Missionaries and Church Planters
It is always refreshing to see or hear of a husband and wife team, especially Native American, in faith-based, Christian ministry. Such is the case of Josh (full blood Creek) and Ramona Harjo (full blood Choctaw). Because the non-Indian majority in the United States tend to regard all Native Americans as Reservation-based, they also regard them as practicing their own spirituality and traditions that are contrary to Christianity.
Native Americans, however, are everywhere, Ramona and Josh Harjo discover as their travels take them to remote reservations, communities throughout Indian country, in urban and rural areas and any other places the U.S. federal government chose to place them. One hindrance to widespread Native acceptance of the Christian faith is that, historically, the Christian church has largely regarded them as steeped in heathenism and required that they give up their Indian identity. In other words, the two entities, they were taught, cannot co-exist.
According to Ramona’s biographical chapbook, In the Shadow of the Steeple, she did not grow up in a Christian home although she attended church regularly. In studying the Bible, she probably noted that in Acts 13:22, God Himself stated, “‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after Mine own heart, who will do all My will.’”
Ramona may have further wondered: But, didn’t David also seduce Bathsheba and have her husband, faithful Uriah the Hittite murdered? Also, in Luke 22, the Apostle Peter denied three times that he even knew Jesus. Yet, Jesus called him “The Rock.” So, if God could use these flawed people, why not the Native American also?
She met her sports-loving husband-to-be at Haskell High School in Lawrence, Kansas. Josh was raised in a Christian home but was more interested in the worldly pleasures of alcohol, cigarettes and good times with his friends.
Nevertheless, the high school sweethearts married after graduation. But while Ramona remained pulled to the Christian faith and attended church, Josh attended with her only sporadically. Even then, he would leave early or remain in his car as his addictions to alcohol and nicotine became strongholds in his life.
They moved to Stillwater, Oklahoma in 1960 and there they met Euro-American Pastor K.B. Murray who has a burden for the salvation of Native Americans. He made a positive impact on the young couple’s lives even though Josh, in the beginning, was less enthusiastic than Ramona in winning other Native Americans to Christ. As Gary Hawkins, Executive Director of the Fellowship of Native American Christians (FoNAC) recently stated, “Fewer than 10 percent of natives have an ongoing personal relationship with Christ Jesus…”
The Harjos discovered firsthand that even in instances where the Christian church is aware of the Native American, few reach out to draw them to the Lord. Ramona began to see Native Americans as a dying people. More and more she felt called by God to bring His word to the southeastern Oklahoma Choctaws even though, for a time, she carried the burden virtually alone.
Josh’s encounter with God happened one Sunday in 1961, when he decided to deliver a special in church. While singing “My God is Real,” he became so convicted he could not finish the song and tearfully returned to his seat. Shortly afterward, he conquered his alcohol addiction, tossed his last pack of cigarettes into a fishing pond, accepted Jesus Christ as his savior and was baptized.
He sang, “My God is Real” again, and this time, completed the song while Ramona accompanied him on the piano. Two years later, Ramona formally gave her life to Jesus Christ also.
Pastor Murray then led them into Indian ministry.
During their deputation, the couple often traveled to spiritually desolate places within the Choctaw Nation, namely northern McCurtain and southern Leflore counties. Constantly on the move, in 1967, Josh and Ramona joined Calvary Baptist Church in Perry, Oklahoma about 18 miles from where they lived. Then they felt God’s call to plant Indian Baptist Mission in Smithville, Oklahoma.
In 1970, Pastor, W.W. Baker, under the authority of the home church, assisted them in organizing Indian Baptist Church. But by 1969, the family expanded to include five children. Ramona and Josh decided to lessen their travels. So, they packed their children and all their belonging into their 1960 Ford station wagon and headed for Smithville.
Once there, they moved into a large old rented country house, and with borrowed chairs and an ancient donated piano at the end of the hallway, the first service of Indian Baptist Mission Church began. The congregation totaled seven people—Josh, Ramona and their five children!
As Emerson Falls, Native American specialist with the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma stated, “There are no megachurches with Indians . . . it’s our responsibility to win our [Native American] people to Jesus.”
In the spring of 1970, Indian Baptist Mission was organized into a church with seven charter members (not including the Harjos). The congregation met under a brush arbor built especially for their worship services. As God sometimes surprises humans with His powers to reform even the most “lost and resistant,” Ramona stated, “Twenty-nine souls were saved during a two-week revival, among them some of the roughest drunks and bootleggers in town.”
Also in 1970, after the foundation was poured, both men and women worked to complete the church’s construction. At its dedication in June 1971, hundreds of pastors and preachers poured in from all over Texas, Oklahoma and some from as far away as Tennessee.
Now missionaries, Josh Harjo—with missionary Ramona always at his side—and others started Indian Baptist Church, three churches in 1984, and planted others in Talihina, Okmulgee, Wright City and Bethel Oklahoma. Each is started under the authority of Indian Baptist Church.
Sadly, Ramona did not live to fully realize the extent of her efforts and contributions, passing away in 2005. But she and husband Josh, along with a small cadre of others, worked tirelessly in winning souls to Christ among their beloved Native people.
Harjo, Ramona, In the Shadow of the Steeple (Published posthumously with contributions by Ed Bausell), Calvary Publishing, 2010
Nigh, Bob, Falls outlines FoNAC Strategy, The Baptist Messenger, June 17, 2014
Our History, Indian Mission Baptist Church webpage
Willoughby, Karen I., Native American spiritual needs weigh on FoNAC, Baptist Press, Thursday, June 21, 2018
KB Schaller is author of 100+ Native American Women Who Changed the World, winner of an International Book Award, Women’s Issues Category. Other KB Schaller books are available through amazon.com and other booksellers. Website: http://www.kbschaller.com. Email: soaring-eagles@msn.com
