mission and ministry


Mission team lends hand to center in need


Looking out for others A


By Doris Haugen, National Campus


s a Good Samaritan Society administrator, Michele Juffer knows firsthand about the complexities of


running a rehabilitation and skilled care center. From overseeing resident care to directing staff to making sure the buildings and grounds look their best, there’s always some task ahead.


So when a group of 21 Good Samaritan Society staff members and others arrived at the Wagner, S.D., center for a week long, Society-sponsored mission trip in July, Juffer felt blessed. She knew she’d find something for the group to do. What she didn’t anticipate, however, was how much the group would accomplish and the meaning the experience would bring to the center’s residents and staff members.


Organized by the Good Samaritan Society’s mission effectiveness team, the visit to Wagner marked the second time the Society has sponsored a mission work trip to one of its centers. Last summer, 13 volunteers did similar work at two centers in northwest North Dakota. The trips provide an opportunity for putting the Good Samaritan Society’s Christian mission and ministry into practice and give staff members a way to reach out to their colleagues across the country.


This year’s trip to Wagner included volunteers from Minnesota, Kansas and South Dakota. Their tasks were many and varied. They painted buildings, tidied up landscaping, cleaned out gutters, scraped and painted windows, removed old carpet and wallpaper, replaced ceiling fans, and helped remove trees.


“After day one, I did a calculation, and I honestly believe that the group did an amount of work that would have


16 The Good Samaritan • 2011 • Vol. 45 • No. 2


Members of a Good Samaritan Society mission team pose by a tree the group planted in Wagner, S.D.


ParticiPants


Cheryl Knudson, Clear Lake, S.D. Cynthia Henley, Sioux Falls, S.D. Danny and Arils Van Gerpen, Tripp, S.D. Ealine Rue, East Grand Forks, Minn. Jim and Karen Droppers, Sioux Falls, S.D. Jennifer Andersen, Sioux Falls, S.D. Jason Herried, Sioux Falls, S.D. Melissa Paradis, Warren, Minn. Myron Moore, Sioux Falls, S.D. Trisha Kuchta, Sioux Falls, S.D. Clint Bollock, Sioux Falls, S.D. Jim Kostboth, Sioux Falls, S.D. Brad Van Surksum, Sioux Falls, S.D. Bill Gran, Sioux Falls, S.D. Gail Bjorgaard, Warren. Minn. Greg Wilcox, Sioux Falls, S.D. Gail Deckert, Sioux Falls, S.D.


Jigs Cole, O’Neill, Neb., and Pickstown, S.D. Joanna Wilson, Parsons, Kan.


taken us three months,” says Juffer. “When you work in a (long-term care) center, there are many times when one gets called away from the project they are working on. A person in maintenance usually never gets a two-hour time to do any one thing. So, this group worked, worked, worked. There was no time when they just sat!”


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