Home of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, the Pine Ridge Reservation is the second-largest reservation in the United States, with 11,000 sq. miles. Approximately 120,000 acres of the reservation are the Badlands, which adjoins the Badlands National Park. Visitors to the reservation will find ancient legends, colorful history, and heritage as old and wondrous as the Badlands that surround it.
 
Hidden away just miles from the beautiful Black Hills, you will find the Oglala Lakota People of the Pine Ridge Reservation (Oglala Oyanke in Lakota, also called Pine Ridge Agency). The most impoverished nation in the western hemisphere second only to Haiti. Pine Ridge was established in 1889 on the southwest corner of South Dakota in the midst of desolation and rocky terrain.
 
Many years of extreme poverty, hopelessness, despair, desolation, suicide, alcohol and sexual abuse have destroyed the foundation of family and life of the Lakota on the reservations. The teen suicide rate is 300% higher than the national average. Homeless Lakota children are on the rise at about 33%. The high school drop out rate is at a high 70%. Cancer, diabetes and many other illnesses plague the reservations at 800% higher than the U.S. national average.  Yet among the beauty and challenges faced in this rural community, there is a remarkable movement to harness the rich assets, skills and commitments of the people who live and serve in Pine Ridge to lift up this nation to a place where alarming statistics are a crisis of the past.

Wings As Eagles Ministries, since 1995, has been working alongside the Blackfeet, Montana, Northern Arapaho, Wyoming and Lakota Sioux, South Dakota and North Dakota People to bring reli

ef in the form of food and life essentials to these reservations. They have received recognition from the Tribal Chief's of these Nations for there continued successes, commitment and labor to help the native youth and all tribal people.

PURPOSE

To teach the spiritual discipline of servant hood and to apply the principles of Christ-centered community transformation by serving in mission work.

SPONSORS

•     Tribal government
•     Indian Health Services
•     Wounded Knee School District
•     Porcupine School
•     Little Wound School - Early Head Start Program
•     Tribal Housing Dept.
•     Mni Wiconi
•     Pine Ridge Schools
•     Rockyford School District

WHERE
Pine Ridge, South Dakota

WHO
Youth Groups, Congregations and Families in partnership with World Vision.