A Mighty Warrior For Jesus!

Hi, I'm Joanne Vickner, Memaw with It's Storytime Memaw, an answered prayer for stories that point children to God on the Truth Network for kids. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds.

Enjoy it, share it. But most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. We're calling him a chief in a metaphorical way. He is Chief Reynard Faber of the Apache tribe in Hickory in Dulce, New Mexico, and he loves Jesus. And Chief, I'm going to bring you on. Bring a greeting to all of our listeners in your native Apache tongue. Wow. If you thought an Apache was just a famous army helicopter, you got another thing coming. I'm with an Apache warrior, a chief, and his son Trevor's with us.

And I want to tell you how I met him, but I'm going to let Pastor Jeff Johnson, one of our awesome friends, the Truth Network pastors, tell us, how did you come across this man of God? It was some time ago, wasn't it? Oh, it was. It was about 12 years ago. We went out to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and we had some friends there and they said, if we bring in casting crowns, will you fly out there?

I said, okay. But about four months later, three weeks before the event of Labor Day weekend, they called and said, are you coming? So we flew our family of six out there and getting ready for casting crowns. And I met Chief and he was moving porta potties, literally moving porta potties. He's the chief. You're not supposed to do that if you're the chief.

He wasn't, but you know what? He has always been a humble servant and we were there to help some missionaries and we drove up and literally we was moving porta potties and we helped him. And we've been good friends. We've had a mission team out to Dulce, New Mexico, had him here to speak at several different places and things and just amazing, amazing love for God. And his testimony just makes you want to cry on the deliverance of what God can do for anybody. Chief, tell us about your testimony. How did you come to know Jesus as your savior?

Well, there's a lot to that. I found a ragged old Bible and I was coming out of a lot of hard stuff in my life. If I can, I'd like to explain more. As a child, I came from a very, very abusive situation at home where my stepdad just beat up my mom and beat up us kids. And then I was in a boarding school where the government, the United States government under the Bureau of Indian Affairs, abused the kids by committing forced assimilation and cultural genocide on us. And we were taken from our homes when I was six years old, just snatched and pulled away from my mom and taken into this dormitory.

And I was there from six to 10 years old where we couldn't speak our language. They cut our hair. They threw our Indian clothes away and just really mistreated us because of our culture.

And we did not have freedom of religion until after 1978. And so part of this was to make us Americans and all the harsh treatment that we got through the Bureau of Indian Affairs under the United States government and the beast at home all the way till I was 18. It was just bottled up inside me. And when I graduated high school, I had nowhere to go.

I had no in no direction for life. And I did what I said I was never going to do. And that was drink. And I became so drunk every day for two years because I didn't know what to do with all of this hurt and all of this stuff that was stuffed down inside of me for so long.

And it was awful. But one day, a woman at the store prayed for me and a miracle happened. And from being totally drunk and hangover that morning after her prayer, I was totally sober. And she told me to go home to my grandma's and stay there till I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. And while I was at my grandma's, I found a ragged old book.

I didn't know it was a Bible, but I found this book that had no cover on it. The pages were stuck together. And I was throwing old papers away that my grandma had kept in a dresser drawer in the window.

I was burning them in the wood stove. And I was going to throw this book in the wood stove, and I kept it back. And it was so torn up that it didn't have a cover on it, and it was only a portion of a book.

But I kept it, and I started reading it by peeling the pages apart. And in every story that I read, there was a man named Jesus that seemed to be the one who was dealing with these people and putting their lives back together. Whether it was the woman at the well or the ten lepers or blind Bartimaeus, whoever Jesus, this Jesus in this book, came in contact with, he put their lives back together.

And one day I was reading this ragged old book, and I said, Jesus, I said, God, I wish there was a real Jesus that could put my life back together. And it just so happened that the next story I was reading was about Nicodemus and Jesus. And Jesus told Nicodemus that he needed to be born again. And I had read John 3 16 for the first time. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. But the two verses following, it says that where God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.

