Alaskana: Gary Simple's fight for wellness

Interview by JUDY FERGUSON

Published: July 24, 2005
Last Modified: July 24, 2005 at 03:37 AM

I was born in 1957 in Venetie during the first decade when alcohol first impacted the Bush.

As a child I stuttered so badly that all I wanted was just to be understood. I spoke only Gwich'in Athabascan until I was 6 years old. Once, when the forerunners of Interior radio station KJNP held a Bible school in Venetie, I couldn't understand anything. My grandmother Ellen Henry tried to interpret for me.

As Natives, Christian life sounded impossibly out of reach. In our language, we had many words for hunting, for animals and for crazy living habits, but I didn't hear words for God. We only understood, "God's up there. Believe in Him and Jesus." We had no idea how to live a changed, victorious life. It was also as difficult for our elders to give us the tools for living. As I grew up, we never went to church except on holidays, when small gifts were available.

When I started at a Bureau of Indian Affairs school in Venetie, I failed consistently, but people didn't know what was wrong with me. I could not remember what I had just learned or been told to do. Reading and writing were impossible. I couldn't keep still. Because of my stuttering, I was picked on continually and ridiculed. I grew up hating. Today I realize that my symptoms were those of fetal alcohol syndrome.

When I was young, my parents broke up. I was raised mostly by my grandparents David and Ellen Henry. My grandpa took me hunting and trapping. Since we didn't have electricity before 1978, we smoked and dried our fish, beaver, moose, caribou and duck. Grandpa taught us the law of sowing and reaping. After a kill, he taught us to take good care of the meat, admonishing us if we wanted a moose next time. Grandpa left it to the world to teach us the other rules of life. Our era was different than his, and we needed a lot more help.

BOOZE AND DRUGS

During my childhood, Venetie was wet. None of we kids looked forward to the holidays; everyone would be passed out from drinking. At minus 40, the house would be cold with minimal firewood. I began to drink when I was 9 and was drinking seriously by age 14.

I moved to Fairbanks at that time, but after two months of culture shock and complete failure in the local high school, I returned to Venetie.

My grandma Myra Thomas warned us, "Bad tobacco coming up. Don't bother it. If you do, you will spend even your last dollar on it." Having no idea what she meant, we got hit when drugs came to the Yukon Flats in the 1970s. I started with marijuana, alternating it with alcohol, sniffing gas, stolen glue or drinking mouthwash. As an Indian, I wasn't comfortable anywhere in town, except in the bars. It's pretty hard to get a job on the pipeline or firefighting if a person is drug-dependent.

Evangelists visiting the village did not know the local protocol. They might inadvertently commit an offense and the news would then spread down the river like wildfire. Our elders frequently said, "Don't read the Bible too much. It can make you crazy."

In the late 1980s, a teacher, Margo, came to Venetie. We married in 1988. Five years later, I went to a revival in Stevens Village, where an Apache from Arizona, Johnny Curtis, was ministering. For the first time, the word of God was clear to me. I heard we could be victorious over vice in our life.

Willy Atkinson, a Native American from Minnesota, ministered in Fort Yukon and then in Circle City. I listened, but I didn't go forward to the altar, repent, pray the sinner's prayer or ask Jesus into my heart. Instead, I went home and smoked what was to be my last joint, my last cigarette and drank my last can of beer.

A NEW DAY

I woke up the next morning. Somehow, everything seemed different. The sunshine was bright and clean. I could hear the birds singing. I didn't want a cigarette. I was happy I was alive. I wondered, "What's wrong with me ...?" I had been listening, and apparently, the truth had made me free. That night I spoke for the first time in church, healed from a lifetime of stuttering. I could be understood, and I could also understand.

And I began to learn. Today I teach and guide our three sons and daughter. After 24 years of drinking and sniffing, I don't have cirrhosis of the liver, lung cancer or brain damage.

I have never joined a particular church. I am available to everyone and go to the streets and the villages. In 1994, I began traveling, telling my story and singing country gospel music. I called the work Sacred Ground Ministries. I fight today for wellness (as do many others), a better life for our children and pray for those fighting addictions.

In 2001-02, Rev. Chief Dr. David Salmon of New Life Ministries, Mike Curtis of Midnight Son Ministries and my Sacred Ground Ministries visited the Yukon River villages together sharing the word of God. Many today are not interested in the Bible; they are accustomed to the life of lying, hating, cursing and drinking. At the end of my services, I give "altar calls," but if a person is converted, I don't need to know -- what matters is that their lives show the change of spirit.

In the last 12 years, I have visited 63 villages and made two music CDs and several videos. I reach people more easily on KJNP every Saturday at 9:45 p.m. For those who receive KJNP-TV, I minister with Jeanie Greene of "World Evangelism With Indigenous Nations" ("WE WIN").

God has not only called me to the villages but also to the cities, where I have ministered in Fairbanks and in Anchorage.

I live in Venetie. ... In the spring, we have a duck hunting camp with the kids. This fall, we are going to build a fish camp. We teach them how to cut and dry fish and game. I often play, make and give away Indian drums. Once, on a Walk for Jesus in downtown Fairbanks, I began beating the drum. Wherever they were, suddenly Native Alaskans appeared and fell in step with us.

Write to Gary Simple at Sacred Ground Ministries Inc., P.O. Box 32, Venetie, 99781, or go to http://garysimple.tripod.com/ or www.wewin.org. He will appear at a Native gospel festival from noon to 5 p.m. Monday and Tuesday in the David Salmon Tribal Hall on Wendell Street in Fairbanks.

Judy Ferguson is a publisher and a freelance columnist for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. She is the author of Alaska histories "Parallel Destinies" and "Blue Hills" and the children's books "Alaska's Secret Door" and "Alaska's Little Chief." Her Web site is www.alaska-highway.org/delta/outpost