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==American Indian==
Arizona is home to more than a half-dozen major Indian tribes and a number of lesser ones. It was to the eastern half of Arizona’s Mohave Country, with its large Indian population, that Mr. and Mrs. James P. Anderson were called to labor. In fellowship with the assembly at the Gospel Auditorium in Oakland, CA, they were commended to work among the Hualapai (formerly spelled ‘Walapai’) Indians of Arizona. These had no missionary working among them, and the superintendent of the reservation had asked that someone come and take charge of the religious work at the Truxton Canyon Indian school, as well as work with the older Indians.
The Andersons arrived in October 1916 and lived in Valentine, AZ. From their first Sunday there until the school closed in 1937, the Andersons were given a free hand in teaching the Word to many hundreds of young people who would, in turn, carry the Gospel back to the many tribes they represented. Two meetings in the school on Sundays were supplemented by two more during the week. Various smaller classes were held afternoons. All children were required to attend, and most of the government employees came voluntarily. Saturday afternoons saw the Anderson home overflowing with boys who came together for singing and a Bible lesson. On Sunday afternoons the older girls, many of them promising Christians, gathered for a helpful time with Mrs. Anderson.
Seven different tribes were represented at the school, many coming from several hundred miles distant. Some 60 people living in the vicinity of Valentine attended many of the meetings. The Andersons had the joy of hearing a good number confess the Lord each year.
The school work was only one phase of the Andersons’ missionary activity. Many hours were spent out in the Indian camps. The Hualapai at that time numbered 600 and during the first year every member of the tribe was personally visited. One tribe, the Havasupai, live at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and to visit them required a horseback ride down a steep 15-mile trail. Not only were the Indians visited in their own camps, but hundreds of them were guests in the Anderson home. In this way the Andersons won the confidence of the Indians.
The first conversion occurred about nine months after they came to the reservation, Mrs. Dennis Butler, who with her husband became a faithful helper at Peach Springs Chapel, AZ .
Kingman is some 30 miles southwest of Valentine. The Kingman Gospel Chapel was started by the Andersons. Their first meetings were out in the Indian camps, but in 1919 James Anderson was able to build a small chapel on the outskirts of Kingman, where they held the meetings for the Indians for a couple of years. They then purchased an old house in Kingman, and rebuilt it for use as a Gospel Chapel. But non-Indians who were hungry for the real Gospel started coming to the meetings, and gradually it turned into white work almost altogether. Mr. Anderson ministered the Word there once a week while able to do so. Many others worked at the Chapel; George Baxter and Harold Kesler both preached and worked there when not elsewhere preaching. Tom Carroll also ministered the Word at Kingman, Valentine, and Peach Springs. None of the missionaries working on the reservations received any pay from the Government.
Mrs. Baxter had an Indian women’s meeting on Wednesday afternoons at the Kingman Gospel Chapel. Several missionary women also spent some time working among Indians and Mexicans in connection with the Chapel. Miss Rose Olson spent several years in Kingman, living at the Chapel part of the time, and working with Mexicans and whites. Minnie Armerding also spent her first eight months as an Indian missionary at Valentine and at Kingman. Another fruitful field was the Sherman Institute at Riverside, a training school for Indians, which Mr. Anderson would frequently visit.
In 1941, Mr. Anderson became ill, and 14 months later the Lord took him home. When he became too ill to work on the reservation, Mr. and Mrs. George Baxter took full charge of the work for almost a year. The burden of the work then fell on the shoulders of Mrs. Lillian Anderson. All in the area heard the Gospel, and told representatives of cults who came through that “we know the only way of salvation, and we will accept it when we die.” Before the chief “Old Spoonhead“ of the Havasupai tribe died in about 1950, he told an artist visiting down in the canyon that he had met “the God above” 25 years before, when Mr. Anderson first came down to the canyon.
In 1943, about 16 were in fellowship at the Kingman Gospel Chapel and the assembly at Peach Springs was all Indian, except for Mrs. Anderson and her daughter, with 10 Indians in fellowship.
The Hualapai Indian tribe consisted of approximately 500 Indians on the reservations in 1947, a decrease in population from the Anderson’s first arrival if the census was correct. At that time, A. LeRoy Livingston worked among the Hualapai and lived at Peach Springs. The U.S. had a good schooling program, so the Livingstons were able to reach them in English, albeit in a very simple form. The older people of the tribe were quite reluctant to let the children go to school, so it was a problem to try to keep them from their primitive methods or nature. The Livingstons were conscientious to keep the assembly geared to the Indians, and just one white school teacher met with them to Remember the Lord at the Peach Springs Chapel.
===1951 Arizona Indian Mission, Flagstaff, AZ===
In 1951, Mr. and Mrs. George Baxter, commended by Midland Assembly in Detroit (later Pembroke), started the Arizona Indian Mission of Flagstaff, Arizona. They labored alone for several years; then the Eldon Miners came to help them. Later Joseph Paulick, commended from Norwood Gospel Chapel in Chicago, and Miss Betty Hollman, commended from New Haven Gospel Hall of Hamden, CT, came to help.
In June 1952, George Baxter conducted two youth camps with boys and girls in attendance from Hopi, Navajo, Hualapai, and Supi tribes. The Navajo adult camp which followed was well attended, with several people saved.
The Baxters and co-workers were urged by the new Indian believers in Flagstaff to go to their tribal relatives on the reservation with the Gospel message. At Shonto the Indians asked for a meeting place for their services. This was accomplished in July 1958, and in August 1960, the Navajo tribe gave a permit for a grant of land at Shonto.
Messrs. Baxter and Paulick erected the Third Avenue Gospel Chapel in Flagstaff, AZ. The workers and native believers meet regularly for the Breaking of Bread, preaching of the Word, Bible study and Sunday School. The meeting continues today.
===Immanuel Mission===
The 26-year-old Clara and another young woman spent three years on the Navajo reservation from 1909 to 1911 near Tuba City, AZ, probably serving with GMU. They lived with a Navajo family, where Clara learned to speak Navajo. From 1912 to 1915, Horace and Mary also served in the same area at a small mission called Kin Ligai near Moenkopi, AZ. Flagstaff, the nearest Anglo settlement, was three days away by horseback.
In 1915, Horace, Mary, and Clara went to serve with [[Henry Allan Ironside|Harry Ironside ]] at his Indian School in Oakland, CA. Four students are remembered at the school during this period: a Navajo, two Hopis, and a Hualapai.
Horace and Clara continued to have a burden for the Navajo people and worked and prayed about establishing a mission. Finally, in 1920 the Holcombs felt the Lord’s timing had arrived and they traveled to Oakcreek Canyon to visit their daughter Marie, who had lived with the Girdner family to attend school and now was teaching there.