And he that believes is not condemned, but he that believes not is condemned already because he has not believed in the only name of the begotten son of God. And I realized that I was in the condemned section, and I thought I was a good kid that all of these bad things happened to. And as I said, OK, I'm ready to be born again. A slew of thoughts like rewind showed me all the awful stuff that I had done in my life and things that I had thought, things that I had done, things that I had said. And I knew I wasn't the good kid that I thought I was. And all I could say to the Lord or to God at that moment was forgive me, forgive me, forgive me, forgive me, forgive me. And I said it with tears rolling out of my eyes. I was on the floor. I fell on the floor asking for forgiveness. And I just said, if you change my life, God, I will go anywhere you want me to go. I would do anything you want me to do.

I would say anything you want me to say. Just change my life like the people in the book and forgive me and come into my life and make me a different person. And at that moment, all of the shame that I had stopped and I felt brand new.

And I said, how long is this supposed to last? And I got up from the floor and I picked up that Raggedo book. And it just so happened that as I picked it up, the pages just kind of came open. And there was a verse there that I had seen for the first time again. Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature.

Old things are passed away and behold, all things are become new. And then I knew that God had heard me and that I had what? Just let me tell you, I thought that I had found something that nobody else had ever found.

That I was the only one to find this. And I was so excited about it because there were churches in my community, but no one ever invited me there. No one ever told me about Jesus there. And so when I went to the churches about a week later, I was escorted out of the Baptist Church.

Because I wanted to tell people about Jesus there. I went to the Catholic Church and they grabbed me by my arms. And two men grabbed me by my arms on each side and threw me out onto the gravel. And I went to the assembly of God and I thought I was going to get thrown out there. And I was hanging onto the pews with my both hands and they started giving testimony. And I stood up with my knees shaking and my arms shaking and I said, I want to say something about Jesus. And I started talking about the power of God's word and about the power of Jesus.

There's power in Jesus name. And they said, well the church is with Jesus. And I said, no, you guys know who I am. I know all of you in this building and you never once invited me here. And you never told me about the love of God. And I said, many times in my life up to this point I almost did myself in and you guys didn't care. And so how can this place called church be a part of what God is doing or connected to God?

So a brand new Christian and you're already getting kicked out of churches. What a story. Now we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk more with the Indian chief of the Apache Gicaria in Dulce, New Mexico. What a story and how he met the Graham family and how God's used you and what God's doing now through your ministry and your son. Pastor Johnson Moore on Truth Talk. Hang on. Paul was the chief of sinners. Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone. And I'm sitting with a real live Apache chief of the Gicaria.

Did I say it right? Gicaria. Gicaria.

Apache Gicaria tribe out of Dulce, New Mexico. Chief Rainard Faber introduced me by my good friend, Pastor Jeff Johnson out of Greensboro. What a testimony. You come to know Jesus through a lot of alcohol abuse and challenges and a lot of mistreatment by our own American government.

And God saved you through this this misshapen torn up Bible. Jeff Johnson, what's it like to hear this guy's story? We just heard his testimony. If you just join us, you got to listen to how this guy got saved. Amazing chief, I'd like for you to share with them how you actually became a chief, how that qualified you to be the chief and then lead into the story that when you graduated, you wanted to go to Liberty University in the whole story about telling your testimony on the old time gospel hour with Jerry Falwell.

Yeah, let's hear that. Tell us about how you be a chief. Well, I didn't become a chief until after I graduated from Liberty University and I was working at Albuquerque Calvary Chapel with Skip Heizuk. And I was called home by the tribal council in 1999. And they knew that I was traveling with Franklin and Billy Graham periodically and representing the nation of the Apache Nation. So they asked me to take on the role of honorary and traditional chief.

And so I reluctantly accepted. But the way I ended up going to Liberty was after I got saved, I worked with some missionaries and I asked the missionary at one point, I have a dumb question and I said I wasn't raised in church and I don't know anything about Bibles or anything like that. And I said, but I want to go to a place where like a Bible school. Is there any Bible schools that I can go to? And he looked at me and said, there are thousands of Bible schools.

Take your pick. Wow. And I said, really? Because to me, a Bible was a book and there was really just basically no school for just any book. But you have a Bible school. And so I applied to Liberty University and was accepted. And I had applied for scholarship at my tribe, which I am allowed to have. And I was granted a scholarship.

