It’s Monday morning here in the Ozarks, and we continue to enjoy a very mild summer, in fact it feels more like fall outside, and it’s only mid-August! As we read on the news and watch the weather reports, we are constantly bombarded with news about horrible weather events around the world, droughts, heat waves, storms and floods, so we are thankful here for the nice weather God has bestowed upon us.

I opened my mail from over the weekend and one of the letters was a request for financial assistance from one of the American Indian schools, this one in Montana. It is the St. Labre Indian School in Ashland. They got a quote for a new water purification system for the reservation and are in pretty dire straits, because what they need is going to cost north of 700,000, and as we all know, Indian reservations are typically not very well off financially – they need help.

Now I don’t know how everyone feels about a responsibility to help these people, but we all know the stories of how our forebears forcibly took over the country from them, and in the process they committed some very atrocious misdeeds. Acts such as giving the tribes blankets that were intentionally contaminated with smallpox, and the white man’s army decimating their villages, killing everyone, even children are among those acts of genocide that have been reported, and which there are no reasonable grounds to doubt.

For much of my life as I learned of the atrocities, the broken treaties, and the terrible ways that our ancestors treated the Indians, I’ve felt that if only there was something I could do to try and make it up to them, it would be the least I could do, so I try to help out as I can. I well understand that there’s nothing substantive we can do to rewrite history in any honest way, and it would be a waste of time to attempt to, but there are some things we can do to at least help to alleviate the tragic suffering they still endure, the squalid living conditions they face daily. For the living standards we enjoy in this beautiful country our fathers took by force, I think we should consider making a nominal effort to help these folks out and helping them to be able to get clean drinking water isn’t too much to ask.

I’ve never gotten involved in fund raising of any kind – this website isn’t even monetized – so I really don’t know how to start with this, but I’m sure that there are readers out there who might be able to help, and to be honest, a person should be able to just send some financial support to the St. Labre school, either mail it or send it through one of the ways they have set up to receive support. Your help is tax-deductible. Here’s their info:

There are readers of this site from all walks of life and in lots of diverse places. Some college kids read folkpotpourri, and it would be a monumental help for this cause to get word out on some of the campuses and lets see what we can do to help St Labre.

As a bonus, I’ll link a tribute from Folkpotpourri to the Indian folks from some time ago.

Remember, Jesus said whoever gives even a cup of water to His servants in His name, there will be a reward. Mark 9:41

For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward. The St. Labre school is a Christian school. It will make you feel better in your heart when you help those in need.

Come on folks, get the checkbook, but just as importantly the word, out – there’s something we can do to help here and to amend some wrongs from the past.

God bless you all,

MK