Project gathers people

Building a handicap-accessible restroom on the back of First Presbyterian Church in Spalding, Idaho, has fulfilled several dreams for church members.

The church, near the Nez Perce National Historical Park east of Lewiston, is one of six Nez Perce tribal churches in the Presbytery of the Inland Northwest founded by missionary Henry Spalding in 1844.

Fifty years ago, women of the church began saving to build a restroom to replace the old outhouse as a way to encourage people to stay longer after services.

In the Nez Perce Presbyterian tradition, people attend their family churches, usually where they were baptized. So they may drive 60 miles on a Sunday.

The restroom project was picked up recently as part of updating other Nez Perce churches so they are ready to receive young people as they return to the community, said Corbett Wheeler, moderator of the Joint Session of Elders for the six congregations.

In the 1950s and 1960s, many young people were relocated to larger cities for education, jobs and assimilation.

Part of what Wheeler considers a “miracle” is how the project brought a people together across a diverse range of cultures.

It drew Presbyterians from Nez Perce churches, Spokane and Palm Beach, Fla., to work with engineering students from Gonzaga University.

In addition, it brought together Nez Perce and white communities on the reservation.

Marvin Boyd, an Alaskan native who grew up on the reservation, was foreman.

Wheeler said he first called Joe Kramarz of Whitworth Presbyterian Church in Spokane about the project, because that church had helped Kamiah First put on a new roof 16 years ago and build a community center 10 years ago.

Aware that restrooms are complex structures to build – requiring heat, water, electricity and plumbing – Kramarz contacted Brad Striebig, a professor in the environmental engineering department at Gonzaga University. Striebig recruited 10 engineering students who worked weekends on the design and construction.

Twenty members of the Florida church learned about the project when they offered to do a vacation Bible school. One member, Mary Alice Pugh, was a descendant of Kate and Sue McBeth, sisters who came to the area as early missionaries.

The restroom’s construction will be celebrated as part of the Spalding church’s “evangelistic,” a gathering for worship services, dinners and fundraisers from Thursday through Oct. 29.

While the congregation is small – average attendance is 15 to 40 – it’s a living church, not just a tourist attraction. Its African American pastor, Jeff Guillory, is a commissioned lay pastor.

Like the other Nez Perce churches, Spalding has more people on its inactive rolls than regularly attend, because many live far away and visit only for evangelistic and camp meetings.

With the local economy stronger, people are returning for jobs with the tribe in casinos, fisheries, forest management, Hanford cleanup, Indian health and land acquisition.

Some who come back to the reservation communities come back to church, said Wheeler. Others don’t because of tensions stemming from the loss of language, culture and traditions, which some blame on the missionaries.

Some oppose the churches “as if they were responsible for everything negative that happened to the Nez Perce,” Wheeler said.

While some missionaries tried to wipe out Indian culture and religion, said Kramarz, “many Presbyterian and Native spiritual values and practices are intertwined.”

Even though missionaries did not allow regalia, dances or other traditions in churches, Wheeler wants people outside the churches to realize that “good things also happened because of the churches, such as education.”

The McBeth sisters, who trained lay leaders, also developed an early dictionary of the Nez Perce language, which helps preserve the language.

The Nez Perce churches use a hymnal with hymns translated into Nez Perce language for worship, but services are in English.

Today churches realize their mistakes and work to help Nez Perce retain their rights, property, traditions and language, Wheeler said. They also try to bridge the divide between Christian and traditional cultures.

“Church people now realize there were spiritual beliefs and an awe of the Creator before missionaries came,” he said.

Traditional beliefs promote common values, such as respect for elders, teaching young people, families eating together and traditions related to berry-picking, hunting-and-gathering and survival skills.

“We need to work together to overcome our cultural differences,” said Wheeler. “When we gather for funerals, people of different cultures and churches come together as one community.”