For many of us, once you have been to Hopi, this place forever captures a place in your heart. And for those of us returning, our arrival yesterday evening was like coming home again. There is a unique scent to the dry, high desert air and a feeling of joy that comes with reveling in the cool evening breeze laced with the freshness of rain carried on the winds from a storm blessing the low lands south of the Mesas.
The rainy season has come early this year and Hopiland is greener than I have ever seen it in all my years coming here. This is a great blessing; the crops seem to be doing well, the corn so lovingly tended and nurtured, is green and getting tall. The desert weeds and brush have burst forth with a profusion of delicate blooms tossing their heads in the light wind. The thunderstorm that followed us on our long journey from Flagstaff, finally came to the Mesas overnight as a gentle rain and we woke this morning to find the ground and cars wet from its passing. We greeted the cloudy dawn and found a welcome, cool breeze kissing the land all around us. Life is good.
It also rained in Flag before we left yesterday. The San Francisco Peaks, sacred to the Hopis as the home of the katsinas for half of the year, were still shrouded in pregnant rain clouds when we left for the Museum of Northern Arizona and the Hopi cultural and arts festival. The festival has become an important part of our annual trips because it provides a fun and informative introduction to Hopi culture for those members of the team who are visiting Hopi for the first time. For those of us who have been here before, it is a chance to greet old friends. I spent most of our time there running from gallery to gallery looking for and reuniting with many of the friends we've made over the years and meeting some that I have only known through Facebook. The festival is also a place to see tradional Hopi social dancing and to sample some traditional Hopi foods: piki bread, hohoysi which is Hopi tea brewed from a plant that grows wild on the Mesas, noquivi, a stew, traditionally made with white hominy corn and either mutton or pork, frybread, and the very popular Hopi taco.
After leaving the museum after lunch, the team split up in order to complete the necessary shopping for the food and other supplies we will need for VBS and our other projects throughout the coming week before making the nearly 2 hour trek up to Kykotsmovi. However, in spite of today's GPS technology and its mobile app brethren, sometimes there is no substitute for a good old fashioned map. Combine that with the challenge of trying to keep 5 SUVs in sight of one another as we caravan from place to place and you end up with plenty of wrong turns, about-faces and missed exits. These comical "F Troop Maneuvers" have led to much laughter. We missed the exit of our planned route to "K Town" by way of the Leupp road and ended up going all the way to Winslow before turning north toward Second Mesa. The accidental error actually ended up getting us there faster in spite of adding extra miles to the trip.
Once we arrived at the Hopi Mission School, our welcoming committe consisted of Kristen, one of the teachers and our 2 canine "Rez dog" buddies, Piki and Duma who came running as soon as they heard us pull up. There was much tail wagging, whining and begging for belly rubs and Andie quickly became our "dog whisperer" on this trip. She's following in the footsteps of her husband, Brett, who came out on the first 2 trips and had all of the local dogs following him wherever he went before the week was half over.
After a hearty dinner that night and the traditional blue corn pancake breakfast the next morning at the "Center of the Universe", the Hopi Cultural Center restaurant, we drove to First Mesa Baptist Church to worship with Pastor Lim and Pastor Choi of the Korean Methodist Church and their congregation. The new sanctuary has been completed since our first visit last year and is beautiful in its simplicity with its custom made stained glass windows which incorporate Christian, Hopi and Korean symbolism.
It was a joy to worship here again. We sang hymns in English, Hopi and Navajo/Din'eh. Pastor Lim graciously asked Jill's husband, Bill to give the message today and to help during the altar call portion of the service and it had more than one member of the team moved to tears. And after a Spirit-filled morning of worship, we shared over an hour of laughter, conversation and fellowship over a delicious lunch in the church hall before parting. What a blessing to come together in worship as children of God in English, Hopi, Tewa, Korean and Navajo/Din'eh!
The remainder of the day was spent preparing for the work of the coming week, resting and reflecting on the tremendous gifts we have received on the trip so far. God is good!
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