Lakota AID Registered Charity No: 1097444 Volume 1 Issue 8

Hi Everyone, This is just a short newsletter to wish everyone a Very Happy Christmas and New Year. Many thanks to all who have donated money, or fundraised for the Oglala,Lakota Native Americans of the Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota. U.S.A. Thanks to all you kind people, Rita Afraid of Bear is now living in a much better conditioned trailer than her old one. It is bigger and has one bathroom and 2 toilets, a real treat for Rita! She has had to use and outside privy for the past 15 years, and had no running water in all that time also. With funds donated I had a septic tank and connecting pipes installed for her, thus allowing her at long last to have the precious running water and the absolute luxury of an inside toilet!! No more trips outside in the freezing cold and snow for her and it is all down to you wonderful people. This year has been a good year for Lakota Aid, I have a growing list of people that I am helping with Propane fuel, and the Pen-Pal/ Adoption scheme is also slowly growing. I am going back to the Reservation on March 24th 2004, and intend to add names of families and Elders to the Adoption scheme, plus more photos as a result of this visit, so hopefully 2004 will prove to be an even more successful year for Lakota Aid. Once again, many, many thanks to all of you. I Would like to leave you with these words spoken by Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Lakota people. Prophecy of Crazy Horse This was passed on by Chief Joe Chasing Horse, a relative of Crazy Horse. He translated it from the words of a grandmother who was present when the words were spoken. This is a statement of Crazy Horse as he sat smoking the sacred pipe at Paha Sapa with Sitting Bull for the last time, 4 days before he was assassinated. Many of these words are often repeated. There is one line often left out, that of the "young white ones". "Upon suffering beyond suffering; the Red Nation shall rise again and it shall be a blessing for a sick world. A world filled with broken promises, selfishness and separations. A world longing for light again. I see a time of seven generations when all the colors of mankind will gather under the sacred Tree of Life and the whole Earth will become one circle again. In that day there will be those among the Lakota who will carry knowledge and understanding of unity among all living things, and the young white ones will come to those of my people and ask for this wisdom. I salute the light within your eyes where the whole universe dwells. For when you are at that center within you and I am [at?] that place within me, we shall be as one." - Crazy Horse.     [Home] [Why the Lakota need your Help] [Newsletter] [Ambulance Project]