Howard White Face, pastor of Lakota Gospel MB Church in Porcupine, S.D., died Feb. 10, 2018, at the age of 73. He was born Sept. 9, 1944, to Hobert and Effie (Big Owl) White Face.
White Face’s ministry spanned both radio programming and pastoral preaching.
For almost 25 years, White Face, with his wife, Rose, recorded a radio program in the Lakota language that reached five states.
White Face began his pastoral ministry at Lakota Gospel MB Church in 2005, where he also led worship and played a steel guitar. An arson fire had destroyed the 1952 church building in June 2004, and throughout his ministry, White Face faced opposition from the community as ongoing vandalism of the new church building required bars on all windows and doors.
White Face was a bivocational pastor, working with Oglala Sioux Lakota Housing from 1980 to 2018. He continued to work, record the radio program and preach until his hospitalization in January 2018.
White Face is survived by his children: Greeley, Betty L., Diggo, Delunda M. Running Hawk, Dio, Cathy Two Crow and Angel; stepson, Billy Gourd; 25 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. Rose predeceased him in 2016. A daughter, Cathleen, is also deceased.
Janae Rempel Shafer is the Christian Leader associate editor. She joined the CL staff in September 2017 with six years of experience as a professional journalist. Shafer is an award-winning writer, having received three 2016 Kansas Press Association Awards of Excellence and an Evangelical Press Association Higher Goals award in 2022. Shafer graduated from Tabor College in 2010 with a bachelor of arts in Communications/Journalism and Biblical/Religious Studies. She and her husband, Austin, attend Ridgepoint Church in Wichita, Kansas.
