Interview with Chief Joseph RiverWind (Genesis Apologetics)

Genesis Apologetics

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Good day. My name is Chief Joseph Riverwind. I am of the Arawak Tribe of Puerto Rico, and I am a servant of the

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Great Chief Cornerstone and the One Creator, and it's a blessing to be here and an honor to be here.

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Thank you. Hello, my name is

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Dr. Larlyn Riverwind. My native name is Firehawk, who flies with the Great Spirit, and I am the ambassador of the

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Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee, and I extend my peace to you. And we've been walking with the

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Creator for, I don't know, you, you're a raise in the faith, but we run

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Fire Keepers International, and we've done ministry back in the day, both on reservations, off reservations, just about everything that you do in the faith, we've done.

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And the Creator has brought us here and landed us in East Tennessee after just an incredible, incredible, incredible life serving him, and I know that there's more yet to come.

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That is wonderful. You guys, thank you very much for coming on our program today and everything. I love your ministry, which you guys do.

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You told me a story once that I heard about that I'll never forget about something that happened to you in Israel that evolved a drum and a song.

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Could you recount that story for me? First Nations ambassadors to the state of Israel, and we were appointed that by M .K.

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Yehuda Glick in 2018. And so since then, we've been bringing native delegations to Israel and connecting them with Israel and the story of the indigenous people of Israel.

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And on one of those trips, we went to the Kotel. First, we went to the river, to the

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Jordan River to do a baptism, because you want to get baptized before you ascend to the holy mountain.

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And that's actually where I got a new Indian named Dove Comes Down, as we were in the river praying.

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In the Jordan River, in the same part of the Jordan River, it said that the Messiah went to where the dove descended and the voice came out of heaven saying, this is my son in whom

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I'm well pleased. That's where three doves came down when

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Joseph and two other native men went into the river. It was witnessed by so many people.

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Arabs on the other side were wondering, what's going on? What's happening? Why are the Indians here? The Arabs were saying, what's going on?

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Why are all the people in such a stir? I was given the name Dove Comes Down because of that.

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And so from there, we went to Jerusalem and we get there. And we had heard the stories from our elders who'd been back there in 1999, where they took a delegation of,

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I think it was over a hundred indigenous people. And they brought the drum and it was just a very powerful interaction between First Nations and people of Israel.

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Because we share so many commonalities, especially the shared trauma and Holocaust and everything. And so remembering that story, we had brought our hand drums and we get to the gate, the security gate, and the security guard is like, no drums.

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And I was like, crushed. And so finally I said, well, can

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I bring my, our drums? But we promised we're not going to play them because they were concerned that if we started playing the drums, people are praying, it's going to be disturbing.

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And so the guard said, yes. Okay. Again, you can, you can bring the drums, just don't play them. This plays into the story.

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So we're like, okay. So we all go, we come down, the women head over to the women's side of the wall and it's bar mitzvah

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Thursday. We didn't know this, at least not at the time. So me and the two other guys, one guy's

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Algonquin and the other guys from the Crow Nation, we go and we pray at the wall and we're praying.

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And for whatever reason, you know, when we finished praying, we decided to sing one of her tribes, very ancient songs.

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All the go, the going to water song. And which is what they had just done.

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My people have a ceremony where every morning, and it was actually linked to, to hell that we would go to the river and faced, face the

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East. And as the river, as the sun would rise, we would immerse ourselves seven times and express our gratitude for the new day to the creator.

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Sounds biblical. Yeah. Like a mitzvah. Yeah. Seven times. Yeah. And so here he had just done this going to water ceremony, this mitzvah, this baptism, and he went to the wall.

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He was singing that song from my people. Because traditionally you're supposed to sing that song in the water.

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And so we're singing the song and this rabbi walks up to us and he asks us a few questions and he's like, that song that you sang, it's a song from your tribe.

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Yes. Well, I guess it was actually from my wife's tribe. It's an ancient song, a

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Cherokee song. And he said, I understood every word that you sang. And I just looked at him and he said, it's a form of high

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Hebrew. That's no longer spoken. So I respectfully asked for him to translate the song. I said,

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Oh, well, can you translate? I'd like to hear the translation. He translated it perfectly. And by this time, three other rabbis show up and we're surrounded by all these kids, all these 12 year old

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Israeli kids that are doing their bar mitzvahs. And the rabbis are asking us, why are you in Jerusalem?

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Why are you here? And we said, because we all worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And they're like, well, how do you know that's true?

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How do you know that? And then they asked, you know, well, why?

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And we said, well, because our rabbi, our rabbi, which is Yeshua, this is the rabbi that we follow.

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We follow his teachings. And they're like, yeah, but how do you know you're praying to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?

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And so we started talking about some of our ancient native traditions, our tribal traditions, specifically our names for God in our language pre -colonial.

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And that's what we explained to the Jewish people is that our people carried his name down in psalm.

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And so it was always, you can hear all through the songs,

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Yahweh, which is Hebrew, and you hear that in stomp dance songs.

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You hear it in a blessing song that we have that's very ancient. And you hear all the songs on the drum.

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And, you know, so at this point, everybody's getting really excited. You know, we're sharing some things and they're just going off in Hebrew with each other.

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And some of the guys leave. So we keep talking to the rabbis and to the people that were asking questions and stuff.

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I'm finished praying now, and I'm back in the back. And I see everybody surrounding my husband and our couple of friends.

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And I'm thinking, what in the world is happening down there? There are people, a very ancient rabbi is coming up to them.

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I'm like, oh my goodness, what are we getting into? And here's this chief rabbi.

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This guy's old. I mean, how old do you think he was? I would not be the one to guess.

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Oh, very old. Okay. They're helping him. Beautifully ancient. Yeah, beautifully ancient. And they bring him up to us.

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And then finally, he says to us, he goes, this is Isaiah 18. This is Isaiah 18. And we're like, what do you mean?

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And so Isaiah 18, it talks about a fierce people, a warrior nation, bronze smooth -skinned people that will come from a far away land,

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I'm paraphrasing, a land divided by many rivers, a land of worrying wings. And they will come and bring tribute to the

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Lord of Heaven's armies. And he says to us, among the rabbinical circles here in Israel, we believe this prophecy of Isaiah is talking about the

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Native Americans. And you being here right now in Jerusalem, worshiping the

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God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is a fulfillment of this prophecy. And we know that Messiah is at the gate.

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And when he says that, he reaches over and he grabs one of the drums. And this drum,

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I actually happen to have Lion of the Tribe of Judah on it. It's totally against Native protocol. Yes, yes.

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This is a forbidden land. So he grabs the drum, and he starts beating the

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Native hand drum. And everybody starts dancing and dancing. And they're singing, Messiah's coming.

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Messiah's coming. The Indians are in Jerusalem. Messiah's coming. It was light, light.

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Messiah's coming soon. That is an incredible story because we know the

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Messiah is coming again to that very place. That's incredible. There's something supernatural that takes place when

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Native people go to Israel. The indigenous people of Israel are the Jews of Judea.

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The history is deep and broad, and in many cases, not known by many people.

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So thank you for sharing that. So you guys, thank you. Bless you both. All right.