Sacred Road Ministries Spring Update

Above are the three Spring Team videos.

You can watch even more team videos from previous teams on our Youtube Channel.

Spring Teams

In March, we had three weeks of Spring Teams. These teams came from the University of Pittsburgh, Covenant College, Auburn University, the University of Washington, Berkley, and UCLA. Sacred Road staff look forward to these groups of students all year long. We are encouraged by everyone who chose to spend their Spring Breaks serving with us! 

During these three weeks, the teams painted and roofed several homes in the community, split, stacked, and delivered dozens of loads of firewood, and installed insulation and dry wall at our Ministry's Safe House. During the first week, we were able to work alongside Village of Hope, an organization that provides transitional housing on our reservation. We helped clean the facilities, organize clothing donations, and built shelving to help with storage and organization for those who live there.

We hosted Kid's Club at two locations on the Yakama Reservation. We had an average of 75 kids per day across the two locations! During the spring season, weather can be unpredictable. It's normal to have high winds, we still see snow, and rain can come and go quickly during the day. On days that the weather didn't allow us to have Kid's Club outside, we would send vans to pick up children in the community and would host Kid's Club at our church building. The kids were so excited to welcome our first teams of 2025!

Left: Group photo from Team Week 2 - Covenant College and Auburn University

Right: One of the roof worksites during Team Week 3 - UW, Berkley, and UCLA

B.Y.G.E. Update

Our Youth Group has started the year strong. The youth in our Youth Group are excited to be together each week and are hungry to learn more about who God is.

Early in March, our Youth Group had their annual Skateland event - an outreach event that we host at the local roller skating rink! We had 60 teens join us for the event, including several new faces! The core group in our Youth Group is doing so well this year. They are invested in our church community and consistently encouraging to each other. We have had so much fun with them each week. Since March, we have had around a dozen new youth coming to Youth Group on Tuesday nights. As new students come on Tuesday, they have a chance to witness our core group and are excited to get plugged in. We are excited to see the way the Lord is moving and working in the lives of our youth! Please continue to pray that Youth Group would be a safe and fun environment for the teenagers in our church! Pray that God would continue to build a strong sense of community within our Youth Group.

Warm Springs Update

Our staff in Warm Springs, Oregon are seeing growth in their ministry and community! Warm Springs is the "sister reservation" to the Yakama Nation. As many of you know, we have had a relationship with the tribe for over 15 years and have been ministering there in a variety of ways. We had been praying for and working towards a full-time team in Warm Springs for over a decade! In January of 2023, Evan, Holly, and Tomo moved to Oregon to begin replicating the Ministry there.

Our staff team in Warm Springs have been consistently plugged in with the local YoungLife branch and connected YoungLife with teenagers from the Warm Springs Reservation. In the last year, 12 Native students have prayed to accept Christ into their lives!

In their most recent update, Evan and Holly wrote that they "have seen [God's] mercy in the ways that the kids at church have been more and more comfortable being there and asking questions about God and about life. We've been averaging around 12 or more kids each week, as they've been inviting friends who have started coming regularly."

You can read the Shaw's entire update HERE.

We are also excited to share that Tomo Ito was married in February! He and his wife, Juliana, met after he moved to Oregon.

Thank you to everyone who has faithfully prayed for Warm Springs with us! Thank you to everyone who has served with the Warm Springs teams over the years! Thank you to everyone who has financially invested in the Warm Springs ministry! Please continue to pray for the Shaws and Itos as they minister in Oregon. 

Hope Fellowship Church Update

Hope Fellowship Church had a beautiful Easter Sunday service on April 20th! We had just under 160 people at church that day, with 79 teenagers and adults. It was a really special Suday. We celebrated 4 baptisms, had a delicious Easter lunch together, and had egg hunts ready for children and teenagers on our property. Several families came to our church for the first time that Sunday and we are praying we will see them again soon!

Hope Fellowship Church has celebrated eight baptisms since December!

We are thankful to everyone who has continued to pray for our church family!

Above: Pastor Chris Granberry baptizes one of the young adults on staff with Sacred Road

Left to Right: Pastor Joshua Tsavatewa baptizes one of the young girls in our church, Youth Easter Egg Hunt, On Sunday, kids can check out books from our mobile library, Book'N-It

H.O.P.E. After-School has had a great school year. We have 13 students this year, who have been maintaining regular attendance each week! This school year, students have performed science experiments, memorized verses, worked to improve reading skills and and have taken field trips together. So far for 2025, H.O.P.E. has taken a field trip to the Yakima Museum and Get Air, a local trampoline park. Both field trips were a huge success. The students were so excited and felt so special getting to go as a group! Everyone was safe, had fun, and made some really wonderful memories together!

