My trip to Gallup, New Mexico had been in the works for several months. I wanted to do something with my own church, but that did not work out. The gentleman who leads the small group I attend was a pilot who worked with various missionaries in Mexico. He was on a mailing list for United Indian Missions and heard of an opportunity in New Mexico. He forwarded the information to me. I contacted UIM, filled out an application and was accepted to create a website and presentation for a missionary couple in Gallup.

My main purpose for going to Gallup was to get a feel for what the missionaries do on the reservations. I know enough about Indian-US history to know that no matter how well intentioned many missionaries have been over the centuries, the results have more often than not been disastrous for Native Americans. I also know that many Native Americans resent missionaries and the work that they do. I was very happy to discover that the missionaries I will be working with are well respected and respect the Native American culture.

One of my requests was to attend Navajo church. I was expecting a few large churches spread out over the reservation. Instead, I discovered there are numerous very small churches all over the place. Sadly to say, it seems that the various denominations are not able to work together and some are territorial. Here is a picture of the church I attended:

Needless to say, I was excited about seeing the stallion and his fillies right there next to the church. Also, instead of squirrels like we have, the New Mexico desert is inhabited by prairie dogs. They are everywhere! Unfortunately, I never got close enough to one to get a good picture.

Once inside the church I noticed little different than in our churches. The music was traditional but played with electric guitars and sung in Navajo, although “Lily of the Valley” was done in English. I recognized the melodies of the other songs, but can’t remember what they were. The sermon was mostly in Navajo with an interpretation in English here and there.

Here is a picture of one dear Navajo lady and her granddaughter. I will have to get her name because I can’t remember it now. She is 90 years old. She had one of those faces I just had to photograph. I showed her the results on the digital camera screen and she gave me a big smile of approval.

Here are pictures of a few more churches I encountered:

From an outsider’s perspective, the most noticeable thing about Gallup and the reservations is the standard of living. I’m hardly a fan of code enforcement, building inspections, animal control, health inspections, OSHA, etc. It seems here in California we are regulated to death. However, once one visits an area where those things either do not exist, or the standards are lax, one appreciates what we have. I didn’t want to infringe on the natives’ lives too much by photographing their living conditions, but I did get some pictures of one of their cemetaries. You can see the housing in the back, which is typical, as well as the commercial building next door.

And finally, here are a couple of landscape pictures:

Hey, the scenery in my hotel room was cute too! Tomorrow I hope to write about the Navajo Code Talkers and my visit to Window Rock.

If you would like to see the pictures better, and more pictures, you can visit my Flickr Here the photos are larger and you can see the detail better. There are additional pictures. All of the pictures here on the blog and on the Flickr page are outtakes that will not be used on the website. If you want to view the captions for each photo, when the Flickr slideshow loads, click on the “i” in the middle of the first picture. Also, if the slideshow is progressing too slowly, you can speed it up with the buttons in the lower left-hand corner.