This is a modified version of a note I put up on Facebook today highlighting last week’s project in Walthill, NE with Mission to the World.

THE TEAMS:
6 from Omaha, 5 from Lincoln, 3 from Grand Island… plus a couple more from Lincoln that came up for a day or two… plus MTW staff from Missouri and Georgia.

Recap:
Huge blessing working with the teams we had this year, all from Nebraska PCA churches. Everyone worked well together and came together as one big team. This is the first year we’ve really had that happen to the degree that it did this year. Having unity among the team members allowed us to really focus on the service projects and VBS due to not having to be concerned about also working things out among ourselves.

THE SERVICE PROJECTS:
The main project this year was renovating the third floor of the Picotte Center in Walthill. The Picotte Center, built in 1912, was formerly the hospital started and operated by Susan LaFlesche Picotte, the first female Native American doctor (in “modern” medicine). Two years ago we did quite a bit of work on the exterior of the building, as well as drywall repair in the basement. As seen in the photos, the third floor was really transformed by the end of the week. Other projects involved repairing a retaining wall adjacent to a basement (and actually under a deck that a team had painted last year!), and fixing a gutter that hadn’t been properly repaired by another group in the past.

Recap:
On Monday morning we started chipping away at the loose, old paint on the walls of the third floor rooms. We had a huge task ahead due to the paint being in terrible condition and everything covered in decades-old dust, but the teams got to work and by the end of even the first day had made significant progress on scraping away the loose paint and preparing for wall repair and then primer.
Tuesday’s project left the walls looking a whole lot better. It was on this day that we saw the biggest transformation, as the cracks had been patched and with a coat of primer the walls actually looked pretty much white!
On Wednesday we began the finish coat of painting, as well as repairing and texturing the ceilings. Huge improvements! Some also worked outdoors on painting a wooden lattice outside the basement. Early in the week a few also worked on some landscaping — weeding and planting flowers.
Thursday consisted primarily of floor cleaning, scraping up paint that had dripped as well as old paint that was stuck on the floor from paint jobs many years ago. The dust was still so thick that when we got the floors damp to scrub and clean, the dust turned into a slimy mud that was almost like an outdoor project! On Thursday, as the work at the Picotte Center started to wind down, some team members left to work on the retaining wall as well as a gutter repair job that we’d been notified about by one of the people working at the Picotte Center, now used to house an organization that works with youth.
The work was finished in good time on Friday morning. It was amazing to contrast the finished project Friday with the photos we’d taken during orientation Sunday afternoon! It had been pretty hard work, especially with all the cleaning involved, but seeing the completed job was rewarding.

VBS IN THE PARK:
Monday through Friday in the afternoons from 2:30 to 4:00 we conducted a Vacation Bible School in the city park and American Legion building. We had 14 kids both of the first two days, and then around 8-9 kids the next three days, ranging from about age 3 to 13. Monday through Thursday some of us also played basketball with local kids on a nearby basketball court. I’m pretty sure us out-of-shape and mostly-out-of-practice white guys actually won more often than we lost — which is saying something as the local kids were really good and competitive!

Recap:
The team from Lincoln organized VBS this year, providing the curriculum and music. The songs chosen were primarily VBS/children’s songs from a couple decades ago, but with a little practice we had the songs brought back to recollection. They included “I Just Wanna Be A Sheep”, “Who’s the King of the Jungle”, “Praise Ye The Lord”, a newer song – “Every Move I Make” (a very popular hit with our church youth here in Omaha), and a couple more that I can’t remember right now while typing this up! Each day was organized into a theme for the day — the “Main Idea, WHOAA!” — and a memory verse. Snacks and crafts were also chosen to integrate with the topic. The time with the kids would conclude each day with an active game. Having played basketball Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I didn’t see a lot of the VBS events this year, but from what I have heard — and what I saw Tuesday and Friday — it went well.

THE KIDS:
This year was a mixed bag working with the kids. We still haven’t seen the same numbers the last two years as the first year, when a couple times around thirty kids came. That first year we really got to know a lot of the local kids, learning their names and a little about them, and seeing some of them make professions of faith. Still, it’s been good to see a few of them back the next couple of years, and for the most part we had a good group of kids — definitely on the rowdy side, but still a good group — this year.

This year as we started to find out more about the stories of some of the kids — and how in many cases the parents simply aren’t around, or aren’t sober, to be there for their kids and the kids end up growing up having to fend for themselves and learn life lessons without a strong family influence — we’ve decided we really want to be able to help in whatever limited way possible. Sometimes that’s just taking some time to go and be there — even for part of a day — to let them know there’s still people who care. I remember in the first year there was a little girl, maybe six or seven years old, who said she couldn’t think of the idea of God as a father because if God were her father then he would probably beat her. This is the kind of stuff some of these kids grow up knowing nothing different from!

