Breakish and the Indians

With apologies to Dr Jim Hunter, for parodying the title of his extraordinary book, which charts his true story linking the off-spring of the murdered chief of Glencoe with a tribe of North American Indians. My gesture was inspired by last week's serendipitous visit of Broken Walls, an American First Nation team, which travels the world sharing their message of God's transforming love, vigorously expressed through their indigenous culture. They were en route to Lewis and, at the last minute, fancied a gig on their way through Skye. Fortuitously the Breakish Hall was available and the rest, of course, is history!

As they recounted their own and its disastrous consequences, the parallels with highland history were plentiful. But rather then leaving us to cry into our drams together, they redeemed the evening with a series of testimonies, beginning with their conversion to faith in Jesus Christ and how that was breaching walls of prejudice and segregation within their home communities. Such has been the impact of their Christian faith, that they are now applying its message of hope to the shockingly high suicide rate among their young adult males and teenagers.

Just as the roots of Native American society's malfunction can be traced to the demise of local culture, so its reinvigoration is helping young braves to recover their sense of worth and purpose. Another resonance - with the convictions driving Strath & Sleat's Gaelic policy!