In Native and Christian: Indigenous Voices on Religious Identity in the United States and Canada, 232. New York and London: Routledge, 1996.

Tweedy Sombrero (Navajo) is pastor of the Garfield Indian United Methodist Church in Phoenix, Arizona.  A graduate of Haskell Indian Nations University and Ottawa University, she earned her Master of Divinity degree at Iliff School of Theology, where she studied with George Tinker.  She has held a number of pastoral and counseling positions and serves on numerous committees of the United Methodist Church at the local, regional, and national levels.  Sombrero presented this essay at a consultation on "Racial Ethnic Women in Ministry" sponsored by the National Council of Churches in 1984.  Organizers of the consultation wanted to hear about the ordination struggles facing racial/ethnic minorities, so Sombrero decided to talk about her decision to become a minister, since many of her own people were questioning this choice.  She describes the important guidance she received from her grandfather, a Navajo medicine man, in discerning her own spiritual path.

© 2008 by James Treat