story and we got to meet them.” Jaeger echoed her trip leader: “The relationships and solidarity we experienced with them was the most important thing. We shoveled plenty of dirt and mixed a lot of cement. But we also took breaks to play with children.”
The work site and family conver- sations were formational for these students, Boardman said. “It’s important to get our hands
dirty. You often don’t get to the deeper level of hearing the struggle stories if you’re in a classroom or coffee shop,” she said. “There’s a lot of humility, frustration and laughter on a work site, and we were able to go a step deeper in our conversations with the masons and family mem- bers as well.”
It’s more than ‘doing’ Linda Staats, an assistant to the bishop of the Rocky Mountain Synod and co-creator of a new online resource called “Service and Learn- ing” (
www.selectlearning.org), underscored the importance of rela- tionship formation as a key element of any service experience. “When it’s only about the doing,
then it’s not about an equalization of power and it’s about what we do to or for the other. … You can’t separate out the doing from the accompani- ment,” she said. To celebrate their mission trip experience, the campus ministry group hosted a fiesta with their fami- lies, friends and supporting congrega- tions. They shared pictures, stories and a Central American meal. But, even as she began sharing her stories through Facebook, a blog and phone calls, Jaeger struggled with her re-entry into campus life and how to share such a transformational experi- ence. “How can I say anything [about the trip] without telling them every- thing?” she asked.
Building a long-term relation- ship through mission is important at Lutheran Church of the Resurrection in Marion, Iowa, said Kevin T. Jones, one of its pastors. Reading When Helping Hurts (Moody Publishers, 2009) led Resur- rection’s social concerns committee to advocate transitioning from “doing quick mission trips or Band-Aid type of things to work on long-term rela- tionships with communities,” he said. The congregation developed a relationship with Iglesia Luterana San Lucas, an ELCA mission in Eagle Pass, Texas. San Lucas, located on the Texas-Mexico border, has a mission site in Piedras Negras, Mex- ico, and typically hosts at least three large groups of volunteers each year. While groups come to work on proj- ects at San Lucas or the mission site, Paul A. Bailie, pastor, tries to empha- size “the importance of building rela- tionships over time” more than “the importance of doing something.” Bailie added: “My congregation is a unique setting for experiencing ministry cross-culturally, for having the chance to firsthand learn about justice issues, to encounter issues of poverty and race and immigra- tion. … My hope is that when people come here and see the border fence, meet people who speak a different language, it’s not just a feel-good moment, but they go home and think twice when they hear a racial slur. [I want] to be a teaching place for the wider church.”
Resurrection member Cathy
Winch has been to San Lucas three times, most recently in March. Paint- brushes in hand, the Iowa Lutherans learned from the Texas Lutherans about what it means to live in a bor- der community and, most poignantly to Winch, the helplessness of families who are divided by borders. “I think we don’t realize how good we have it back home until [we] see
the struggles that other people really have,” she said.
Intergenerational & Spirit-led Chad Kohlmeyer, a pastor of Atone- ment Lutheran, Boulder, Colo., stumbled across the congregation’s mission partner in 2010 on the way home from a youth group trip. Over pizza he learned about the Green River Community Center in eastern Utah. “The Holy Spirit was present in guiding us to that place,” he said. Out of that accidental discovery, Atonement and the Green River com- munity built a relationship. After several preparatory con- versations, Kohlmeyer first led four ELCA congregations from the Boul- der area to Green River in 2011. It was intentionally intergenerational, with participants ranging from middle- school aged to retirees.
Just three months ago, Kohlmeyer led a second intergenerational trip to Green River, this time involving five ELCA congregations, with a 7-year- old as the youngest participant. Engaging a broad range of ages in these mission experiences has been rewarding, Kohlmeyer said. “It is so fun to watch an 11-year-old install- ing caulking, alongside an 18-year- old installing soffiting, alongside a 58-year-old installing siding,” he said. On both trips the Lutherans worked with the Green River Com- munity Center, helping with con- struction and maintenance projects as well as assisting with ongoing pro- grams such as Meals on Wheels. Crucial to the experience was the
leaders’ investment in relationship- building between visits. Kohlmeyer stayed in contact with Green River’s leaders. He and others also visited Green River in advance of their visit. They wanted to listen to the commu- nity’s vision and ask questions, such as: “Is it helpful for us to bring 30 people again, and what can we do?”
June 2012 23
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