Awakening a Sleeping Giant

When Caitlyn Denet ’24 walked into Moody’s Kimball Room to celebrate her graduation from Moody Bible Institute, the room erupted with applause. Dozens of friends and family members were there from as far away as the Navajo reservation in New Mexico where Caitlyn grew up and as near as Moody’s catering kitchen where she taught coworkers to make Native American fry bread. 

While guests crowded around tables sampling Native treats, a special mentor in Caitlyn’s life gave tribute to the “girl from the rez” who not only was impacted by Moody but had an impact on the Institute. Ron Hutchcraft ’65, founder of Hutchcraft Ministries and 1997 Moody Alumnus of the Year, told the gathering, “This day of celebration is the result of a series of expensive obediences”—saying yes to Christ and turning down a lucrative career for a calling. “Those obediences are scary and they’re hard, but this is my three-word summary of today: It’s worth it.”

Caitlyn, who graduated with a bachelor’s in Youth Ministry, beamed. “When I first came to Moody, I expressed to the leadership that God is on the move in Native America,” she said. “And this is not the end. It’s just the beginning. It’s exciting because He’s raising up leaders to go back and bring the hope, bring the gospel, and I’m just one of hundreds.”

Life on the Rez

Caitlyn didn’t see much hope on the reservation where she grew up. She witnessed alcohol abuse, drug addiction, poverty—and experienced her own brokenness as a child when her parents divorced. 

She moved in with her grandmother, a Christian who took her to church. Caitlyn was also close to her grandpa, a medicine man who hosted cultural ceremonies and Native traditional prayers in his home. He told her that Jesus was not for Native Americans. 

Caitlyn wrestled with what to believe. “I’ve always asked myself, How does that look to be a follower of Jesus and to be Navajo?” 

She was taught that Native people must be strong and not cry. But as she took care of herself and her siblings, she longed for someone stronger than her to depend on. When she was a preteen, she heard the pastor preaching about Jesus as “a man full of love and compassion.”

“I remember he said in Navajo, ‘Jesus loves you, and he sees exactly where you are right now.’ When he said ‘Jesus ayóó’áshó’ní’—‘Jesus loves me’ in Navajo—right then and there I felt the love of God just drip like rain. It just felt like I could finally breathe. I gave my grandma a hug, and said, ‘I want that.’ She prayed with me, and that was the start of it all.”

Basketball and Jesus

At age 15 Caitlyn attended her first Warrior Leadership Summit, a Native American summer camp started by Ron Hutchcraft. “Picture walking into an auditorium of 500 Native teenagers lifting up the name of Jesus,” Caitlyn says. “I was like, This is what heaven will look like.” 

Instead of going home afterwards, she convinced her mom and dad to let her join Ron’s On Eagles’ Wings team for the summer. They traveled by bus to visit reservations as far east as Maine, playing basketball and talking about Jesus with other Native American youth. 

“That’s where the Lord really started to break my heart for Native people,” Caitlyn says. 

Brave Decision

By senior year in high school, the pressure was on for Caitlyn, an excellent student, to study engineering in college. “My dad was really adamant about that,” she says.

But Caitlyn couldn’t see herself in engineering. With trepidation she told her dad she wanted to spend her life in ministry and felt called to attend a Bible college. He expressed disappointment but eventually gave his blessing, telling her he’d rather have his daughter make an impact and be happy than make money and be unfulfilled.

Ron recommended Moody, so Caitlyn applied. Soon she was traveling to Chicago for the first time. But life at Moody would come with a learning curve and challenges she didn’t expect.

‘These People Don’t Know Me’

When Caitlyn arrived at Moody in spring 2020, she encountered culture shock. Despite a caring roommate and great classes, she couldn’t find a Native American student group to join; there weren’t enough Native students at Moody to form a group. Moody didn’t celebrate Native American Heritage Month, either. On the Day of Prayer, prayers for Native people were somehow left out. Caitlyn’s heart broke. 

These people don’t know me; they don’t understand, she thought bitterly. She cried out to God, “Teach me how to love people!” 

From then on, she saw glimpses of the Lord working in her life. She met with a staff member who challenged her to be the one to showcase God’s work among Native Americans. Perhaps Caitlyn could revive interest in her forgotten people.

Chance Meeting

On Hispanic Heritage Day at Moody Bible Institute, Caitlyn was walking with a Hispanic student when they ran into Roy Patterson ’81 MA ’24, the community relations director. After her friend thanked Roy for helping to coordinate the special event, Caitlyn piped up. “So when are you going to do something for Native Americans?”

Roy was surprised. “I didn’t know we had any Native American students here.”

“We do. I’m one,” she said.

Roy and Caitlyn got together and started praying about a November 2021 event. Caitlyn arranged for Seth Stevens, a Navajo student life coordinator at On Eagles’ Wings, to come and speak. Culbertson 1 filled up with students, and Caitlyn also shared her story.