In fact, it was a full ride. I mean, it played for my airfare, for my living expenses, for my tuition, for everything. And about two days before I was going to go to Liberty, the rep from the scholarship office came and said, we have changed our mind and we're taking the scholarship back. And I had already sent some of my belongings in a box to Liberty University. And I went back into the house and my mom was still drinking and she had a long neck, but wiser. And she said, what's going on? And I said, I'm not going to school, mom. And she said, why not?

And I said, because they took the scholarship away from me. And so I said, I don't have no money to go. And she looks at me and she said, well, you're going around town praying for everybody and you're telling people about this great Jesus. And she said, you need to start believing in this great Jesus that you've been talking about. And I said, well, what do you what do you mean? And she said, you need to ask God what you need for today. And I said, well, I don't know. That's different, mom.

And she said, there's no difference. And she took another swig of her beer and told me to ask God what I needed for that day. And I needed an airfare ticket. So I went to town and I asked to talk to people and I ended up getting my airfare ticket that day. And I flew out on Saturday to Liberty University with no money, just the air ticket.

And I got there and I went through check in and everything. And they asked me at check in when it came time for payment. They said, we need seventeen hundred dollars from you today. And I said, well, I don't have seventeen hundred dollars.

And if this is the Christian school and you you need to ask Jesus for it, if you need seventeen hundred dollars today. And so they called a representative who was the vice president of the school, Dennis Fields. And Dennis Fields took me aside and talked to me and asked me where I was from and why I was at Liberty. And I told him and he came back 10 minutes later after making a phone call to Jerry Falwell. And they said, don't worry about it.

You're in. Oh, wow. That's something else the Lord provided through a mom, a mom who gave you she gave you your own medicine, didn't she?

Yes, she did. And she wasn't saved at the time, but she was seeing all the actions that I was doing. Wow. And so God used that. You got to Liberty. You went on faith. You went with a ticket on faith and then somehow you ended up on the old time gospel hour with Dr. Jerry Falwell, who, fun fact, my grandpa put him on the radio in Lynchburg decades ago.

I'm not even going to tell you how long ago that was in the 50s or so. But what a man of God. And he's in heaven now.

But talk about that real quick, how you ended up on his show and how God's used that to really catapult you into ministry out west. Well, actually, I had just seen myself as another student at Liberty University. I was a Native American, but I was just another student there.

And I had lots of friends. And one day our composition professor, it was a writing class, asked us to write our testimony. And his name was Ronald Smith.

He's not with us any longer. But Dr. Smith asked me to write my testimony on paper, as well as other students. The next class period, I came to class and all the students got their assignments back, except for me. So after class, I asked Dr. Smith, where's my assignment? And he said, oh, you're the one. He said, I read your story. And it was so interesting that Jerry Falwell now has it. And he will be calling you. And so about just a few days after that, I was in the bookstore and Jerry Falwell likes to pull pranks.

And he's the first person to ever snuck up on an Indian. Well, next thing I know, I'm in the bookstore and somebody grabs me from behind and picks me up off the ground and swings me around with my legs just swinging around. And I'm like, who in the world is? Let me go. Put me down. And he put me down and he's laughing. I'm like, who are you and why are you doing that? And he said, I'm Dr. Jerry Falwell.

And I'm putting you on the old time gospel hour. Wow. And and so that was OK. And so a few months later, I was able to share my story with about 10 million people across the nation. And that really just opened the door for me, even as a student, to start a ministry and telling my testimony and meeting lots of people. Chief, I understand to be called the chief, you had to be a direct descendant of Geronimo. You had to speak the native language fluently in Apache.

And what was interesting about that, when you studied Geronimo, he really didn't like the white folks too much. But here you are. And what's really what I've always felt fascinating. Would you share with us all the places in the world you have gone preaching the gospel and sharing the gospel? Just just give us a little panorama of all the places that you've gone representing the gospel from that heritage and who you are today.

