Sam Brownback, the United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom under President Donald Trump, told Native Americans in Washington, D.C., who were gathered for worship and prayer, that it is time for the current president to formally apologize to them.
Brownback, a former U.S. Senator from Kansas and the state’s one-time governor, read an apology to Native Americans for the first time in the nation’s capital, inviting fourth-generation pastor and evangelist Dr. Negiel Bigpond to stand beside him.
Bigpond, a full-blooded Euchee/Yuchi Native American whose family traveled the Trail of Tears, joined Brownback and other indigenous Christians in writing the apology signed in a defense appropriations bill on December 19, 2009—but never publicized—by President Barak Obama.
In addition to praying together in D.C., Brownback and Bigpond are featured in a documentary “The Apology,” which highlights their 20-year friendship and collaboration on the little-known legislation passed by Congress 12 years ago. The documentary also showcases Bigpond and Native Americans extending forgiveness at a prayer gathering around the Washington Monument.
Wearing a native-style necklace from a late American Indian Christian leader, Dr. Jay Swallow, Brownback thanked Joann Swallow for the couple’s inspiration in helping to write the apology that became the law and for her husband’s prayer reconciliation work in western Kansas.
A strong believer, Brownback says America has a spiritual problem. “We moved Native Americans from their ancestral homelands in the Indian Removal Act at a great cost of lives.”
According to the “Apology Now” movement website, “To many Native people, an apology not expressed is worse than no apology at all, just another set of meaningless words buried in official treaties and broken promises.”
To learn more and watch the documentary, go to theapologynow.com.
STEVE REES, taken from Assist News Service.
Taken from Prayer Connect magazine. To subscribe.