Last weekend, twelve of the thirteen H.O.P.E. students went on a camping trip! They had fun activities like archery and a giant swing, ate s'mores and more! They spent time during the weekend looking closely at the story of Jonah and taking time to think about how God deals patiently and gently with our big emotions.

We are encouraged to witness these students gaining confidence in their abilities in and out of the classroom. Please continue to pray for our H.O.P.E. students, staff, and volunteers as we wrap up the school year soon.

Many of you know that White Swan experienced some difficult wildfires last summer. Many families lost homes and even some who are on staff with Sacred Road were closely effected.

With the help of some specific donors, Sacred Road was able to purchase a Bobcat that will enable us to cut fire breaks around homes in our community! We could not be more thrilled about this opportunity and we are incredibly grateful to those whose donations made this possible! We will be in communication with the local fire department to ensure that we are prioritizing properties well and working to further the steps they are taking towards fire prevention this season.

Prom is coming up!

As a way of ministering to some of the high schoolers in our Youth Group, our Youth Ministry team is planning to offer dresses, dress shirts, shoes, and some other items for our youth to use for prom. Many of the high schoolers in our community do not have access to any prom attire and several years ago, we began gathering what we would need to offer help. Many people, over the years, have donated used prom dresses and more to help us pull this off!

For the first time since Covid, we were able to host youth at our church building for Homecoming last semester. It was a really fun evening with some of our youth! They were picked up in church vans, we had dinner together, they picked out dresses to try on, and then some of our young adult staff helped with hair, make up, and nails! The van drove them to Homecoming and was able to pick them up at the end of the night if they needed a ride home. We love being able to offer opportunities for the kids in our church to be kids! For them to know that they are in a safe place, that they can relax, and that some basic needs will be met.

White Swan's prom will be Saturday, May 17th! If you are interested in helping us gather the last things we need for this special evening, please contact Connie! Her email is HERE!

If you would like to know more about what is still needed or how you could contribute, please reach out to Connie by Saturday, May 3rd.

• Please pray for the Sacred Road staff. Pray that the Lord would continue to provide and sustain each individual and family on staff. Pray that we would grow in relationship with the Lord and with each other.
• Pray for the communities on the Warm Springs and Yakama Reservations. Please pray for healing and peace. Pray that our communities would feel welcome at church and that the Lord would continue to change hearts and lives.
• Many of you have been praying for and supporting the Granberry family for the last year and a half. Their daughter, Beth, was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma in December 2023. The Granberry family got news that Beth's most recent scan shows no active cancer! We are all excited and encouraged by this news! Chris and Mary want to express specific gratitude for the prayers for Beth over the last year and a half. The scan did show a few other complications that are still effecting Beth's health. She has undergone 3 surgeries in the last month. Please continue to pray for healing for Beth. We praise the Lord that the cancer is now responding to the last treatment!
• Pray for our Youth Group. Pray that the Lord would continue to work in the hearts and lives of our youth! Please pray for the 12 youth in Warm Springs who have come to know Christ in the last year! As we approach the end of the school year, there are several events coming up and some big transitions for some of the students we work with. Pray that we would have continued opportunities to show love and support and that we would have a wonderful summer with them!
• Pray for H.O.P.E. After-School as they approach the end of the school year!
• Pray for Sacred Road staff as we prepare for the coming Summer Ministry. Summer is our busiest time of year! We are looking forward to welcoming interns, hosting teams, playing at Kid's Club, working on worksites, and more! We appreciate prayers as we get prepared for all of these things.

Thank you for taking time to get updated on everything that has been going on with Sacred Road Ministries this Spring! We are humbled by the continued support and prayers we have received. Please continue to pray for our ministry team as we serve in Yakama and Warm Springs.

Our Summer Ministry is right around the corner! Please be praying that everything will go smoothly with our Summer Interns, Short-Term Teams, and Summer outreach.

To learn more about Sacred Road Ministries, visit our website and subscribe to our Youtube channel. You can keep up with regular news and updates by following us on Facebook and Instagram.