And I want to jump in, take another quick break. We'll come back with that. We have a real live chief and who is sharing the gospel. He has a burden for his own Indian people and the tribes across America, across the world. The Trail of Tears, all kinds of wars happen. A lot of a lot of Indian blood was shed as you were the original occupiers of North America.

And yet this man has taken and he's leveraging that to reach souls. We want to hear how that works, chief, when we come back on Truth Talk. Hang on.

Don't touch that now. We're making a video of all of this will be available at our Web site as well. More with Chief Faber, the Apache chief of the Hickory Hickory.

I'm going to get the name of that right before we're done here today out of Dulce, New Mexico. When we come back, you hear the gunshots, you see the arrows flying. It's cowboys and Indians.

It's the Redskins of Washington versus the Cowboys of Dallas going way, way back to the old westerns and gun smoke and all the good things. And then you have Pocahontas and, you know, John Smith and and Disney has maybe over glamorized those those hit that history. There's a whole lot of stuff and there's rewritten history. But there really was a trail of tears. There really was a lot of bloodshed. There really was some hatred. There was some evil things done to the native Indians, really Native Americans, long before the Europeans came over.

Right. And from the different parts of the world with me is a man who shared how he came to know Jesus through all of that and do some amazing rough stuff in his past. He loves the Lord. He went to Liberty University on faith.

God used that to catapult him to go all over the world. He's going to tell us about that right now. But I want to tell you where we are first. We're in a restaurant.

So it might be a little bit loud. Christian music's playing. We just had about 60 or we may have had 70 guys today at Wednesday in the word at Dario. Chief, have you ever been anything like this before?

Did you have any idea what you're walking into, brother? It was amazing just to hear the man be able to share openly and interact with you. And I really love that about Wednesday here. Well, we're so glad you're here. Really a highlight of Pastor Jeff Johnson, who you guys met through missions, through serving Christ together, who's really been a real powerful influence in my life over the years and a real blessing.

Pastors in Greensboro, North Carolina. So that's kind of the background noise. And Pastor Jeff, going into the break, asked you, you know, this whole, you know, really, they would even paint teepees based on your hatred for the white man. And if a white man came near, he could get killed. There was a lot of animosity and maybe justifiably because of all the evil stuff that was done. You know, some of the settlers were brutal, the pioneers, the cowboys, the Indians, all that stuff. There were a lot of wars. People, you know, trail of tears, all kinds of stuff.

But Chief Raynard Faber, you love Jesus. What has he done through all of that? And where are things happening right now? And where all have you been sharing the gospel?

Well, I've been all over the world, me, about to 40 countries, and I just want to clarify something Jeff said. We do have teepees, but we do not paint them different colors for the hatred of white men. Years ago, in the 1500s, the Spaniards came into our people, and there was two tribes of Apaches. And one was more passive, so they gave them a white flag. And then they gave my people a red flag because we were more aggressive. Okay, I see what you're saying. It's easy how these things get extrapolated.

And so when the Spaniards saw the red flag or the white flag, they knew whether they were safe to approach or not. Interesting. But there's some of that.

There was still some of that kind of dynamic going on. But it's just really fascinating because you could live your life in bitterness and look at all the stuff and be fighting for reparations. The white man needs to give me back my land. They need to give me back my family. They shed a lot of blood.

They owe me millions of dollars. Why are you preaching the gospel? Why are you spreading the good news of Jesus, chief? Well, the world needs Jesus Christ.

And the world right now is in the worst position that I've ever seen it in all my life. And there's people that are looking for identity. There's people that are looking for love. There's people that are looking for peace. And the world cannot give it. And only Jesus Christ can give you identity, give your life worth, give your life the confidence that it needs to move you forward. And who wants to live their life in bitterness anyway? So you go in front of 10 million people, all of a sudden on the old time gospel hour with Jerry Falwell, somehow he finds your testimony.

You wrote it out in an English class of all places. And they're like, we've got to put this guy out to hear this story. It's all faith, how God saved you. And that's in the earlier segments of the show here. So I hope everyone will get this whole podcast and share it with friends and be encouraged. You'll be so blessed by this guy's testimony.

