip back down to the Cruiser to get the food. It was easier this time because the kids came along. That is the advantage to having 11 kids, makes short work of labor intensive tasks! Josie made a few friends and didn't want to leave "her friends" behind. This was the first year the Herder's had put up a Christmas tree. They dug up a Pinon tree and set in in their home. The kids had decorated it with paper ring strings and other odds and ends. It was a beautiful tree. Mr. Herder told me to go out a different way, "it was better, was out over the backway to Window Rock yesterday, it is real clear". We went the alternative way. Ever see the show, "I Shouldn't Be Alive"? I was sure we were going to be on it after about 10 miles down this "road". The snow became deeper and deeper and fell harder and harder. Visibility worsened and soon I was literally plowing the snow out of the way with the nose of the Land Cruiser. Shalyane became nervous when I quit singing and was just quiet! It was so beautiful and quiet up there. The only other souls we encountered were three cows in the road. It became a true stand off. They didn't want to move out of the road into deeper snow and I needed to get by. I literally had to nudge the last cow out of the way by gently moving forward in the Cruiser and tapping her rear end. We finally made it out to blacktop.
Sixth Stop: By 3:00 PM I had dropped the kids off, came home, reloaded the car and this time piled the family into the Land Cruiser. We were off to Navajo to deliver a gift and food to Linda. Linda is visually impaired and lives alone. I brought the groceries in while Kellie and the kids helped Linda put it all up. Kellie at first told her what each can was, but as the pantry filled, Kellie quit telling her. She apologized, but Linda just laughed and said, "That's okay, I will just play, guess what's in the can and be surprised by what I eat!" I shoveled her walk and we went home. It was a long, but really fun day.
Despite hard economic times, we were very pleased how this year's Christmas deliveries went. I think it is important for the Navajo kids to participate in giving. It will probably be the last year we do gifts in this way, as we will most likely begin "Shoebox Gifts" next year. By doing so, we will be able to help far more families. Stay tuned as we bring you more information about this next summer. In addition to helping Hogan Hozhoni, we were also able to provide a small grant to Shundiin Girls Home.
Thank you again for your support, we and the Navajo appreciate it very much.
P.O. Box 2016
Fort Defiance, AZ 86504
928-729-2658
Loaded up with goodies! Hogan in the snow Tracks end, we go on...
Snow deeper then my bumper.. ...and we get stuck! Half mile hike in to the house
Posing with the Herders!
This page was last updated: May 25, 2010
Navajo Christmas 2009
This year, Rez Refuge provided Christmas to four families, twelve clients at the Adolescent Care Unit at Fort Defiance Indian Hospital and three teen girls at the Shundiin Group Home. Due to confidentiality, we can not spotlight the teens but we will tell you about Linda.
LInda is a Navajo lady who is visually impaired. Linda was not born blind, but lost her sight about 20 years ago. Linda has the best laugh in the world and comes regularly to bible studies. Linda can tell you where you are when we drive, remembering from sounds from when she had sight. Incredibly, she is always right! For the past two Christmases, we provided Linda with a holiday gift and food basket. Each year, her cupboard has been bare and we filled it. And each year she makes our Christmas project worth while with her gratitude and smile.
Brycen and Josie bringing in the groceries.
Linda happy about coffee
Brooke helping out too!
