Ray Buckley is Director of the Native People's Communication Office for United Methodist Communications in Nashville, linking the leaders of various indigenous peoples within the denomination. He spent the early part of his life on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Ray is fluent in the Tlingit and Lakota languages. Author and illustrator of several books, his The Give-Away: A Christmas Story in the Native American Tradition (Abingdon, 1999) was featured on the CBS Christmas Eve special produced by the National Council of Churches. He is the author of The Wing, God's Love Is Like, Christmas Moccasins, Dancing With Words, and Lay Speakers Tell Stories. An accomplished storyteller, Ray has taught and lectured widely on Native American studies.