A mission of hope
Tennessee family builds relationship with Klagetoh

Melvin Jones carries flour, potatoes and other food items for a reciepient of the items in Klagetoh Ariz. The food was provide by a group of missionaries from Tennessee which is led by Gene Kennedy. [Photos by Daniel Zollinger/Independent]

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Staff writer

People stand in line Saturday morning in Klagetoh Ariz. while waiting for an adult Bible study to begin. The Bible study was part of a program led by Gene Kennedy and a missionary group from Tennessee. [Photo by Daniel Zollinger/Independent]

KLAGETOH — For a quarter of a century, Gene and Shirley Kennedy have been working to build a bridge of friendship.

It started off tentatively at first, with more differences perhaps than things shared in common. And as in all friendships, there’s been a few missteps along the way. But 25 years later, there is a strong bridge of friendship, and it spans from the rural Navajo Reservation communities of Klagetoh and Wide Ruins, Ariz., to the Tennessee city of Memphis.

Gene Kennedy owns a business near Memphis that manufactures mattresses. Twenty-five years ago, a youth pastor in his church suggested the church organize a summer mission project to the Navajo Nation, and the Kennedys signed up to help. By the next summer, that youth pastor had moved onto another job, but the Kennedys and other volunteers returned to Klagetoh and Wide Ruins.

Twenty-two years ago, Gene and Shirley decided they should be more than just typical mission volunteers who show up on an Indian reservation for a brief time and then disappear forever. They decided they were in it for the long-haul.

“The Navajo people like to build relationships,” Gene Kennedy explained. In 1985, he added, he and his wife felt lead to establish an on-going ministry.

Since then, the couple has visited the Navajo Nation three to four times a year, and they have lead teams of volunteers twice a year — in summer and in late December — to distribute food, clothing, and toys and to lead Vacation Bible Schools, worship services, and Bible studies. According to Kennedy, church members from a dozen different churches in the Memphis area donate groceries, clothing, toys, and money to make the annual projects possible. Mission volunteers — from teens to retired senior citizens — pay their own way each year, he added, so all contributions can go to the projects.

Now, after years of outreach in Klagetoh and Wide Ruins, the Kennedys have expanded their efforts to include the Cornfields, Ariz., community. And along the way, they and their volunteers have become friends with many of the local people.

Arkansas residents Bill and Carey Goacher have been volunteering for several years, and Tennessee resident Barbara Chrisman has been volunteering for 15 years.

“We just really get to become friends with people out here,” Chrisman said of her experience. She and some of the local Navajo women have watched each other’s children grow up, she said, adding, “We’ve become grandmothers together.”

Nicole Jones is one of the local kids who has grown up with the Kennedys and their volunteers. A senior at Round Valley High School in Springerville, Ariz., Jones’ family is from the Klagetoh/Wide Ruins area. She met the Kennedys when she was a young child and now helps them when they return to the reservation. On Saturday she was helping distribute sacks of potatoes, grocery staples, and Bluebird flour to 200 local families while her mother and her aunt were supervising the distribution of donated clothing inside the chapter house.

“I get joy out of it,” she said of her volunteer work. “I just enjoy it.”

Roderick Begay, a young local father, was also helping assist the visiting volunteers on Saturday. “I just do it for the community,” he explained.

Klagetoh Chapter President Stenson D. Wauneka said he was a high school student in the mid-1980s when he began attending chapter meetings and became aware of the work of the Kennedys and their volunteers. He believes the group’s biannual visits to the reservation have become a community tradition that local residents enjoy.

“They look forward to them coming,” he said. In addition to helping local families meet physical needs for food, clothing, and toys for their children, Wauneka believes many local people appreciate the group’s willingness to address spiritual needs, particularly through prayer services. Gene Kennedy, an outgoing, friendly man who greets new acquaintances with warm handshakes and old friends with bear hugs, said he realizes that some reservation residents are only interested in the food, clothing, or toys that his group brings. That’s OK, he said, because of the reservation’s high poverty level.

However, he explained, others are truly interested in the message of faith his groups share. Many local kids are part of the summer youth group, he added, and a surprising number of Native men attend Bible study classes in the summer.

Kennedy, who brought his own 13-year-old granddaughter, Bailey, during this recent trip, said he looks forward to many more years of visits to the Navajo Nation.

“We are now ministering to the third generation,” he said. “If the Lord will let me, we’ll get to the fourth.”