But tell us where all God's taken you quickly as we wrap up our show here. Well, the first country I went to was Romania in 1987. And we were there under the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu. And in 1989 in January, he was actually taken out of power by the military that he supervised and executed. And then I went to Communist China in 1988 and befriended a lot of people of the student movement there that were pushing for freedom or people's rights.

And then in 1989, a year later, they're slaughtered on TV at Tenement Square. And I seen all of this. And then I was in Mexico City in 1989 as well and ministered the gospel there. And I've been able to go to the Philippines and I've been to Russia. Russia was a real interesting place for me because we landed in Moscow.

And we flew over from Moscow, the Ural Mountains, into a town called Kyrgyzstan. And everybody was so poor. I mean, like dirt poor. The roads were full of potholes. People were poor.

They didn't have money. And we were able to rescue some of the students that were in orphanage. And a good thing that happened there was that the national media was there from Russia. And they asked me what kind of message I wanted to give to the president of Russia, which was Putin at the time. And I said I gave a really good description of the Russian people as very good people, very resilient people, very resourceful people.

And I wished them well. But for the president, I said there are thousands of orphanages throughout Russia that are starving. And funds need to be released from Moscow to buy food for these orphanages. And so a year later, I think it was in USA Today, on the front page it says Putin has released funds from Moscow allocated for orphanages. So the Lord used you there.

That's huge. Now, you live in New Mexico, Dulce, New Mexico, where you serve as the chief and you serve the Lord there, too. And your son Trevor is here. Who's this guy? Tell us about him. Tell us what you're doing right now as we wrap up. Trevor, first of all, what's your name?

And give an Indian greeting to our listeners just in your native tongue. This is Trevor. He's 12 years old and he's my son.

And he is taking online school at Liberty University Academy. And he's here with me on this trip because we're going to be visiting Liberty University tomorrow. It'll be like a reunion for you, huh? Well, I've been there a few times, but it's Trevor's first time.

Oh, man, first time. And what's it like to be the son of a chief? It's pretty fun.

You get to see him doing a whole bunch of stuff around places. That's great. Well, you're the next generation, so you're going to carry the gospel, right? You know, on into more folks.

This also marks the 20th year the chief has worked for Operation Christmas Child in Samaritan Purse. Talk about that. That's one of the things God's doing right now, huh?

Yes. The way I got involved with this is Franklin Graham came to my reservation 20 years ago, called me and said he was coming. I was really hesitant to see him, but he came and he told me that I was going to be working for Samaritan's Purse. And I said I didn't want to work for Samaritan's Purse, but I was also going through a very, very hard spot in my life. You know, I was I got bitter.

I got angry at some ministry folks and stuff like that. And so Franklin said, Chief, you need to get right with God. Wow. And and I did. And after that, Franklin put me to work at Samaritan's Purse and we were able to start the Native American outreach at Samaritan's Purse. And to this day, we have our project has impacted two hundred and thirty two thousand native children on fifty five reservations. That's tremendous.

So now we've got to wrap it up. But if I go to Dulce, New Mexico, how do I find you? Is there a Web site, Chief, for your church, your ministry? People can find you. I think you're on the Facebook. I just became your friend on Facebook. You may not want people to find you. I don't have no Web site.

Nobody can't find me. You just have to ask somebody at the reservation when you get there. You make a reservation at the reservation for the chief chief Faber. And it's interesting. What a blessing. But are we allowed to pray for you?

Yes. Pray for me. Pastor Jeff, take us on with a prayer for this guy.

What a great visit. We're out of time. But go ahead and pray for us. Pray for him. For all the Indian folks all over the guys using him to reach me. Dear Lord, we thank you, Lord, for Chief Bernard Faber and his son, Trevor. Lord, I thank you, Lord, for his love for you. I thank you, Lord, for Jerry Falwell saying we will underwrite this. I thank you, Lord, for all the people that have been poured into chief through the years.

Amazing, amazing testimony. And, Lord, we just lift him up tonight. He's going to be speaking at Mount Pisgah United Methodist Church. And, Lord, we just pray, Lord, for his ministry continues to thrive. And I pray that his mantle can be passed to his son. And one day his son can follow in his dad's footsteps as sharing the gospel around the world. Amen. Amen.