“It was crazy the impact,” she says. “But Roy kept saying, ‘You need to dream bigger. What if we do a chapel? And by ‘we,’ I mean ‘you.’” 

Caitlyn started planning an event and requested a President’s Chapel to celebrate Native American Heritage Month in November 2022. But plans stalled, and when all the chapel openings were taken, she got discouraged. By mid-October, Caitlyn told Roy she gave up on making plans. But they prayed together, and that’s when a “God miracle” happened.

A God Miracle at Moody

A President’s Chapel opened up for November 29, so Caitlyn arranged for Seth Stevens and his wife, Sarah, to speak and lead worship. Ron Hutchcraft and the On Eagles’ Wings staff and students also came. Caitlyn’s mom and aunt even flew in for the event—the first time a family member had visited Moody.

The day before chapel, the OEW team held a Q&A discussion. Students learned that young Native people often grow up without hope. The level of pain and grief leading to addiction and self-destructive choices is heartbreaking. Yet they have seen the gospel make a difference in Native lives. Seth, the lead speaker, said with tears that before going to a reservation for ministry, they have learned to always pray the same prayer: “Lord, keep them alive until we get there.” 

The next day featured an all-Native President’s Chapel. Caitlyn shared her own story, and Seth spoke on how we serve a missional God who sees Native Americans not as categories but as individuals to be loved, redeemed, and sent out on mission. 

Native Americans Reaching Native Americans

That afternoon, Hutchcraft joined a panel on Moody Radio’s Chris Fabry Live to share stories of hope about Native Americans. Ron recalled his own broken heart more than 30 years earlier when he visited a reservation and discovered that after 400 years of missions, only four percent of Native Americans believe in Christ.

“There are a number of reasons for that,” Ron said, “but it was very clear that it would have to be Native American young people reaching Native American young people.” 

As a result, he began Hutchcraft Ministries and On Eagles’ Wings in 1992 to empower young Native Americans—like Caitlyn—to share the hope they have in Jesus with their own people and beyond! 

“Billy Graham once said, ‘Native Americans are the sleeping giant. If ever they were to awaken, they could become the evangelists who reach America for Christ,’” Ron says. “I really think what we’re seeing is the fulfillment of that.” 

In November 2023, Caitlin held an event called “Woven in Prayer,” where students prayed with a partner for Native America while loom-weaving little rugs. Another joy for Caitlyn was carrying the Native American flag in the flag processional during Missions Conference—and to see another Navajo student, Jenna, carry it in 2024. 

Grieving and Rejoicing

Sorrows also found their way into Caitlyn’s life at Moody. Caitlyn’s pastor in New Mexico passed away in 2021, and a year later her grandma, the one who raised her and led her to Christ, also died. She traveled to attend her grandma’s homegoing service and thought about not returning. “The one reason to come back to Moody was because I knew God had called me here,” Caitlyn says.

Then her medicine-man grandfather became gravely ill from cancer. Caitlyn’s dad urged her to come home to present the gospel. She’d discussed her faith with her grandpa in the past but admits, “He was one of the people in my life I was most intimidated to share the gospel with because I’d seen many people come to the house for Native prayer and ceremonies.”

But one morning she sat at his bedside and said, “Grandpa, I need to ask you something. Do you want to accept Jesus of the Bible into your heart?” After a long silence, he said, “Yes.” She and her sister prayed with him and sang “Jesus Loves Me” in Navajo to him. God’s peace seemed to settle over him, and when his brother, a pastor, arrived, her grandpa was baptized. A few days later, he met his Savior. 

Instead of having a traditional ceremony, Caitlyn arranged his homegoing service in a church. “I had the honor and the privilege to say it’s because my grandpa accepted Jesus,” she says. “A lot of people who would never set foot in a church came. It was filled.” 

The Next Chapter

Since her graduation, Caitlyn has served as a resident assistant at On Eagles’ Wings, discipling Native American girls in a gap-year program of biblical training in a Christian community. She also took a mission trip to Mongolia in March and is praying for God’s leading for next steps.

Thinking back, she says, “My training and classes and exposure to cultures at Moody definitely helped me and really gave me more confidence. I met students with big goals and dreams—writing a book, leading a youth group. I serve the same God, so not to disqualify myself but to see that God really does call the unqualified.”

And the work of God continues at Moody. Ethan Joe, a Navajo who knows Caitlyn from On Eagles’ Wings, is now finishing his first year at Moody as a Youth Ministry major. For Native American Heritage Month last November, he shared his heart in a Q&A event at Moody. He also carried the flag at Missions Conference in 2025 and prayed for Native Americans on the Day of Prayer.

“God’s faithful,” Caitlyn says. “My choice of being obedient to go to Moody came with God’s strength to finish. Looking back at that now, I can honestly say it’s been worth it.”