| By
Michael Wacht
LAKELAND — The Rev. Delton Collins, a local
pastor from the West North Carolina Conference, will soon be leading
the Florida Conference’s efforts to reach and minister to the state’s
Native American population.
Collins, a Lumby Indian, will be appointed
pastor of the Brighton Seminole Reservation at the Florida Annual
Conference Event May 28-31.
The reservation is located in the Fort Myers
District. The district’s superintendent, the Rev. Sharon Patch, said
this is the first opportunity in a number of years for the United
Methodist Church to serve the Native American population.
“It’s exciting,” she said. “We have a
fairly large contingent of Native Americans in this area that we have
not yet begun to reach.”
The United Methodist Church has had a presence
on the reservation since 1973 when the United Methodist Seminole
Ministry of Florida, a cooperative ministry between the Florida
Conference and the denomination’s General Board of Global
Ministries, was begun. A main focus of the ministry is the Billy
Osceola Library, which was built by United Methodist Volunteers in
Mission teams and is the only library on Florida’s five
reservations.
Mable Haught, a Seminole and director of the
ministry, has been asking for a pastor for her people for several
years. “I think it’s going to work out pretty well,” Haught
said.
The Seminole people “have a sense of God
already,” she said, adding many of the reservation’s parents send
their children to Christian schools. “That shows a yearning for
something when they do that.”
Haught said the reservation’s medicine man is
also supportive of the Christian faith. “The medicine man says the
traditional way and the Christian way are teaching the same thing…they
should be walking hand-in-hand.”
Collins said he has mixed emotions about the
move to Florida. “I’m excited about it in my spirit,” he said.
“At the same time, I’m in a worrying stage and worried about
things going well. Anytime you walk into water that deep, as deep as I’m
about to wade into, you have to worry about it. But I know the Lord is
in the midst of it from day one…and things are going to go well.”
Collins said he felt called to this ministry
more than a year ago. In April 2001, he visited the reservation and
saw the needs there. “I heard the Lord speaking to me a couple of
weeks before I went,” he said. “The doors just kept opening, and I
just kept walking through them.”
Patch said several things came together to make
Collins’ appointment possible, including receiving financial
assistance from the Southeastern Jurisdiction to help pay Collins’
salary. “We weren’t interested in doing this if we were not able
to find a Native American who can reach the culture,” she said. “Delton
is very personable and very likable. I think he’ll do well here.”
The new ministry needs support from the Florida
Conference, too, Patch said. Money collected during Native American
Awareness Sunday for the past three years is being used to help start
it, and future offerings will help sustain it.
Native American Awareness Sunday is one of six
denomination-wide Special Sundays and was officially held April 14.
Patch asked churches that did not celebrate it to choose a date later
in the year to raise awareness and garner support.
Collins’ first task when her arrives is to get
to know the people on the reservation and determine the kinds of
ministries they want and need. “I have a vision of going down there
and winning souls for Christ,” he said. “I want to tell them about
a savior who loves them unconditionally. That’s something they’re
missing, something they don’t understand.”
Collins said the Lumby and Seminole people have
physical and linguistic differences, but their cultures are very
similar. They have a common love of nature and many similar
ceremonies, art and crafts.
In addition to his work on the Brighton
Reservation, which has about 500 residents, Collins will help reach
people on the Big Cypress Reservation, according to Patch. |
