Leech Lake - Day 3

 Our trip is half done! It was a hard day of work, especially with the smog outside from wildfires (we woke up and everything smelled like a campfire), but our students did a great job today! But, let's hear it from them. Thank you everyone for your prayers and support!

Today was our second service day. My group worked in the garden at the church we are staying at. The end goal for them is to turn the backyard into a big, beautiful prairie. So, our job was mainly to pull everything out of the ground and flatten it all in order to help them prepare for this. Kaycee, Pastor Renee, Troy, and I cleared out the whole flag pole area. At the end, we actually got a lot done, and it was really cool to see an “after” product. Our evening activity was a scavenger hunt around Bemidji. It was really cool to see all of the statues and art around the downtown area. It was fun running around and racing the other groups we saw running across the streets. Then, we had the gathering and church group time. During the gathering, we talked about compassion and how we can take it into action. Finally, during small groups, Miss Lisa, Noah, Robert and I did a little self-reflection activity that really opened my eyes up. This second day of the trip was very enjoyable and I can’t wait until tomorrow. -Morgan

Today I worked in the garden pulling weeds and putting down tarp, plus we also had ice cream because it is Tuesday and Liz always has Ice cream on Tuesday. -Brandon

Today marked the halfway mark in this year’s mission trip. We served at a local food shelf where we did similar tasks to that of our own food pantry at Fishers UMC. We talked to some of the staff, but specifically a woman named Iris. Iris was an elder of the tribe and told us copious stories of the egregious events that happened to her grandmother. At the time the government was pushing Natives into boarding schools and Iris’s grandmother was picked out of a hat and was sent to one. In these boarding schools they tried to eradicate all forms of Native culture and heritage within an Indigenous person. When they were brought back into their reservations, they felt out-casted and banished. Learning about the not so idyllic US history has been my favorite part of this mission trip. It seems like whenever the US is talked about in school they are always talked about with a positive connotation yet in actuality it is very far from it. Hopefully our group can continue to make meaningful connections within the community.  I hope to broaden my perspectives and continually become more educated about the history of Cass Lake, MN. -Ryan