Instead of a traditional row of seats, students, youth leaders and families convened in a circle for worship.
The second annual Choctaw Youth Retreat on the Biloxi beachside began with the hum of a Choctaw song.
Featured speaker Johnny Tonika, a member of First Baptist Church Durant, Oklahoma, emphasized God’s love and the importance of understanding and accepting His love.
“The first night we talked about how the Lord demonstrated His love for us by dying on the cross for us,” Tonika recalled. “Sometimes it’s easy for us to fall into the idea that maybe God’s just angry with me or He is disappointed, but the reality is, He does love us. When we understand that incredible truth, that changes our lives.”
He also addressed the human tendency to resist God’s guidance and the significance of divine pursuit.
“We talked about our tendency to resist God’s leadership, and it’s easy to do that. Sometimes we even resist Him without realizing it, but another way He shows His love is by pursuing us.
“Hebrews 12:6 tells us that God disciplines those whom He loves,” Tonika continued. “I don’t discipline some stranger’s kid, but I discipline mine because I love and care for him. So in that same way, when we go down self-destructive paths God is going to stop us from continuing down that road.”
Tonika also spoke during the March 8–10 event about core desires and struggles shared by many, especially Choctaw youth.
“Not just students, but everybody in general wants two things: We want people to love us and to miss us when we’re gone, and we want to be a part of something that’s worth our time,” he asserted. “I think students are really struggling with that. They deal with insecurities like, ‘Am I accepted? Do people care about me?’
“For our students in particular, being Choctaw students on a reservation, it’s isolating. In their minds, it may be, ‘Us vs. the World’, which is not entirely true, but they may feel like it is. So from these insecurities, there are a lot of avenues the Adversary uses to get into the minds of our students, our families, our communities and even our churches. They wonder, ‘Are we even cared about as Choctaws?’
“That’s a dangerous place to be, because then it’s really easy for the Adversary to make us think, ‘Does God really care?’ And He absolutely does.”
Unique challenges
Ray Duplessie, Choctaw ministry consultant for multicultural ministries of the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board and retreat coordinator, spoke of the unique challenges faced by Mississippi Choctaw students, highlighting the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the loss of elders and the prevalence of suicide within the community.
“There are a lot of challenges very similar to what most kids are facing nowadays in terms of this crazy world, but one thing people may not realize is that COVID hit the Choctaw reservation very hard,” Duplessie said. “A lot of kids lost their grandparents, and a couple of kids lost both parents during COVID. Of the nine churches at the time, two of them lost their pastors. It was devastating because almost everybody on the reservation knows at least one or two or three people who died of COVID. So that brought a malaise in the area.”
Duplessie said the retreat emphasized the importance of family and community support, noting it attracted almost as many adults as students, underscoring the Choctaw value of family bonds and collective healing.
Jourdan Duplessie, Ray’s son and worship leader for the retreat, shared his vision for teaching students the basics of worship and letting the Spirit guide the rest. He also told a story about his daughter, Magnolia, to illustrate the simple yet profound understanding of Jesus’ love and healing power.
“One day she woke up and said she was really scared,” he recalled. “So my wife and I taught her that Jesus loves her, Jesus will hold her, and then she came up with, ‘Jesus will kiss her.’ We realized a little bit later that she associated ‘kissing your boo boo’ with being healed. She was saying Jesus will heal her.
“So I want these kids to know that foundation that Jesus loves them, Jesus will hold them, He will comfort and He will heal them.”
Involvement and partnership
Later Duplessie urged Baptists to actively engage with Choctaw churches, emphasizing the value of direct involvement and partnership in the spirit of collaboration and cooperation reminiscent of the Apostle Paul’s mentorship of Timothy.
“If we’re going to say that [the Southern Baptist Convention] is all about collaboration and cooperation,” he said, “then we really need to partner with the churches and say, ‘Hey, we can’t speak Choctaw. We don’t know your culture, but we’re going to be here and not just financially support you, but also theologically train you, because the pastors are declining in number. We’re going to train young leaders to rise up like Paul trained Timothy.’
“Choctaws are all about collaboration,” Duplessie asserted. “That’s the reason why we worship in a circle instead of rows. There’s a reason why at powwows, you have a circle around the drum.
“So pray for your church to partner alongside another church, and be ready to see where the Spirit leads.”
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Lindsey Williams and originally published by the Baptist Record.
