Today is the first Saturday of March 2022, and it is also the first Saturday of “Women’s History Month.” I want to dedicate my column for the four Saturdays of March 2022 to Some Amazing Women of Faith in our Nation’s History. So, here goes…

Navajo matriarch, Irene Eskey, was born in the Spring of 1906, in early April when the cactus were blooming. Irene was born in a hogan on the Navajo Reservation in the high desert of Northern Arizona. And she went to meet with her Lord and Savior, face to face, on Saturday, February 18, 2022.

She spent her nearly 116 years of life living on that Reservation, and she shared her faith in Christ with hundreds, if not thousands, of people throughout her long life.

Gramma Eskey, as she was so affectionately called, became a dear friend of mine back in 1985 when I preached at her Black Rock church for the first time. I was serving as the pastor of the First Assembly of God in Floydada, Texas back then.

I was invited to come out to the Navajo Reservation and preach a week-long series of services at the church near Black Rock (a black colored mesa on the desert) where Gramma Eskey’s daughter, Sister Liz Eskey served as the pastor.

My earliest memory of Gramma Eskey was on the morning after my arrival on the reservation. I came out of the hogan where I was staying, and I followed my nose and the wonderful aroma of breakfast being cooked over an open fire.

Then I saw Gramma Eskey kneeling in front of a firepit where she was grilling mutton ribs. Not too far behind her hung a sheep she had killed that morning for our meals that week. That “sacrificial lamb” would provide not only that breakfast for me and the Eskey family, but meals all week long for everybody who came to the Revival Meeting that week.

After breakfast was served, Gramma prepared the meat, and she made a huge pot of mutton stew that would feed the crowd of worshippers. People came from all over the hills and mesas in that part of the reservation for the services. Most of them spent the week sleeping on the church floor or in the back of their trucks or in their cars.

The nightly services started before sunset and went long into the night. And after every meeting that week, Gramma, gracious hostess that she was, served meals for everybody. Gramma Eskey, Pastor Liz and several church members prepared and served meals three times a day for about 30 people that week. Gramma cooked, baked and prayed all day long to get ready for the services. Let me tell you about the “church building” where we held our meetings that week.

I was so impressed by the ingenuity of Gramma and Liz as they built their own place to worship the Lord Jesus Christ. They had gathered wood from across the hills, used lumber, dead tree branches, old hoods from semi-trucks and pickups, and old canvas tarps to build the walls and roof of their sanctuary. I had brought about 20 folding chairs from my church in Texas to give to the congregation there at Black Rock. Before that, worshippers sat on the old carpets covering the dirt floors.

A church in California had given Gramma and Liz a gas-powered generator to use for the evening services; and the ladies had strung several lines of electric lights across the ceiling to provide illumination. The generator also powered the amplifiers for the electric guitar players who led the singing in the worship services. There wasn’t electricity or running water there at Black Rock, and the only time that generator was used was for revival meetings.

Gramma Eskey never did have running water, indoor plumbing, or electricity in her home or on her family property. And that was just fine with her. She hauled her water for bathing and cooking, and used kerosene lanterns to provide light, and had an outhouse off in the distance. That was the way she lived for 115 years.

We drove up into the hills several times that week to go to a communal well to pump water and fill tanks with fresh, cold water, and we brought it back to the Eskey Camp at Black Rock. Irene Eskey was also a shepherd. She raised sheep all of her life.

Gramma and her family had built a rugged corral for their flock their on their property. And every morning one of the family members would take the sheep out to graze on the rocky hills, and then lead then home in the afternoon. I was so impressed with Gramma’s “heart of a servant.”

Every time I visited her over the years she was busy baking or cooking, or making jewelry or kneeling at her loom weaving rugs. I have several small rugs she wove hanging on the wall of my office at home.

When I left Black Rock after that first Revival back in 1985, I was given two beautiful rugs Gramma had woven from her own sheep’s wool, and some turquoise and silver jewelry a family member had made. Those were gifts that I have treasured all these years. Gramma Irene Eskey was my friend.

And she was a woman of prayer. I visited the Reservation multiple times over the years and attended numerous revival meetings in the big Gospel Tents. Before every service I would see Gramma kneeling in prayer at the altars set up in the front of the tent. She would be praying for the Holy Spirit to speak through the preachers, and for souls to be saved, and bodies to be healed. When the music started, Gramma would take her seat in the front row and join in as the crowd began worshipping the Lord. When the altar call was given at the close of the preacher’s message, people would come to the altar to receive Jesus’ salvation or healing for their bodies. And Gramma would be there to pray for and with the people.

On one of my trips out to Black Rock, I talked Gramma into letting me take her to the Grand Canyon. This beautiful National Park is just several hours away from her home, but she had never been there before. I have always been in awe at the Canyon’s beauty and grandeur, but I had to laugh when Gramma got her first look into the Grand Canyon and just wasn’t impressed.

She had lived on the high desert of Northern Arizona all of her life and she was around deep canyons, and high mountains, plateaus and mesas, and amazing rock formations since childhood, so I guess the National Park was just another canyon, or a big hole in the ground.

We stopped in Flagstaff after visiting the Grand Canyon that day, and I took Gramma to McDonalds for dinner. She sat quietly, nibbling on a cheeseburger, staring out the window. I asked her what she was thinking about, and she replied softly, “Mutton stew.”

Gramma was a shepherdess, a jeweler, a weaver, a prayer-warrior, and a Woman of God who made a quiet and peaceful impact on every person she met. Irene Eskey was a living part of Native American history.