courtesy photo Linda Kuhlman of Pleasant Dale helps children during an Easter egg hunt in the village of La Piedra, near Galeana, Mexico.

by Robert Stewart

    For many people summer is a time to travel, but for some, travel does not necessarily mean a vacation. Two Seward churches, Faith Lutheran and the United Methodist Church, recently sent groups on mission trips to Galeana, Mexico, and Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, respectively.
     Although missions trips provide some similarities to recreational travel, such as a change of scenery and exposure to a culture different from one's own, those participating in the trips find that the experience offers more than a day at the beach.
    
    Faith Lutheran
    Galeana, Mexico
     A group of 18 members of Faith Lutheran Church left June 18 and flew to McAllen, Texas, the staging point for its annual trip to Galeana.
     From there they were met by representatives of Friends of Mexico, an organization comprised of long-term American and Mexican missionaries which acts as a liason for missions groups.
     Representatives travelled across the border with the group from Faith Lutheran.
     Linda Kuhlman, who was making the trip for the first time, said an incident at the border showed her the power of faith of the group. The Rev. Jim Miller encountered some difficulty getting permission to cross the border. Kuhlman said the group decided to pray about the problem.
     "We both prayed and the next thing we saw him walking out of the building (at the border) out to take care of his car, so they let him through," she said.
     While the group was in Mexico they stayed in Galeana but went to small villages surrounding the town for the majority of their missions work. Projects undertaken by the group included maintenance and upkeep on existing church structures, vacation bible schools held in the afternoons for children and leading church services in the evening for adults.
     The group also brought gifts to share with the Mexican people. Kuhlman had 72 toothbrushes and tubes of toothpaste donated by her daughter's orthodontist and the group presented 18 bulletproof vests, provided by a Lincoln police officer, to the Galeana police department.
     Several other representatives of Faith Lutheran said that helping and spending time with the Mexican people is what drives the missions trips, and that in the end the trips mean as much to the missionaries as those they came to share with.
     "It's incredible to go down there and be able to share the word of God with people," said Andrew Miller who was making his eighth trip to Galeana and acted as one of the leaders for the excursion. "It just ends up being an incredible experience for people...that go on the trips. It's a way to learn, and better live our lives from learning."
     Miller related a story in which he was walking down the street one evening in Galeana and noticed that he was being followed by a police officer. Miller thought the man looked familiar and then the officer called out to him.
     It turned out that the officer was a young man who had participated in an earlier mission outreach by the Faith Lutheran group and remembered Miller. The man told Miller about what had happened in his life since they had last met, why he decided to become a police officer and what his goals are. Miller said that seeing people change and grow over the years is one of the rewards of working in the mission field.
     "It's neat to see them grow as a Christian," he said. "You don't know the impact that our mission has on people's lives, but there are ways that people's lives are touched."
     Linda Birkes-Lance said the relationships that develop with the people led to her to make a second trip with the group.
     "My faith was strengthened so much from having been there and meeting people there," she said. "They're so accepting and so hungry for the word of God. It was just really exciting. It became a life-changing experience for me."
     Before the group goes down to Mexico they are given necklaces with wooden crosses on them and told that if they meet someone who, by the end of the trip, they have grown close to, they can give the necklace to them as a remembrance. For Birkes-Lance that person was the same both years, a young boy she met through the course of vacation bible school classes.
     She did not learn his name on her first trip, but gave him the necklace before she left. When she met him again this year he was still wearing the necklace, and she learned his name– Jesús.
     "It was really exciting. First, of all to see that he was wearing the cross skeleton and second, that he had such a special name. He's kind of my special boy down there," Burke-Lance said.
     The group returned to the U.S., on June 25. Burke-Lance said that every time she has gone on the trip there are experiences and people she enjoys and wants to encounter again.
     "I always can't wait to go back again," she said.
    
    United Methodist Church
    Pine Ridge Reservation, S.D.
     Members of the United Methodist Church travelled to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota June 9 to 15. It was the third time a group from the church had gone to the reservation, but the events that led to their arrival began many years before. It began with a meeting.
     In the early 1980's Bruce Dickinson, at the time the Seward Middle School counselor, attended a regional meeting of the American Counselor's Association in South Dakota. A fellow counselor, Dallas Chief Eagle, was attending and performing the traditional Lakota hoop dance at the event. The two were introduced, and over the course of the years spent more time together and developed a friendship.
     Four years ago Dickinson was speaking to Chief Eagle about the difficulty of finding places to take youth on missions trips.
     "I mentioned how some of the sites (where) I was taking kids to missions trips were drying up and he said, 'Bruce, you should come to South Dakota,'" Dickinson said.
     The groups Dickinson took from United Methodist consisted of high school students and adult supervisors. The trips give the students the opportunity to learn about and preserve a culture different from their own.
     Aaron Knickerbocker, who was making his first trip, had simple expectations for the experience.
     "I was expecting it to be fun. I was expecting to work quite a bit," he said.
     He said both of those expectations were met.
     This year the group worked on a project related to a tradition at the center of the Lakota way of life– the sweat lodge. Although the group did not work directly on the sweat lodge, they constructed projects that will aid in the execution of the ceremony.
     They built a stairway down a hillside to give the elderly greater access to the lodge, they assembled picnic tables to give sweat lodge participants a place to eat before entering the lodge and constructed a pole shed for eating during inclement weather and changing before entering the lodge.
     Nathan Lee, who was making his third trip with the group, said the amount of work the group undertakes has increased each time.
     "We definitely are taking on more projects to do each time we go up and we are going further in completing all of them," he said.
     Completing all of the projects required long hours from those on the trip. The group would get up at 6:30 each day and sometimes work until 10 or 11 p.m.
     "It kind of took me a while to get used to the sleep pattern," Matt Simonsen, another member of the group, said.
     The amount of work the group did allowed at least one participant a bit of self-discovery.
     "My favorite part was surprising myself with how much I could do," Kira Anthony said. "It's a good experience to be part of. You always go in there thinking you're going to do something for them and then they end up giving stuff to you."
     The group met Jim Cross, medicine man for the Lakota community they visited, and participated with him in a dedication ceremony for the pole shed.
     "We danced around the pole shed to dedicate it," said Nathan Broeker, who cited the event as one of the highlights for him.
     Spending time with the Lakota stood out as a highlight for several of the youths.
     "It was a lot of fun," Knickerbocker said.
     "The local people, the kids were just so eager to help and everything. They were just so glad we were there," Rebecca Nelson said.
     Logan Gee said that one aspect of the Lakota culture that he found interesting was their joyfulness despite the poverty in which they lived.
     "Everyone's more friendly with each other up there than we are," he said.
     Evan Canning said the most enjoyable part of the trip for him was being able to help others.
     "Knowing that we did it just for them. That we didn't want anything in return, it was just for them," he said.
     Dickinson said that although the group was on a missions trip, they did not actively seek to persuade the Lakota to their belief system and instead sought to lead by example.
     "If you want to teach someone about what you believe, you do it by modeling," Dickinson said.
     Paul Myers, a first-timer on the trip, said he was not expecting to work quite as much as they did, but the effort they put in did not detract from the overall experience.
     "I'd definitely go back. It was fun," he said. "It was a good experience."
     In his comments on the trip Dickinson repeatedly remarked how impressed he was with the hard work put in by the youth and the way they conducted themselves on the reservation. He marvelled at the impact his meeting with Chief Eagle has had on so many people.
     "It's interesting the way a relationship between two people has grown to affect a whole church and people on the east side of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation," he said.