Ministry Leader in Focus: Augusta “Gus” Smith, Director of Native Praise Choir

Can you talk about how you got involved in music and how you got involved in the Native Praise Choir?

I have always loved singing. As a little girl, my cousin and I used to compete on who could sing the loudest in church.  We also used to compete on who knew the most songs in the hymn book. In high school, I joined a choir, but my teacher didn’t encourage me, and I felt inferior. Yet in my college years at Bacone College, I was encouraged to join the Bacone Choir and was immediately accepted and loved every minute of it. The choir served as ambassadors for the college, so we traveled to many areas of the United States. When Native Praise was organized in 1999, I had recently returned to Oklahoma, after living out of state for almost 25 years. I was in the very first group of ladies that Willene Pierce gathered to sing hymns in our tribal languages for the Oklahoma WMU Annual Meeting. There were 50 of us.

For those who may be less familiar, can you describe the Native Praise Choir?

The Native Praise Choir is unique in many ways. When we first began singing together, Willene approached the WMU organizations of the five Indian Baptist Associations in Oklahoma. At the WMU Annual Meeting, we sang in three groups. The Muscogee Creek and Seminole women sang a hymn in the Muscogee language, the Chickasaw and Choctaw women sang a hymn in the Choctaw language, and the Cherokee women in the Cherokee language.  When Willene accepted an invitation from Wanda Lee at National WMU to sing at the National WMU Celebration in 2002 at St. Louis, we realized that we needed an official name for our choir. We became Native Praise, a music ministry of the Native American LINK. At that point in time, we had 130 women. We began working on everyone in the choir learning to sing the hymns of the three languages of the Five Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma. Today, we have 44 choir members who represent 25 Oklahoma churches and 17 tribal nations.

Can you talk about the Native American LINK Ministry? 

Willene Pierce was the founding executive director-treasurer of the Native American LINK Inc. The Native American LINK, Inc. is a Baptist ministry focused on the Native American women in our Native Baptist congregations across Oklahoma designed to help women grow spiritually, strengthen family life and develop personal skills.

LINK signifies “Living In Neighborly Kindness.” It is primarily a women-to women approach. It may link women from one tribe to another, from one church to another, non-Native to Native, older women to younger women and those with specific ministry skills.

With the 25^th Anniversary of the Native Praise Choir here, can you talk about the tour?

Our Anniversary tour was intended as a celebration of the endurance of the choir. The week before we left on our tour, our Native Praise Choirwas featured in an article in the WMU missions magazine (July 2024 issue). That was a surprise and an honor. Thirty people were able to travel on this tour. Our stops included singing at Greenfield, Ind., Calvary, where the guest speaker was the SBC President, Bart Barber. That was a God-thing, totally unplanned (by us)! Then, we sang at the National WMU Missions Celebration and Annual Meeting.  We were honored to have Wanda Lee, National WMU Executive Director-Treasurer Emerita and National WMU President Emerita bring the commissioning of the Native Praise for the next 25 years. While at the SBC Convention, the choir was invited to sing at the Fellowship of Native American Christians annual meeting.

We completed our tour singing at Selbyville, Del., Fenwick Island; Walnut Hills, Va., and Moro, Ark.  We were able to include some stops to the Lincoln Presidential Museum in Springfield, Ill., Hershey, Pa., a bus tour of Amish country in Lancaster County, Pa., a drive down the Eastern Shore and tunnel to Virginia Beach. We have mademany friends throughout these areas of travel, so it was great to and share about our ministry and culture of our Native American people.

What are some of the most rewarding aspects of this ministry?

The best part of this ministry is the genuine, sincere sisterhood of the women of many tribal nations. If it were not for the Native American LINK ministry bringing us together to sing together, to minister together, and to be on mission together, we may have never made the friendships we share today.  My personal joy is seeing them share hugs, prayers, tears, and best of all, laughter. Each woman has a story of her own.  It is exciting to have young women and preteens who have joined the choir. They are our hope. When we sing these tribal hymns, something happens. God’s voice is heard in these hymns. Most of our hymns are those that carried our people during a very difficult time in history, the Trail of Tears. We do not forget that. We pray that these hymns will continue to be sung until Jesus returns.