Martin, South Dakota

Aaron and I returned Saturday with our group of 18 students and 2 other adult leaders from our mission trip to Martin, South Dakota. I'll give you the rundown of what happened each day and you can see a slideshow of pictures from those days. Make sure you have plenty of time to read it because it's pretty long!


Saturday, June 21/Sunday, June 22
Everyone met at the church by 6:00 AM that morning. We loaded up the vans and trailer and prayed before we took off. As soon as we crossed the river we entered Central Time. That was the longest driving day of the whole trip. We finally reached Sioux Falls, SD around 11:00 where we spent the night at Linwood Wesleyan Church. It just so happened that Aaron played in the jazz band with their music pastor at IWU. Sunday morning we got ready and packed all our things before church started. We split up and went to two different Sunday School classes. We didn't join their youth because they were having a potential youth pastor and we didn't want to interfere. We left right after the church service. The drive through South Dakota wasn't too exciting. There were lots of hills and cows! We finally reached Martin at 6:00. We thought we were going to be an hour late but we found out that they are on Mountain Time so we got there at the right time! We stayed in the Jr. High school all week. We unpacked and had supper right away. While the students had orientation the leaders had a meeting. There were 3 other churches there from Oklahoma, Kansas, and North Dakota. Every night we had something called Club which was just a time of worship and one of the Youthworks staff would share a little message. We also did Yeehaws, which were good things that we saw eachother doing, for example "Yeehaw to the youth for showing leadership and working hard at the work site today." Another thing we did was Yea Gods, which was just praising God for the ways He worked each day. After Club we would break off into our church groups and discuss.

Monday, June 23
During the day each church group was divided up so we would be working with people from our own church as well as people from other churches. In our group, Aaron and I had 7 students from our church and a pastor from North Dakota and two boys from his church. After breakfast everyday we had our own quite time for devotions and prayer and then we were sent off to our work sites. Our group drove to an elderly woman's house who lived about 30 minutes away. Her name was Loreena and she needed her house painted. Her husband died in December and she couldn't do the work herself. We started by scraping off the original paint that was peeling. When we stopped to eat our lunch Loreena brought us lemonade and cookies. Before we got back to work she gave us a tour of her farm. She has about 1400 acres with 28 cows. The students did a great job of asking her questions and connecting with her. At the end of the day we had everything stripped, all of it primed, and had the first coat of paint on 2 sides of the house. We were all really looking forward to going back the next day. Everyday while the students had free time the leaders had a meeting. I really enjoyed that time because we got to hear what all the other groups did that day. Our evening activity after supper was a scavenger hunt. We had to answer questions by finding things on Main Street. After that we went to a place called Bingo's to get milkshakes. In our church group time, some of our students that were in other groups told us about a homeless drunk man that asked them to pray for him. They talked with him for awhile and he shared with them about his life and how he used to be a painter. We talked in our church group about why it is so different to do that kind of thing when we are at home. Why don't we talk to random people and seek out opportunities to visit with someone and share with them about God? We talked about being too busy and not making time to stop and talk. Aaron really challenged us to include God in everything we do rather than dropping everything to make room for witnessing. He asked us how our community would look if we included God in everything we did.


Tuesday, June 24
We continued working on Loreena's house. This time she brought us watermelon and brownies. The students just loved her! We got everything done except the trim along the roof and the concrete wall along the bottom. Loreena was very appreciative of the work we did and she really enjoyed having us there. After supper we went swimming for our evening activity at the public pool. That was a really fun time. There were many kids there from the community and the teens did a great job of playing with them. There were kids jumping off the diving board and all the guys started judging how well they did and giving them scores. It was hilarious and the kids loved it! I spent most of my time with a 4 year old boy who told me he was a cowboy. He was so sweet! Club was about responding to people in need and our church group talked about the needs in Vincennes and how many of them are similar to those in Martin. Aaron really challenged the students to think about what we could do when we got home.


Wednesday, June 25
Our group combined today with another group to do Kids Club, which is just a VBS style program for the kids in the community. After breakfast and devos we had an orientation to assign activities to the students and give them time to plan. They planned songs, games, and crafts. After lunch we walked to the park where it was held. The male adult leaders took some teens with them to pick up the kids. They mainly picked them up in two housing areas. One thing about the Native American culture is that if they don't know where their kids are, they just assume that someone is taking care of them and they are fine. So when they went to pick up kids many of them just came running from their homes and into the vans. Many of them didn't ask their parents, they just came. That afternoon was very physically tiring . I've never done so many underdogs in my life! The youth did an amazing job of playing with the kids. The guys gave many piggy back rides. For our evening activity they had a group of people from the Lakota tribe to do some cultural dancing and singing for us. One of the staff asked some of our students if they would lead worship for Club that night so that was really special to see them doing that. Our church group time that night was my favorite part of the whole trip. Aaron asked everyone to share what God's been teaching them this week. I loved to hear the students open up and share how God was working.
The pictures below are from Wednesday and Thursday.


Thursday, June 26
In the morning our group went to the nursing home to serve. They had different jobs for us to do. Some did maintenance work and others spent time with the residents. It was interesting to see which students wanted to just clean something and the ones that wanted to talk with the residents. We were there until 11:00 and then we ate at the park. Kids Club felt so much longer than the day before. We had some problems with older kids getting into fights and swearing. Kids Club is only for kids ages 3-12 but if they are older they don't want to turn them away. I drove some kids home with Aaron so I could see where they live. Their homes are technically on a reservation so the government is supposed to be in charge of the up-keep of the houses but they definitely don't do anything. There homes are very small and there was graffiti everywhere and most of the windows were broken. Our supper and evening activity was a community cook-out. We went to the park and invited those in the community to join us for supper. During Club tonight we had a foot washing. It was a special time for me to wash the girls' feet and pray for them and to see Aaron doing the same with the guys. We talked in our church group afterwards about making a decision to follow God's leading, concerning the trip, when we got home and the sacrifices we may have to make.

Friday, June 27/Saturday, June 28
We woke up at 6:30 and started loading the vans. We had building clean up and they gave us a grab'n'go breakfast to eat in the van. The staff prayed for us and then we hit the road. For a fun activity on the way home we stopped in Sioux Falls, SD at a place called Thunder Road Family Park. We got 3 tickets for $10 to do 3 activities. They had go-carts, mini golf, a rock wall, and some other things. Our group only did go-carts and mini golf. We also did human foosball but that was free. That was so much fun! That night we stopped at a Free Methodist church in Iowa to sleep. Iowa had major flooding about 2 weeks ago so their basement smelled really musty and damp. We felt bad because Aaron told the pastor we would probably get there around 9 or 10 that night and we didn't get there until 12:30. The next morning we packed up and left by 10:00 after we stopped for a big breakfast. We finally made it back home safely around 9:00 Saturday night. Praise the Lord we had no problems driving!