Have you ever been so close to death that only the hand of someone else could save you? That’s what happened to Fred. In a drunken state, he stumbled off a boat and fell into the water. Had his friend not tried to grab hold of him one last time, Fred’s story would have ended there. It didn’t… and because of God’s mercy, things would never be the same.

Life at home was not what Charlotte wanted. The alcohol made it difficult for her to be there. So she ran away looking for something better. She hoped that in doing so the authorities would place her in a foster home. They didn’t. So she eventually moved out. Did she find what she was looking for?

“He said to me, ‘You’re running away from something. I sense that you are married and you’re running around with these ladies.’ I didn’t have the ability to tell him to quit talking to me because he was a good friend of mine. He handed me over a Bible and told me that Jesus could help me.”

The medicine man told Lawrence that someone had witched him. They wanted him to leave his wife and family, and eventually kill himself. But even after dealing with this curse, things got worse for Lawrence. He needed something that the medicine man could not offer.

Lawrence was raised on the Navajo reservation in Tuba City, Arizona. He has seen a lot of changes over the years, from dirt roads to paved roads… from horse-drawn wagons to the automobile. He married a Christian gal and his boy believed too. God used his young son to speak into Lawrence’s life… but he wouldn’t listen.

These are challenging days across Native North America and throughout the world. For many First Nations and Native American communities, the prospect of contracting Covid-19 is frightening. Underlying health conditions put many Native people at greater risk because of this coronavirus. Tribal leaders are working hard to protect their communities, including closing borders and imposing curfews. The uncertainty of life is very apparent in times like these… and so is the shadow of death. So where do we turn… where do we find hope when things are so difficult? Soapy Dollar, Mescalero Apache and host of The Storyteller points us to where he has found it, and where we can too.