Prayer team touches Cherokee wounds in East Tennessee
CHEROKEE PRAYER INITIATVE MAIN PAGE
May 23, 2000

KNOXVILLE, TN – The Cherokee Prayer Initiative completed ten days of intercessory prayer in East Tennessee in mid May. Prayer team participants repented and forgave at thirty-two genocide and war atrocity sites in East Tennessee.

They stood before the Lord at little-known massacre sites, battlefields, broken treaty sites, and death camps to forgive and repent on behalf of their peoples.  "We can't change the past," Oklahoma Cherokee Ada Winn said, "but we can ask God to heal it."

Nearly half of the seven state prayer team was Native American, but a contingent also came from Northern Ireland to repent for the sins of Scot-Irish settlers against the Cherokee.  Most early Tennessee settlers were from Northern Ireland. 

After deep repentance before Cherokee team members, Carol Smyth of County Antrim, said, "We are resolving before God the catastrophes in our history to enable God to change our future."

"We are asking God to forgive our 200-year old iniquitous, corporate sin against the Cherokees," said Gene Brooks, who is coordinating the project.  "No one has ever systematically brought these tragedies before the Lord to ask His forgiveness.  We whites committed ethnic cleansing against the Cherokee.  For the first time I know, a generation of believers is bringing these sins under the blood of Jesus."

"As we entered the courtroom of God through our tears and repentance," said Fern Noble, a Cree Indian from Ventura, CA, "I believe some very ancient charges against East Tennessee were cleared off God's book and will help bring revival to East Tennessee."

Day Parker, an Overhills Cherokee from Atlanta, was deeply moved, "The Lord has shown me His heart for the First Nations Peoples.  His love for me has never been so clear."

The Cherokee Prayer Initiative is a prayer project of Mission Carolina in association with the International Reconciliation Coalition.  More information is available at http://missioncarolina.org/cpi.html