Just a couple weeks ago, we featured the story celebrating 100 years of Native American ministries in the La Vida Mission to the Navajo nation. A look back in our archives records the exciting and hopeful beginning to the school that has served many children since.
“Monday, August 29, 1966, was the first day of school at La Vida Mission! For days everyone had been working to have things in good order for this important date. On Sunday the trucks went out to pick up the children. A few of the parents brought their children. One family, with two children for school, came from as far away as Shiprock.
We have nice new tables and benches to brighten up our dining room. The children gather around them three times a day with a hearty appetite for the good food Barbara Starrett prepares.
Tilly Scott, our teacher, is very busy with 27 children in her room, three of whom cannot speak English. But when I stepped in for a few minutes they were all so interested in what teacher was doing, very few even knew I was there.
Neal Scott is teaching the seven older students. They have their classes out in the entrance hall as that is the only available space. Thirty-four young minds to mold—34 children to direct toward heaven! What a privilege and what a responsibility is ours!
Several other parents wanted to send their children, but we are already crowded. If we could only have a dormitory, what a blessing it would be to us. That would release the other school room which we need so much, but now we must use it as a dormitory for the boys.
Will you please remember La Vida Mission with your prayers and your money? Help start a Navajo child on the way to heaven.
Lucille Philpott, La Vida Mission”
This article was published in the OUTLOOK on our October, 1966 issue. Since then, the school has been able to build their dormitories—eight of them, in fact, along with a church, a clinic, greenhouses, horse barn and arena.
