Stacy Long

AFA Journal staff writer

June 2012 – Anne Konur knew she was not equipped to start a school. She had a high school education, and she knew quite well what she was capable of – and not capable of.

She did not believe that she was cut out to be a missionary either, but when the Lord prompted her to participate in a short term mission trip in 2000, she had to say yes. After two days of working as a VBS cook and teacher on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation in South Dakota, she felt God wanted her to start a school there.

“The Lord is telling me I should start a school here,” she told a close friend. “You know I am not capable of starting a school.”

Still, she was burdened for the people of the Cheyenne River Reservation and found it impossible to walk away from them. For five years, Konur made monthly trips back to the reservation to teach life skills to the adults, but the results were frustrating. As soon as she returned to her home in Virginia, any progress they had made was lost. She realized she was going to have to obey the Lord.

“The Lord kept telling me, ‘This is why you need the school: to teach the children to be the people I want them to be.’ So I finally decided to listen to the Lord,” she said.

In 2009, Konur launched Windswept Academy, a non-denominational Christian school in Eagle Butte, South Dakota, for children in kindergarten through sixth grade. After three years of operation, Windswept plans to add curriculum for the seventh and eighth grades within the next two years. While her dream is to include high school and prepare children for college, the school currently does not have adequate facilities for such development. Konur estimates the cost for completing that next phase of her vision would be one million dollars. However, she knows “it is in God’s hands; we’re just waiting on the Lord as far as that’s concerned.”

Meanwhile, Windswept is making a difference in what Konur identifies as “the poorest county in the United States.” Children living in the midst of horrible abuse and neglect are given hope and love in Windswept’s classrooms. Konur has seen their lives change as the result of “teaching them Christian values and giving them Christian love.” Konur says she is blessed to be able to show the love of God to these children who have hardly even known human love.

The headmaster of Windswept also created Off the Wall, an outreach program for children fifth grade and up. Konur explains how some of the children who attend this program hear of Jesus for the first time and demand to know, “Who is this Jesus person?”

“Off the reservation, I don’t think you could find a place where people had never heard the name Jesus – not in the United States,” Konur says. “What bothers me so much is this is the United States of America. It is not a Third World country, but it is a Third World country inside.”

And so the woman who believed she could not be a missionary spends her life ministering to those who have never heard of Jesus Christ. The woman who did not believe she could open a school has a vision that will one day take the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation to higher education and beyond. All it took was her obedience. And, as Konur points out, God can use other people in the same way: “If the Lord can build through me, He can build through anyone.”  

HOW TO HELP
Windswept Academy is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.

Current Needs

▶ Industrial kitchen appliances
▶ Elementary library books
▶ Elementary school furniture
▶ Playground equipment
▶ Gifts to pay for a child’s education
▶ School building expansion

More info:
www.windsweptacademy.org
P.O. Box 1576
Eagle Butte, SD 57625