Dear friends and family,
I hope this letter finds you all well. Lizzie and I are a few months away from celebrating our two-year anniversary. It’s been an amazing couple of years. As you may know Lizzie and I had the wonderful opportunity to work with an organization called Youthworks! (www.youthworks.com) last summer on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Little did we know, that this was just the beginning.
We are about to embark on a yearlong internship with Greaterworks Inc. (www.Greaterworks.us). We will be spending the next nine months living on the reservation, seven miles from the city of Pine Ridge. We will be living in community with our two other staff, and the people of the reservation, while immersing ourselves in their culture, and building meaningful relationships.
Last summer while working on the Pine Ridge Reservation, we had the opportunity to meet a family, a mother and four young boys. Originally, they started coming around to play basketball and meet the weeks’ participants, but soon after they began staying for dinner. It even got to the point where they wanted to spend the night. We eventually realized that these boys and their mother had made their home in their car. We spent many days playing, laughing, listening and most of all learning from this family. As the summer began to come to a close we had a feeling of overwhelming sadness. We were not ready to leave. There were more community cookouts to be had, and relationships to be built. We trusted that God would provide those opportunities, and through Greaterworks He has.
Greaterworks gives us the opportunity to invest long term into a community full of culture and love. We will be given the opportunities to partner with existing ministries on the reservation and support them in areas where we feel passionate. We would love it if you came along side of us on this adventure. You can do that by supporting us financially. We have the goal to raise $7,900 by January 2009. If you would like to financially support one week of our ministry that would be $240.00, one day would be $34.00. Feel free to give any amount. Jake and I truly see any gift as a blessing from God. Please continue to keep us in your prayers and we will keep you updated on all of our wonderful adventures here in Pine Ridge.
Thank you
Jake & Lizzie Ladd
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