FARMINGTON — Navajo Ministries, a place providing hope and restoration for more than five decades, will be transformed into a living Christmas card tonight.
The 24th annual Live Navajo Nativity is a drive-through event that allows the community to see a portion of the 17-acre campus decorated for the Christmas season.
The local Christmas tradition, which happens from 6 to 8 p.m. at 2103 W. Main St., includes children from the on-site Four Corners Home for Children portraying the nativity scene, live animals and Navajo choirs singing carols.
The event also will include people who donate their time to Navajo Ministries as volunteers. Tonight, they'll likely provide traffic control for the Live Nativity. Other times during the year they might be serving as part of an all-volunteer board or advisory council, as a volunteer teacher's aide at the on-site elementary school or even broadcasting high school games for the ministry-operated radio station.
"The Live Nativity is a gift to our community and a way to thank them for their support in time, funds and prayer during the past year," Navajo Ministries President Jim Baker said. "Community members are a vital part of the programs at Navajo Ministries."
Those programs include the
Churches, civic groups, businesses and individuals provide time, money and other donations year-round to make the ministry programs possible. During the Christmas season, many local groups provide gifts, food and blankets for people who live in remote areas of the Navajo Nation as part of the ministry's Christmas Connection effort.
Navajo Ministries, founded in 1953 as Navajo Missions by Jack Drake, receives no state, federal or tribal funding and relies on resourceful financial partners both locally and nationally to operate its programs.
While Navajo Ministries has a staff of about 30 full-time employees, volunteers are invaluable in helping to run several successful programs.
One such volunteer is Jim Althouse, who actually moved from Pennsylvania last year to donate his time at Navajo Ministries. A retired high school band director, Althouse discovered the organization while on a ministry Navajoland tour.
"After witnessing the tremendous job the ministry was doing with the school students, I volunteered for a two-month stay, which turned into six months," Althouse said. "In May, I was invited to return for the new school year as a full-time teacher's aide in the school and I accepted."
The Navajo Ministries School, which is part of the Farmington Municipal Schools system, teaches at-risk children who have experienced difficult personal and family situations. Along with the children who live on the grounds, the school also includes some students from the Farmington-based child services center Childhaven.
Many of the students are well behind their peers when they first begin course work at the school. Althouse and full-time teacher Diane Hebbard work closely with the children in a smaller classroom setting and often see the students make dramatic progress. Some even progress two grade levels in one school year in math and reading.
"The small classes enable the staff to meet both the educational and emotional needs of these abused and/or neglected children," Althouse said. "To see the progress they make in this small-group environment and to hear them tell how they now feel safe and loved are the most rewards one can expect from this job. It is a bigger reward than any monetary job one could have."
Althouse is a full-time volunteer, working from 8 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. as an aide. Along with his regular volunteer duties, he has established a music program, which includes singing, a recorder band and lessons on band instruments that were donated by the local community and friends of Althouse from Pennsylvania.
Vertical Radio (FM 88.9) was the first Christian station in the Four Corners and is the broadcast home of the annual Connie Mack World Series. About a half-dozen broadcasters also donate their time as part of the high school Game of the Week during the school year.
All of the ministry programs are important to the overall organization, but helping children weather the storms of life truly is at the heart of the work being performed at Navajo Ministries. Nearly 30 children live on grounds. many of them in two long-term homes that can hold up to 10 children each.
"Children who live in the extended-care homes are loved and well cared for," said Annette Hall, director of Children and Family Services at Navajo Ministries. "Our homes are staffed with loving couples who demonstrate God's love and the example of a healthy family. Through having devoted caregivers, they learn to develop healthy relationships, which are beneficial to them all of their lives. We give our children a stable environment and the security that every child deserves."
The community can see some of the children who live at Navajo Ministries tonight during the Live Nativity. The children will be representing "the real reason for the season" to all who drive through the display, Baker said.
"The weather has never stopped the show, even the year that four inches fell during those two hours. It was a challenge to keep the snowball throwing to a minimum," he said. "This living Christmas card' is a night to remember for both the children and those who drive through the grounds."
For more information about Navajo Ministries, call (505) 325-0255 or go to www.navajoministries.org.
Eric Fisher is the director of development at Navajo Ministries Inc. and former managing editor at The Daily Times.
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