A Mission Trip At Home

For the youth of St. Bernard Parish in Rockport, St. Martin Parish in Chrisney, and St. John Chrysostom Parish in New Boston, there was no need to travel a long distance to experience a mission trip. During the first week of June, 30 youth and 10 adults created a mission trip experience called the Catholic Mission Adventure for the local area. The mission work was all based out of St. Bernard’s, where the youth slept, prayed and worked together to bring about a better community.

After two years of summer mission trips, the youth felt the call to create a mission trip experience in the local community.

“On the other mission trips, we were always told to be the hands and feet of Christ, and to not limit our service to just that week,” said Julie Heltzel, a participant in the event. “Why travel seven hours away when we have people here who need the same help?”

With some help from the adults of the parish, there were five teams of youth who worked together over the course of the week in local communities. Youth did landscaping in New Boston, and painted, cleaned and arranged furniture in Dale’s Community Center. In Rockport, some of the youth worked at The Way, a place which offers programs for families affected by the effects of alcohol and drug substance abuse, while others helped build a wheelchair ramp at a home. A group in Jasper cleaned and painted at the Women’s Crisis Connection.

Heltzel worked with a team in Grandview to rebuild a porch for an elderly lady and her two great-grandchildren who are staying with her. The porch had been falling in, with very old wood and a large hole that had been covered with plywood to prevent anyone from falling through.

At first, the team had planned to just rebuild the porch, but quickly discovered that they would need to reframe it and repair the roof. By the end of the week, the house had a new deck and new metal roofing, as well as cleaned siding and a repainted porch and front side of the house.

“I drive past it every day,” Heltzel said. “The grandma and the girls are always sitting on the porch and playing. We were all told to honk and wave when we drive by.”

Heltzel said that she was happy to be able to help someone out in the local community because “we feel appreciated, and we get to see our services being used afterwards.”

Jackie Wilson, one of the adults who helped to plan the weekend, worked with a group of youth to build a wheelchair ramp for a man in Rockport. Originally, they planned to build a wheelchair ramp on the front of the house and to paint the garage.

“The kids were really empathetic,” Wilson remarked. “We also put a wheelchair ramp in the back, so now he has access to his backyard.” The youth also cleaned off the back porch and moved the carport. Although it was not part of the original plans, “they wanted to repaint the statue and windmill that he had in his yard. They trimmed his orchard and tended the grapevines.”

Since the back porch had been cleaned and a wheelchair ramp built in the back, the home owner could harvest the fruits from the trees. “They wanted to build a birdhouse,” Wilson added, “and they knew to hang it low so that he could get to it from his wheelchair without having to stand up.”

Wilson was impressed by how engaged and caring the youth became about their project over the week.

Although the youth did plenty of hard work every day, that was not the only thing that they experienced on the mission trip. “Every morning, we had Mass at 6:45, and then went to breakfast at the Knights of Columbus,” Heltzel said.

Bishop Charles C. Thompson surprised the youth, and came to visit for one of the mornings. The youth were very excited and were able to have question and answer time with both Bishop Thompson and their pastor, Father Chris Forler.

After a morning of work, each team stopped for sack lunches at the work sites. “They handed out sheets of paper with a prayer and discussion questions for us to do at lunch.” Heltzel explained that the questions were helpful in bringing both the work and the spiritual formation together.

At the end of an eight-hour workday, the youth cleaned up and returned to St. Bernard School, where they said a rosary before eating supper together. After supper, there was an evening of skits, teambuilding games and a different spiritual component.

From there, they had about an hour of free time before lights out, around 11 each night. Father Forler, pastor of St. Bernard and St. Martin parishes in Rockport and Chrisney, explained that having the event based out of the school helped the mission trip to maintain its retreat atmosphere. “They can’t go back home to a normal, comfortable life,” he remarked. “It’s not my time and God’s work bouncing back and forth. Those two things can’t be separated.”

“The people in the community really noticed too,” said Father Forler. On the last night, all of the residents and people who had been affected by the week’s mission trip were invited to a ceremony so everyone could see the benefits of each other's projects.

“The community was also invited to an hour of adoration,” Heltzel added, and explained that it was a good way to end the projects in prayer. To finish off the week, they went to St. Joseph’s Holy Family, known as “God’s Country,” to celebrate Mass and walk some trails before a canoe trip on the Blue River.

Although it’s not confirmed yet, “I think we’re going to stay home for the mission trip again next year,” Heltzel said. “We all really enjoyed it.”