Ft Hope, Indian Reservation
ON, Canada
A trip blowing in the wind? 
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As you may know, we had to rush home from the Pow Wow in Sedalia because of Hurricane
Emily. We live about 35-40 miles from the inland from the Gulf of Mexico, so when a hurricane hits the coast, it affects everything within 200-300 miles. Even though the eye of the hurricane ended up landing about 55 miles south of McAllen, people forget that hurricanes are very wide. Hurricane Emily was about 300 miles in diameter so even though it hit south of us, we still got a lot of rain, strong winds and several tornadoes. We drove the 1,100 mile trip 26 hours nonstop to get home, after having left Sedalia at 8:00 PM Sunday. We prepared whatever we could that night and went to sleep late. We woke up early Tuesday and started to trim trees and place barriers in the areas of our home that had the most exposure to the storm. I am not new to hurricanes. We lost everything we owned in 1967 so as a little boy, I learned to respect the power of a hurricane. I just want to praise
the Lord that we all survived with no damage to our home and very little damage to our community. Thank you for your prayers.
The Journey | 
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You may be wondering if we ever made it Ft. Hope. Well, yes, but only by the grace of God and His ability to open doors. Because of the hurricane, all flights in and out of McAllen were canceled. The hurricane was hitting us the day I and a team of six dancers and singers were to fly into Eabametoong First Nations Reserve (which is an hour north of Thunder Bay, Ontario by small plane). As we tried to find new flights into Ft Hope we found out that the earliest we could fly into Ft. Hope was Sunday. That would have been a useless travel since
everything ended on Sunday. My wife, Iris, called the airline one more time and then we started to see the first of several miracles that took us there. The first lesson I learned is that it pays to be nice to people and to talk to them and get to know them. As my wife was talking to the Continental agent, the lady asked her, "Is this Robert Soto the Indian Dancer?" It happened that back in September I and my sister were head lady and head man dancer at a pow wow near Houston where I had met this lady and her teenage son. I spent some time helping her son and talking to them about the pow wows in Texas. She immediately started to find a way for us to leave on Wednesday. Even though our fight was delayed several times, we flew out of McAllen as the hurricane left us on Wednesday evening. When we got to the airport in Houston we found out that we could not sleep in the terminal as we were told and could
not even get our boarding passes. It was then that miracle number two happened. We had no place to go or sleep and hotel rooms in downtown Houston were too expensive for us. I started to reason very nicely with a supervisor at Continental Airlines and she finally told me, "I don't know why I am doing this and I may get in trouble, but I will give you your boarding passes and take your luggage." Then miracle number three happened. As we tried to enter the terminal through security they stopped us and said, "Sorry, you cannot enter because the boarding passes are for tomorrow so you cannot enter until 4:00 AM tomorrow morning." It was about 9:45 PM and one more time I started to reason with him and tell him who we were and what we were doing. Then he said, "Let me talk to my supervisor" and he left. Well, guess who his supervisor was for the night, the same Continental lady that let us
in. So he came and said, "My supervisor said it was OK." As we waited for everyone to clear security I started to look for a restaurant to eat but found out it was 10:00 PM and everything closed at 9:00 PM. We were all hungry because we had not had anything to eat since breakfast. I finally saw some Wendy's employees cleaning the restaurant for the night. So miracle number four happened. I asked them if they had any food they could sell us. The young girl said no and that they were closed. Once again I prayed and continued to talk with her and before I knew it the supervisor came and she said, "All we have is seven salads that I can sell you." Guess how many people were on the team? As she gave us the salads she said, "Just give me $20 for the salads - I can't charge full price - and do me a favor, tonight before you go to sleep, pray for me and my team of workers." So we not
only ate, but we prayed for that nice lady who made our night very comfortable with full stomachs.
At Eabametoong
(Ft. Hope) |  |
How can I describe our Ft. Hope experience? Well, every tour is different and this one was also different. I try to focus on the positive and learn from the negative. I spoke two times and many Indian people came and told me they were touched by what I said. Even one man said to me, "I was touched by your sermon last night; I heard it eight blocks away." That did not mean I have a big mouth, even though some have accused me of having one, but they had a stack of speakers in their sound system that everything was played
and spoken onstage, carried off into the whole reservation. But I guess the best way I can describe this trip was building relationships and meeting new people. Since some of the guys on our team sing a lot of the same pow wow songs they were singing, we spent hours on the drum just joking around and getting to know some of the people. Since I only take 'class A' dancers with full regalia, it was easy for them to talk to the non-Christian people that were dancing alongside with them.
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Since
some of the guys on our team sing a lot of the same pow wow songs they were singing, we spent hours on the drum just joking around and getting to know some of the people. Since I only take 'class A' dancers with full regalia, it was easy for them to talk to the non-Christian people that were dancing alongside with them.
It
was a privilege to get to know Pastor Joseph and Chief Charles, two men who are born again Christians and who carry a heavy burden of their people on their shoulders. It was so cool as I saw Chief Charles wearing a red white and blue ribbon shirt that had embroidered in big letters on his back, "JESUS IS LORD." What a testimony of the grace of God and a man who desires all his people to come to know the peace and grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So we danced and sang and spoke to the people of Ft. Hope and in many ways, we left a little of our hearts with the people who need a true reason to live and the hope to face another day. If you have a prayer list, please place Pastor Joseph and Chief Charles of Ft. Hope, Ontario in your prayers. As we left Ft. Hope on Monday I hugged the pastor and told him, "You have an awesome and burdensome job before you. I will be praying for you everyday." |
