An Unlikely Missionary Revives Hope on the Reservation

Bob GreyEagle always dreamed of being a superhero. A photograph shows a shaggy-haired Bobby—himself as a child—jumping off furniture, pretending to fly.

One particular day represents his childhood. While his mother sat inside a neighbor’s house getting drunk, Bobby and the other kids ran outside, towels like capes around their necks.

Bob GreyEagle (above, left) meets with Troy Shirley, Cru^®’s director for North and South Dakota. Bob overlooks the Missouri River from Fort Abraham Lincoln (top photo).

“I remember telling them that I was the best superhero,” says Bob. “But the story I was telling them was the story of Jesus.”

This memory intrigues Bob today, because he was not raised Christian. He’d only heard briefly of Christ in a few Catholic classes his mom made him attend.

Bob GreyEagle, a staff member for Nations^® (Cru^®’s Native American ministry), grew up in and eventually perpetuated a violent and toxic home life.

But when God saved Bob 17 years ago, Bob saw his story everywhere around him, especially on Native reservations.

“Don’t you care?” Bob cried to God. “Kids are killing themselves, their parents are wrapped up in addiction.”

But Bob heard God reply, I’m sending you.

Turmoil and the reservation

Born in Brooklyn, New York, his mother moved Bob’s family to Lake Traverse Reservation in South Dakota after a neighbor was shot. They moved to escape violence, but the chaos followed them.

Part of the Standing Rock Reservation sits within view of this parking lot and sign at Prairie Knights Casino.

“[The reservation] was a toxic environment,” Bob says. “My dad seemed to succumb to his dark proclivities when we were there.”

After the move, police arrested Bob’s father on abuse charges, and his mother began drinking heavily. She’d disappear for long stretches of time, leaving the children with family.

When Bob was 11, his mother became sober and earned a degree. But now Bob headed down a familiar dark path. On his 16th birthday, angry that he had no alcohol, he realized he was an alcoholic.

“I knew it was all downhill from there,” he says, recalling a scenario common for teens on the reservation. “And I see not much has changed in most Native homes.”

Bob helps his mother, Rose De Coateau (in green), and other women at the Good Heart Community Center.

About 22 percent of our country’s 5.2 million Native Americans live on tribal lands, according to the 2010 U.S. Census. Rates for deaths by alcohol, violence and suicide are at least double on reservations compared to the entire U.S., according to the National Congress of American Indians.

While these statistics touch people of every age, many issues, like Bob’s, begin in adolescence. That’s why Bob’s ministry reaches the whole community, while focusing primarily on young people.

When the poison gets under your skin

Bob fell in love at 17 with a girl named Tanya, and their son Levi arrived the following August. By then, Bob wanted to be an adult and start anew.

But four years later, Bob found himself in a jail cell.

He and Tanya got into an argument that escalated to physical blows. While they fought, Bob caught a glimpse of Levi, horrified.

I’m everything my mother told me not to be, he thought at the time.

Still, after returning from jail, only drinking numbed his shame.

Bob, the only Native American present, joins a meeting of church leaders discussing racial reconciliation.

Through the years, addiction led to destruction in his marriage, the loss of his family’s home and several near-fatal injuries. Eventually, Tanya asked Bob to leave.

Upon returning home, Bob wanted to spend $20 he received from a friend, intending to head out and buy booze. Tanya, frustrated, reminded him that the money could buy milk for their kids.

Bob slammed the $20 back down, went into their living room and picked up a book he hardly remembered getting: Power for Living, a book he spontaneously ordered from a 1-800 number years before.

And Christ crashed in.

In the book, he read about God—in Native tradition, he knew Him as Creator—coming in the form of Jesus and wanting a friendship with Bob. He says God instantly lifted the urge to drink from him and changed his life.

“Peace and grace came into that building and changed a convicted felon, a wife-beater and an absent father into the man I am now, an associate pastor and a missionary to all people,” Bob says humbly.

At a family event weeks later, Levi ran from group to group saying, “You know what God did for my daddy?”

“Come down and be our friends”

After God lifted alcoholism from Bob’s shoulders, he got a steady job and returned home. Then God started to nudge Bob to help others like him.

Bob began working for Cru in November 2016 to see Christ change his community. Around the same time, protests erupted on the reservation nearest him—Standing Rock.

He asked his mother how he should start sharing God’s love in the riotous place.

“Come down and be our friends,” he recalls her saying. “Cry with us when our children die. Be stressed with us.”

Bob has taken this to heart.

Since Bob was 7, he’s known Aaron Kalenze (left). They meet for mentoring and discipleship. Aaron works with Teen Challenge and with Cru.

In this hurting area, Bob attends neighborhood meetings, prays for the Senate and goes to Catholic Mass—anywhere he can find people. He calls them “Holy Spirit nudges,” any invitation or open event he can attend where he can share Christ’s love.

In a recent meeting of Lutheran bishops and law enforcement officers that Bob found himself in unexpectedly, he stepped out from the back of the room and challenged the crowd, “How many meaningful relationships do you have with Natives in the area? And what will you do to have more relationships moving forward?”

He encourages others to come together as a community and to look to God.

He brings them with him

Bob’s Native American name, Ehanna Wotakuyepi kin, means “He brings his family with him.” He intends to bring his whole community, the Native Americans of North and South Dakota, with him to Christ as well.

Bob’s office reflects his culture’s history, and shows hope for himself and other Native Americans.

While Bob walked through destruction in his family, he also walked through restoration. In light of this, he mentors two young, recently married Native American men and meets with others, including people who have struggled with addiction.

Mikee Hairy Chin (in red), whom Bob mentors, brings his baby along to this discipleship appointment.

But perhaps he can see God’s hand most clearly in the GreyEagle home. He and Tanya will be married for 25 years this November. She loves Christ as well, and the couple hosts a Bible study in their home.

Moreover, Bob has reconciled with his mother, whom he calls his “hero” for tackling her addiction. To connect her to God’s message of reconciliation, Bob uses traditional Native American symbols and imagery. This includes referring to God as “Creator.”

He has witnessed extensive healing in their family. And he hopes for more in the community that he calls home.

Bob says he wants those around him to see that “life with God is good. If Bobby has it, maybe I can have it, too.”