My supervisor at PATH, Donna Ennis, emailed me about your on-line journal, and I’ve been poring over it all day today! Your article is the first one I’ve read all the way through, and I loved it! I remember the couple of times you invited me to go with you to the Culture and Language Institutes (that is when I became good friends with Toni Thorstad too - I’ve emailed her about your journal)… Your coverage of those experiences brought me right back to how meaningful they were to me, and I can tell you very honestly, that what I learned during those times, and from the two of you in our Learning Circles is working in me every day! I work with therapeutic foster families and the youth they serve - 5 of the 8 foster families on my case load are Native American - more than half of the youth our office serves are Native American - one of my foster fathers is a Traditional Medicine Man. I offered him tobacco and asked him to pray for my father (who has Native Ancestors) when he was diagnosed with end-stage dementia and was put in a nursing home against his will - and mine - I am not exaggerating even a tiny bit when I tell you that my father is “himself” again… He still has dementia, but he is home and he “understands and accepts his path in this world and the next,” just as the Medicine Man told me he would after the Healing Ceremony he did for us. I told my dad about this, and huge tears rolled down his cheeks. I’ve never seen my dad emotional like that ever. I didn’t intend to write this story when I started to thank you for your article, but I realize that the road that you led me down helped me to bring my dad back to his culture, and it makes me understand that culture is the most important piece for me to understand and honor when I work with my families now. I can not thank you enough… Miigwech! Gigawabamin, Julie