Couple takes David-and-Goliath approach to Whiteclay
digg it!
Facebook
del.icio.us
Seed Newsvine
Fark It
Reddit
BY COLLEEN KENNEY / Lincoln Journal Star
WHITECLAY — Maybe it was the man’s fake leg. He’d lost his leg in Vietnam.
Maybe it was his heart. Maybe that’s why Bruce and Marsha BonFleur invited him to Sunday dinner.
His name was Rudy.
The BonFleurs, middle-aged white people called by God, they say, to come here and start a thrift store and soup kitchen, knew Rudy as one of the regulars who hang around the beer stores.
They could tell their invitation touched him. He smiled and said, thank you, Bruce and Marsha.
Sunday came. He didn’t show.
The next day, he said he was sorry.
The next Sunday, Bruce went looking for him. He found him in the garage of the empty brick house on the south edge of town. He was covered in flies and a dirty blanket. His clothes were wet with urine. He was drunk.
Bruce drove him to their white farmhouse, down a long lane south and west of town. Bruce showed him the shower, then carried his leg outside and squirted it down with Lysol. A young woman, a summer missionary, cut his hair.
Before dinner, they took him to the Episcopal church in Pine Ridge.
“He knew every song,” Marsha says, smiling this August day as she tells the story.
She’s standing in the thrift store just a few weeks after its July opening. Around her is “manna from heaven,” she says — donated shoes and clothes and furniture from near and far.
Already the place is busy beyond their expectations, mainly with mothers from Pine Ridge shopping for cheap, quality children’s clothing and shoes.
The money from the store will help the BonFleurs expand a soup kitchen, now on the dusty concrete porch out front. At this point, it’s just one day a week. Soon it will be every day, in a dining room yet to be finished.
The BonFleurs named their ministry Stone’s Throw. The thrift store is 555 Whiteclay.
Bruce thought of the names, Marsha says. It’s for the five smooth stones David threw to knock the giant to the ground.
The giant here is alcoholism.
The smooth stones are the people God uses in His plan, people like them and other missionaries. People like Rudy and the others who stand outside, loving God despite their struggles.
Hands of Faith is another group working to save souls in Whiteclay. It has a Christian-based counseling center a few miles south of town. The BonFleurs and Hands of Faith people work together on the soup kitchen.
There’s a battle going on here, Marsha says. Every day.
Good and evil.
A tall young man, perhaps in his mid-20s, walks into the thrift store. His clothes are dirty.
He walks up to Marsha and holds out a paperback copy of “Black Elk Speaks.” It’s new, and it’s just like the ones they sell at Big Bat’s Texaco in Pine Ridge.
He wants money for it. Probably for beer, Marsha knows.
“It’s a good book,” he says, making his pitch.
“I know it is. But we’re a nonprofit organization, run only by donations.”
The young man walks out, scowling and swearing.
Marsha’s voice is sweet.
“Goodbye.”
There’s a recycling center in back of 555 Whiteclay. It’s run by young Lakota men.
Beer stores in Whiteclay sell an estimated 11,000 cans of beer a day. Many end up at the recycling center.
The thrift store, soup kitchen and recycling center will employ people from the reservation in part-time jobs. It will give them affordable clothes and furniture. It will remind them God loves them.
Marsha’s eyes turn sad.
She’s talking now about a young mother from the reservation named Melissa whom she’d known for a while. Not a big drinker.
Two weeks ago, Marsha says, she saw Melissa among the people hanging outside the beer stores.
What is up with this, Marsha remembers asking her.
The young mother told Marsha her husband beat her and took the kids and now won’t let her see them, not even the 3-month-old she’d been breast-feeding.
Marsha took her into the thrift store. They talked for several hours.
“She asked me, ‘Does God even see me here? Why shouldn’t I drink?’”
Their job is to tell them that, yes, they’re in God’s heart.
Yes, He sees.
Post Your Comment
Standards and RulesYour posted comment will appear after it has been approved.
Frequently asked questions about story commenting.