At the bottom of 12,307 foot-tall Mount Adams in Washington sits the Yakama Reservation, the largest Indian nation in the Northwest. The people of Yakama have an unemployment rate of 75 percent and a 65 percent drop out rate from middle school to high school.
Reformed University Fellowship, a campus ministry at Mississippi State University, has found ways to be involved on the reservation by partnering with Sacred Road Ministries, a full-time ministry on the Yakama Reservation.
Mollie Simpkins, senior graphic design major, and Lauren Sensing, senior special education major, have been involved with Sacred Road Ministries for the past seven years.
Simpkins and Sensing have been able to take part in this ministry that works in the Yakama community to love Native American people living in poverty and spread the word of the Gospel.
Sensing said Sacred Road is about doing the Lord’s work and spreading the love of Jesus Christ. 
“It’s more of a ‘go and tell everyone’ so that more people would want to come and get involved,” Sensing said,
Chris and Mary Granberry, along with their four kids, moved to Yakama in June 2003 to begin Sacred Road. Chris serves as the team leader and pastor of the church in Yakama and has partnered with three other families and three other individuals who work there full-time.
Sacred Road Ministries has a 12-week summer internship program that Sensing has served in the past three summers and Simpkins one summer. Sensing said the internships have allowed her to learn more about Native American cultures and build relationships with the Native American people.
“(Internships) allowed me to delve deeper into the culture and build deeper relationships with children on the reservation and understand their way of life more,” she said. 
Sensing said over the past three years RUF has taken part in one-week mission trips to the reservation over spring break. She said this upcoming year, RUF hopes to partner with Ole Miss to help get even more people involved and aware of the mission opportunity.
MSU RUF campus minister Brian Sorgenfrei led the trip two years ago and will take the RUF group back this spring break.
Sorgenfrei said Sacred Road Ministries has developed over the years.
“What was really neat about going a few years ago was the Granberrys had been there for 10 years, and the first five years basically people were skeptical of them and kept thinking they would leave, but they stayed for the long distance and really served them and became a part of the community,” he said. “So the neat thing was seeing how the kids had come to love the Granberrys and love the church and been baptized and started to take ownership of their friends and their own community and even their parents.”
Sacred Road works with close to 400 children on the reservation. Simpkins and Sensing said the church on the reservation, Hope Fellowship, functions as a safe place for children to learn about Jesus and build healthy relationships.
“Drug and alcohol abuse and violence is rampant in reservations, and a lot is going against these kids,” Sensing said. “These kids come from rough situations, and for many of them, their parents aren’t involved in their lives, and the church functions as a safe haven for them. I feel honored to be part of something so amazing.”
Simpkins said at first, she randomly learned about Sacred Road, but now she considers being a part of RUF, Sacred Road Ministries and the work that has been done to improve the lives of children a blessing.
“Our youth leader somehow found the Sacred Road Ministries website, got connected with them, and we were like ‘Yeah, we want to join,’” she said. “To be a part of something so amazing is a blessing. It’s an honor.”
Sensing said she agreed the initial connection with Sacred Road was the Lord’s calling.
“At the time, we wanted to get involved doing mission work, and that is where the Lord led us,” Sensing said. “The first time we went, we just loved the ministry, loved the kids and the people there.”
The girls said the ministry has grown both on the reservation and around the country as more people learn about Sacred Road. For more information about the Yakama people, Sacred Road has a website, sacredroadministries.com, or those interested in becoming involved with the ministry can contact Sensing at [email protected].
 

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