Bringing joy to parentless girls and boys at Minnesota reservation

SPRINGFIELD — This summer, I traveled to Minnesota’s White Earth Indian Reservation with 21 other people from my church.

Our mission trip ran from July 27 to Aug. 3. Along with help from Hope For The First Nations leaders, Lynn and Lindy Wilson, we put on a vacation Bible school that we called Hope Day Camp. We sang songs, put on skits about “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” and played and ate with the children.

Although it was stressful at first for many of us first-time attendees, leaving turned out to be the hardest part.

Some children on the reservation have been left parentless because of drugs and alcohol.

“The only word that comes to mind is devastating,” said Greg Hapke, 25, one of my leaders from Cherry Hills Baptist Church.

Being on the reservation made me wonder how this state of living is allowed to occur in the United States.

“I was given the opportunity to step into one of the houses a few of the children lived in,” said 16-year-old Mackenzie Ent, a Glenwood High School junior. “While I was inside the house, the sights I saw were so devastating to the point that every time we drove past that house I had to cover my eyes so I wouldn’t start thinking about it.”

We stayed at Rainbow Resort in Waubun, Minn., for several days. We delivered fliers to neighborhoods near the Pine Point Community Center, the area’s previous school, where we held our day camp.

On Friday, our last day in Minnesota, we put on a community dinner for all the children and their families. It felt great to be thanked by the parents for working the camp, but it was better to thank them for sharing their children with us.

Overall, we worked with about 100 children, about 60-70 each day. All they had to do was come, and we immediately loved them.

I still see Facebook statuses from members of my trip wishing they could go back. When we were one hour from home on Aug. 3, one of our leaders, Chris Paoni, 28, asked if we would want to turn around to go back to the children. Everyone in my van said yes.

“(I) hope that even if the children don’t remember us, they remember Jesus,” said Megan Moran, 16, a home-schooled senior.

Our leaders were also incredible.

Lynn and Lindy Wilson, along with Robyn Gerrells, have all been to White Earth before. Robyn is a pre-kindergarten teacher in Fargo, N.D. The Wilsons have gone for 18 years and Gerrells has gone for nine years.