Following God’s Timing

Cindy Baliles and her family learned meaningful lessons about God 's timing through their work with our Standing Rock Indian Reservation partnership. Read Cindy's story:

I first heard about the WMUV's Standing Rock mission trip at my church, Bethany Baptist, and knew I wanted to go. This was the first year a team was going to the Cannon Ball District, and we were told it was a rough area with rambunctious kids. I remember thinking, it can't be any rougher than some of the neighborhoods I worked in as a police officer, and the kids can't be any more active than our boys that we adopted 9 years earlier. I was right, and I fell in love with the people and the land. Halfway through the week, I kept thinking that these kids need a horse program (I grew up with horses and have always had them) to keep them busy, teach responsibility and provide opportunities to have them in church a little more. I shared with my husband, Derek, that I wanted to move then, but realized that our boys were still in school and they had been uprooted enough while they were in foster care, so I'd have to put this on the back burner.

Little did I know that Jackie Marsh at Tipi Wakan Church in Cannon Ball had been bringing kids from the Rez to Camp CrossRoads, where they would always choose to participate in the horse program over any of the other activities. With all the horses in the Cannon Ball area, she wanted to provide a horse camp for the Cannon Ball community. A few years later, a WMUV team scouted out that possibility and made the decision that it was doable. Because of my equine experience, I was asked to be part of the team. My dream was coming true. My husband loved traveling to North Dakota each summer, and we even started coming out at Christmas, but making a permanent move was not something he was interested in.

I started taking Native based equine-assisted therapy training on Standing Rock, and was helping at a Christian youth services ranch in Virginia. I had given up on ever moving to North Dakota, and figured that working at the ranch and the summer horse camp were the answers to my prayer of being able to use my horse experience to share the gospel. But here's how God works: Derek was interested in getting certified in equine therapy to help back home and in Cannon Ball, and Jackie and I took it at Cannon Ball as a refresher. We finished the class and were still staying at Tipi Wakan to help out with some things around the church. After finishing up chores, Derek walked over completely out the blue and told me that he had heard the call and that we should move to Tipi Wakan to help with the horse ministry and help Boots and Jackie around the church.

I was blown away. I had given up on this dream so much that I had asked God to take away my desire to move to North Dakota. I had my Bible study group, and I was a WMU circle leader, a Sunday School teacher, and a food pantry volunteer. I've learned that I had to give up my desire for the way I thought this whole move and ministry would go. We did not buy my lifelong dream ranch, and Covid has kept us from offering a program this past year and will limit how we do anything this year. But I've learned a tremendous amount about letting go of my inferior ideas for God's timely, superior plan. He knew all along WE would decide to make the move.

Cindy Baliles
Sunka Wakan Wicohan Barn Manager