Birdland

I made the decision to give my life to the Lord at a very young age. I made that decision in June of 1989. I grew up going to church. My parents talked to me about what it meant to surrender your life to Jesus. I thought about it and there really was no other choice for me. I prayed and asked Jesus to live inside of my heart. Although I was saved, I did not know much about the bible. I had a weak foundation, and it did not take much to seriously change my relationship with Jesus.When I was in high school, I began to really get into academics. I began to gain my identity from how well I did in school. I began to use how well I did in school to gauge my life, instead of my relationship with Jesus. This did not satisfy my need to feel accepted by my family, or friends. I was living in a state of depression that I “fixed” by doing well in school. In essence, my own mind and achievements became an idol to me.By my senior year, I was eager to leave home by any means necessary. I considered military service, college, or just leaving and trying to find a job. It was around that time that I began to seriously consider college. Several people had told me that I could easily get a scholarship for college. I did some research and in the process found out that I was instantly eligible for the Chief Manuelito Scholarship offered by my tribe. It required a certain GPA and college entrance exam score, both of which I satisfied. That meant that I could go to any state school and pay almost nothing. So, early in the fall of my senior year, I planned on going to school in Tucson. However, in November of my senior year, I was offered the chance to visit Ohio State University. I was flown out there and given a tour along with a couple of Native American students from Flagstaff. While there, I was offered a full scholarship to attend school there. So I applied to both U of A and OSU.That spring I received word that I got into both schools. Now it was decision time. Since the beginning of high school, marching band was a huge part of my life. I really enjoyed the military drill and teamwork that is essential to marching band. This was a huge decision factor in choosing a college. I was also very interested in engineering. OSU offered much of what I wanted at the time: distance between my family and myself, a chance to “experience the world,” and a decent engineering program. What they did not offer was a chance to be in the marching band. OSU has a drum and bugle corps style marching band. U of A on the other hand, had a marching band that included woodwinds, as a bonus, they frequently experimented in alternative music shows. So, U of A offered a superb engineering program, and a world-class marching band, which made the decision pretty easy.

That summer, I lived with my older brother in Tucson for a while and took a class. Over that summer, I began attending his church. One of my brother’s roommates was a campus minister, and he asked me if I wanted to do a bible study in the fall. I decided to check it out and said that I would meet with him in the fall. That fall Phil and I started doing bible studies and I quickly realized that I needed to find a place of repentance with Jesus. Phil explained to me that surrendering your life to Jesus meant that you placed Him in control of your life. This was something that I was taught by my parents when I gave my life to Jesus, but it was not something I practiced when making decisions. I had my own agenda for my life. I did not realize that this was wrong growing up, but faced with the truth from the word of God, I needed to repent for trying to follow my plan instead of God’s plan. I prayed and asked for forgiveness and simply let go of any thing that I was holding on to that was not part of God’s plan for my life, and embraced a whole new life that consisted of hearing from God, and doing what God wanted me to do. As this happened I realized that I desperately needed a foundation built on God’s Word. Part of that foundation has been discipleship. Entrusting myself to the authority of another person was something new to me. The Lord has done so much for me like exposing areas that needed to be corrected and is still doing that. He has put me in leadership positions. Also, He has helped me to share my life and my testimony with others.