This week in AG history -- April 24, 1960

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 - 1:33 PM CST

Charlie Lee (1924-2003), a talented young Navajo artist, won widespread recognition and numerous awards for his paintings and sketches of life on the reservation. Despite his success, Lee felt dissatisfied with his life. In the fall of 1947, an Apache school friend invited him to visit an Assemblies of God church at the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona, where he found new life and accepted Christ on New Year's Day, 1948.
 
Feeling called to the ministry, Lee enrolled at Central Bible Institute (now Central Bible College). He graduated in 1951 and traveled extensively as an evangelist among Native Americans. In 1953, Lee and his wife, Coralie, returned to his home state of New Mexico and pioneered Mesa View Assembly of God in Shiprock. He became one of the best-known Native American pastors within the Assemblies of God. His congregation in Shiprock, in 1976, became the first Native American church on a federally recognized reservation to make the transition from being a supported mission to a fully indigenous, self-supporting, General Council affiliated church.
 
Lee's testimony was published in the April 24, 1960, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel.
 
Read "Navajo Artist Builds a Church for His People," by Ruth Lyon, on pages 8 and 9 of the April 24, 1960, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel.

Also featured in this issue:

* "Africa As I Saw It," by C. C. Crace

* "Busy Mother Ministers to the Blind," by Maxine Strobridge

* "Has God Forgotten?" by Meyer and Alice Tan-Ditter

And many more!

Click here to read this issue now.
 
Charlie Lee's widow, Coralie, recently published her account of their inspiring lives, "And God Was There: A Biography of Charles and Coralie Lee." Click here to read a review of the book.

Pentecostal Evangel archived editions courtesy of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center. For current editions of the Evangel, click here.