Your kingdom come.

What does this mean? In fact, God’s kingdom comes on its own without our prayer, but we ask in this prayer that it may also come to us. Martin Luther’s Small Catechism

Dear Friends in Christ,

I am filled with hope and energy and ideas after spending a day and half this past week at the inaugural National Tribal Housing Ecosystem Summit organized by Enterprise Community Partners. Last spring I asked Bart Cochran, the executive director of LEAP Housing (whose board I sit on) what LEAP was doing to walk alongside and learn from the tribes in Idaho. He told me he had just learned about this summit, which would be in Boise, and asked if I wanted to attend.

The event began Tuesday evening with a social hour. We met Shaun Donovan, Enterprise’s CEO who was the HUD Secretary under the Obama administration, and Tonya Plummer, Native American Housing Director for Enterprise and creator of the summit, enrolled tribal member of Assiniboine, Sioux, and Cree heritage who currently lives in Kalispel, MT.  Wednesday began with a land acknowledgement by Ladd Edmo of the Shoshone Bannock Tribe, greetings from an elder of the Shoshone-Paiute tribe, and a song from the Nez Perce, or Nimiipuu. These three tribes played a major role in hosting throughout the summit. Panels, workshops, and tribal showcases (celebrating success stories) were all informed by the The Housing Ecosystem: A Foundation of Tribal Economies. The core tenets are demand, social & emotional infrastructure, construction & development, and finance. We heard from Rudy Soto (USDA Rural Development Director who grew up in Nampa, Idaho and is a member of the Shoshone-Bannock tribe), Joaquin Altoro (Admin, Rural Housing US Dept. of Agriculture), Estakio Beltran (with the Dept. of Interior who grew up on the Yakima Nation), Lakota Vogel (Executive Director of Four Bands Community Fund and member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe), Rose Petosky (Director of Tribal Affairs, White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and member of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians), and many others.

I so appreciated a session on Social and Emotional Infrastructure led by Lanalle Smith (member of the Navajo): “Centering Native Based Perspective in Credit and Equity, Excerpts from the Trauma of Money.” Another great session was the Power of Data led by Casey Lozar of the Center for Indian Country Development. In the latter we learned how the CICD is trying to fill the data gaps on Indigenous populations and communities.

The best part of the entire summit was meeting and having conversations with tribal members from the housing authorities at Fort Hall, Nez Perce, and Duck Valley. I was able to ask questions like, is there any role for a primarily white church or non-profit to accompany you in this work? The answer was yes, we are always looking for partners. LEAP is creating its own CDFI (Community Development Financial Institution) and since not all the tribes have a certified CDFI yet, this could be helpful. Some of our synod’s churches are on or near reservations and tribal members were open to potential partnerships now or in the future. I celebrate those of you already partnering!

Thursday morning, I went to tribal showcases with tribes from my home state of South Dakota. The Sisseston Whapeton Housing Authority and the Sicangu Co from the Rosebud Sioux Tribe are both doing amazing work—stacking capital, working with their tribes, and building homes that are beautiful and will be standing for generations!

The last showcase I attended highlighted a Low-Income Housing Tax Credit project the Oneida Tribe is doing in Wisconsin. By lunch on Thursday, word was out that I was also a Lutheran bishop, not just with LEAP housing, and the Enterprise staff connected me with Jess Blanch, Pacific Northwest Program Director who works with my ELCA and Methodist colleagues in Western Washington. I also met Enterprise’s Robin Wolff, Senior Director for Rural Communities.

If your church has already discerned that affordable housing is in your future, I commend Enterprise’s Faith-Based Development Guide. There’s also this resource from ELCA World Hunger on housing.

A few thoughts to wrap this all up: I know I am not the first or last bishop, pastor, deacon, or lay person to care about accompanying our Indigenous siblings. I have role models, and I know many of you are currently reading, building relationships, hosting seminars, and showing up at tribal events. But when a leader says something is important, as I have said this work is important to our synod, then it is equally important for me to lead by example. I am in this with you all. It is hard and slow work, but it is also joy filled and hopeful—so hopeful!

A final list of take-aways or things I am still pondering (in no special order):

• Self-Determination – a division of the BIA, an Act of 1975, and something that was named multiple times throughout the summit

• CDFIs – a great tool now and going forward

• USDA does so much in rural housing

• There are many Indigenous veterans, a very vulnerable population

• Importance of knowing the history of Indian Boarding Schools

• Enterprise’s Faith-Based Development

• Most Native Americans live in urban settings-something an Alaska Native who grew up in Nome and now lives in Seattle reminded the data session group

Thanks for reading and wishing you a beautiful September and beginning of the programmatic church year.

 Bishop Meggan Manlove