Uniontown woman serves as missionary to American Indians
When Linda K. Peterson read the words “Crow Native American Reservation” in a letter about a missionary opportunity in Montana, she knew she had to go. “It seemed like they jumped off the page,” she said.
An ordained minister from Uniontown, Peterson said she had for some time felt the personal burden to minister the word of God to American Indians.
“Years ago, my family traveled to California and we lived there a short time. We stayed at a reservation in Wyoming. A lot of the Native Americans were drunk. It broke my heart. I wanted to minister to them. When I became a minister, it was always in my heart,” she said.
Peterson accepted the invitation to travel west with the Missions Alive organization, based in Pittsburgh, and spent seven days in June with the American Indians of Lodge Grass Creek, Mont., concentrating much of her efforts in helping revamp an elderly woman’s home.
“It was set up for us to work on the house of a wheelchair-bound lady who was trying to raise four of her grandchildren. She had had a stroke and had no heat,” Peterson said. The woman’s three-bedroom, one-story home needed a lot of work, and the mission group made improvements to the furnace, floors, walls, ceilings and cabinets. The mission group also did a few smaller projects for others.
The natural beauty of the location impressed Peterson, but the poverty there did not.
Peterson described the housing on the reservation as similar to a project, with trailers and one-story homes. She said the reservation land is apparently rented and leased for little money, and a nearby casino seems to have little positive overall effect on the economy of the area, which has a 97 percent unemployment rate.
A grocery store and two hardware stores are there and the reservation has a school. Also on site is a health center, but Peterson said residents expressed little confidence in it and were more apt to make the 90 minute-to-two hour trip to Billings for their health-care needs. The area suffered from a water shortage, and there were other groups of people from throughout the United States also helping out. The weather was favorable during the day but the nights were cold, with temperatures dipping as low as 30 degrees.
Peterson described miles of flat land with mountains in the distance and a sky that somehow appeared bigger than it does here.
“They call Montana the ‘Big Sky Country’ and it seems like they really have a bigger sky,” she said.
The Missions Alive group stayed in tents and teepees on the grounds of the Lodge Grass Creek Church of God. The group led two services at the local church and cooked meals each night for the people.
Peterson said she found more Christianity among the residents than she expected, but also a lot of personal pain.
“About 10,000 people are living there and about 5,500 of them are Christians,” she said. “So many seemed so hurt and I wondered why.” She said many told her they had been hurt by their families and were sad that their culture was not being taught. She said the people she met were loving, although they showed little outward emotion.
She attended a re-enactment of the Battle of Little Big Horn and noticed those involved were proud and patriotic.
“You would think they would still feel bitter and angry, but I didn’t feel that from them. They were very welcoming,” she said.
The letter Peterson received about the trip to Montana came from the organization Pioneer Outreach Mission in Alabama, and the trip would be the first sponsored locally by Missions Alive. Peterson had gone to Mexico with the Missions Alive director and was interested in participating with their group. She raised the $937 needed for travel and expenses and joined nine others for the visit, which was coordinated on the reservation end by Apsaalooka Tours.
Peterson also had collected blankets and toys from Penn State Fayette that she added to the items the group took with them for the residents of the reservation.
Peterson said she would like to return to the reservation next June when the Crow Nation gathers for an annual festival.
A Penn State student and an employee at the Fayette campus in the adult admissions office, she is set to graduate in December with a bachelor’s degree in letters, arts and sciences and a minor in psychology. She plans to pursue a master’s degree in psychology.
Peterson is originally from Brownsville and is a 1968 graduate of Brownsville Area High School. She is the daughter of Flora K. (Davis) Jackson and the late Durce A. Jackson. Among her many roles, she is a mother of four children – Douglas, Wendy, Frank Jr. and Katherine -and grandmother of 14, ranging from ages 2 to 16.
In 1984, she became an ordained minister from Greater Works Outreach in Monroeville. She has also been ordained under the pastors of her home church, Brownsville Christian Fellowship.
Although she does not pastor a church, she has in the past co-founded and co-pastored two churches. She also founded the Adoniah Women’s Prayer Fellowship. In 1990 she founded HERE I AM Ministries to teach and equip others for foreign ministry, and she also has written three books.
Peterson said she hopes some day to form a non-profit organization that would lead teams of missionaries throughout the world wherever there is need of the gospel message.
She has joined mission trips since about 1995, going to such places as China, Singapore, the Bahamas and St. Vincent, Bulgaria, Mexico and Indonesia.
“I am not pastoring a church now. That is not what I’m supposed to do. My purpose is to be in a church and go out from there,” she said. “I think every Christian should go on a mission trip. They would appreciate the United States even more when they see the poverty and conditions of other countries. There is poverty here and people ask me why I do not stay in the United States. I’m called to go there, not here. If I go somewhere I’m not supposed to be, I’d be taking someone else’s place.”