Some information has been cut from this public version due to its sensitive nature.

DAY TO DAY STUFF:
Each morning started for the group somewhere between 6 and 7 AM, when the breakfast crew would rise first to begin preparing the meal, followed by the early risers and the coffee-seeking crowd. Breakfast would conclude by 7:30 AM and teams would then prepare to leave for the work site by 8:00.

As with previous years we had lunch and dinner at the Senior Center about a block away — generous portions of good rural Nebraska-style cooking! Each evening after VBS was finished we had “gang showers” up at the school — no one’s favorite thing but a necessity nonetheless. Some of the evenings we also had special speakers: on Monday, a college professor from Blair, NE (native Omaha) spoke on overcoming misconceptions about the native people. On Wednesday, we had a Christian speaker talking about how she was adopted as a little girl, raised in white culture, and her return to the Omaha and Winnebago people. On Thursday, a tribal police officer spoke about his history as well as elements of the native religion. And on Friday, we watched a documentary about the legal challenges to the problems in Whiteclay, NE just south of the Lakota reservation — especially the severe toll that substance addictions are taking on the Lakota reservation. Though not dealing specifically with the Omaha reservation, we could clearly see some parallels and how the similar problem also is devastating the Omaha culture.

Later in the evenings we also met for large group worship — a debriefing, singing time, prayer time, and message — followed by small group time, where each church group would meet to talk more specifically about the day, individual highlights and needs, and our small group focus devotional.

What down time was available between projects or evening activities was usually spent either looking for wireless Internet signals, processing photos, playing cards, debating theology, or reading. I also had some client work projects that I had to get done to stay on schedule on a few of the earlier days of the trip. There wasn’t a lot of free time available but it seemed like there was enough so that most people were able to not get overly stressed or tired.

Toward the end of the week plumbing problems resurfaced in the church… similar problem as happened the past year… resulting in all restroom activity having to be in the Senior Center a block away. Fortunately that was just for the last evening and morning… and also fortunately there are no photos of the backup in the church basement! As if anyone really wanted to hear about, see, or remember that! So moving on…

INTERACTION AND CONCERNS:
In addition to the already-stated concerns about the needs of the local kids, we also saw the effects of depression and addiction on the community. Broken families almost seemed to be the norm rather than the exception. Kids roam the streets late into the night because parents aren’t home. We’d only been in Walthill for a couple hours on Saturday when the first intoxicated man came over to the church seeking counsel and/or help. On Thursday a friend (or relative?) of his also came over, having been referred by the first man. There was also a guy that I talked to for a minute or two outside the church about our work in town in answer to his more direct request to get inside. The saddest thing, though, was to see a man who two years ago had come to the door late on the Tuesday night and who we’d worked with quite a bit that week… and then who last year had been doing great and worked along side us on projects… struggling again, family life on the ropes, spending most of the waking hours of the day intoxicated and again knocking on the church door late at night, coming in sick and intoxicated, and seeming to be stuck in a never-ending cycle of promising to do better and then getting drunk again and not being able to be around his family.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
On Monday night, our guest speaker (the college professor who teaches in Blair) reminded us that while the societal ills are so visible on the reservation, we shouldn’t think that just because we don’t seem to have them around us they don’t exist. We need to remember to not think we have it all together where we live and that the problems are just “out there” somewhere, or that we can go to the reservation to see brokenness but we’re all healthy in our urban neighborhoods.

The thing is that on the reservation it just tends to be more visible. Nonetheless it’s all around us, and in many cases is directly affecting us. But we tend to do a really good job of masking it. For example, how do we usually respond when someone asks the simple — but actually very deep — question of “how are you?” Usually it’s something like “good, and you?” — basically no different than a casual “hello”. But are we really being truthful at those times? Are we really doing “good” when we come to group settings with nice, happy, smiling faces as if we didn’t have a care in the world… but when we leave the group setting we’re back to family strife, broken relationships, deceit, uncertainty, tension, and a whole bunch of other things we’d love to run from because we can’t fix? The fact is we’re really a broken people too. Reminders of the curse of the fall surround us. (Incidentally, the very presence of the snake and a typical human reaction to it is but one example that should always serve as a reminder!) But what is the cure to the curse? The solution isn’t in looking better by fixing the facade. The fix isn’t in curbing bad behavior and just choosing good behavior. The solution is only found in Christ’s completed work. Not in our works helped along by His, but in His completed work. Only Christ has the power to reverse the curse. Only when he makes all things new will the curse be reversed. And only in his power and by his grace can our brokenness be healed. We sure don’t have the solution. This is what our communities need, both here and elsewhere — not lots of good works and striving to fix something far beyond our control — but instead total transformation; the spreading of the Kingdom not only throughout all aspects of our lives but throughout our communities, our regions, even to the whole world!