USA (MNN) — A highly-anticipated and deeply-needed leadership conference begins Thursday.
Brad Hutchcraft oversees On Eagles’ Wings, a division of Ron Hutchcraft Ministries. Their annual Warrior Leadership Summit offers five days of fellowship, discipleship, and equipping for Native believers throughout North America.
“Our prayer is that this will reach a deeper need, maybe than ever before, because hope has been ripped away this past year. These Native young people, these warriors, will come and, whatever condition they’re in, they will … hear the Gospel,” Hutchcraft says.
“They will hear [how] God gives them a way to be stronger when they find their strength in Jesus.”
Last year, OEW held a virtual Warrior Leadership Summit to avoid the pandemic’s many risks and restrictions. While this year’s in-person gathering is a joy for many, “it’s challenging because some of those [who] want to be there the most can’t be there,” Hutchcraft says.
“Our First Nations friends from Canada can’t get across the border still … so, we’ve geared up for the online conference again. We’ll get to live stream, and [we’re] welcoming people from all over North America.”
For some, circumstances prove too desperate to postpone in-person attendance. “There’s a group from a remote village in Alaska … they’ve bought vehicles, and they’re flying to Seattle; they’re doing all these things … to get their young people to a place of hope,” Hutchcraft says.
Recently, “this young lady, 18 years old, had taken her own life, and it triggered a lot of excessive drinking and other suicide attempts in the village,” he continues.
“Parents came and said, ‘Can you get our young people away from here for a few days, someplace [where] they can get some hope?’”
Native believers from the village contacted OEW and asked about last-minute attendance and accommodations. With help from the OEW team, leaders made plans for their youth to attend Warrior Leadership Summit 2021.
(Photo courtesy of Warrior Leadership Summit)
“We feel the weight of the conference this year. We have a deep responsibility to rightly deliver this message of hope to the warriors so that they can have a life change. They can [see] what life can be like when they’re walking with Jesus – pandemic or not,” Hutchcraft says.
By sponsoring a warrior here, you can help a young person find hope in Jesus. “We are helping scholarship more [warriors] this year than we probably ever have because it is a challenge [for them],” Hutchcraft says.
“This isn’t a handout situation because they do invest a lot to get there. It is a ‘stand in the gap where it’s needed most’ [situation].”
Read Allan’s story to learn how God can use Warrior Leadership Summit as the catalyst to lifesaving change.
Header image courtesy of On Eagles’ Wings / Warrior Leadership Summit.
