Native-American Pastor Blesses Groundbreaking

SIOUX FALLS, SD (June 22, 2000) - Harvest Covenant Church held a multicultural groundbreaking ceremony for their first church building on May 21. Because the land had originally belonged to the Lakota people, Gabriel Medicine Eagle, a minister from Rosebud, South Dakota, participated in the ceremony, removing nine curses that the Lakota had placed on the land.

"It was racial reconciliation combined with the land," Pastor Steve Hickey told the Argus Leader, the local newspaper. "We wanted to recognize that God allotted the lands to the nations with established borders, and he did that with the Lakota people, but the land wasn't taken honorably, so the wounds still bleed."

Hickey and Medicine Eagle also participated in a sacred covenant ceremony, in which a string was tied around the two men and a third pastor. "There's a God who keeps covenants," Hickey said. "We tied the string around us as a symbol of our covenant together."

The groundbreaking ceremony has had an impact in the surrounding community, according to Hickey. "Several have called to tell us they understood the significance of what we were doing," Hickey said. "One man who heads our local citywide prayer walks said it took real humility for a white church to elevate a people group that, at least around here, ranks way down the ladder," Hickey added. "He said he thinks such symbolic acts are what is needed to see a breakthrough in this region."

Harvest Covenant, which presently meets in a rented facility, has an average attendance of 200. The new sanctuary will seat 350 people.

(Editor's note: This article also appears in the July issue of The Covenant Companion)

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