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 and joined the CL staff in 2017. Shafer is an award-winning writer, receiving multiple awards from the Kansas Press Association and Evangelical Press Association. A Tabor graduate with a degree in communications and religious studies, she and her husband, Austin, attend Ridgepoint Church in Wichita, Kansas.
