Local youth group spends a week sharing faith, serving people in need

At top, Kitrina Schuette paints and scrapes a house. Above, Peter Neidhart plays checkers with a child duirng "Kid’s Club."

By Joyce Temaat

Special to the Register

Members of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe youth group traveled to the small town of Coahoma on the delta of the Mississippi River June 23-30 to serve those less fortunate and to share our faith with them.

This year marked the sixth year that the group took a mission trip. The first trip, six years ago, was to the same site. This was a return trip for three of the leaders: Dave Geist, Sue Gier, and Joyce Temaat. Many of the youth had siblings who had been on the same trip six years before. We were all excited to do the work of the Lord. After a year of working to raise the money, it was finally time to go. This was the second, third and fourth trip for many, and of course there were those "newbies" as we lovingly called them.

During the time spent in Coahoma, we were kept very busy. The day always began with prayer time, alone and with the group. Crews spent time scraping and painting houses. They also helped pick up trash and scrape a gym floor, preparing it to be repainted. Others spent time working with the young children in Kid’s Club. The theme for the week there was "King David." Time was spent playing games and making friends with the children of the town. Still others volunteered at a local community center reading with young and old. Even others visited a local nursing home to visit and play games with the elderly of the community. One group of youth spent the week working with the teenagers of the town, teaching them football, as well as discussing difficulties in life.

Evenings were spent in a variety of activities ranging from an exercise to open our eyes to the reality of poverty, to enjoying a local blues musician, to attending a local church service, to enjoying a community pot luck supper. We also spent time each evening celebrating God and growing in our faith. The theme for the week was "imagine." We were challenged to imagine all the good that we can do through God’s guidance. The young 19-year-old leader of this time, Becca, was a true inspiration to all of us.

As a returning missionary to Coahoma and other mission sites, I sometimes tend to wonder if we really make a difference in the lives of the people that we meet and help. On this trip we were able to visit with the Mayor of Coahoma, who assured us that he had seen a difference in the community, and that the presence of our youth did matter to this community.

Another amazing thing about the trip is the group of young people that are at the site all summer long. An organization called "Youthworks" enlists young people from all over the country to run these mission sites. They are truly called by God to their ministry. They plan everything from meals to places to work to planning our nights of worship. They have accomplished things in their lives that I, as an "old person," am amazed at. This gives our youth a chance to see what they can do with the guidance of the Lord.

Some of you may wonder why we need to travel so far to do our mission work when we have our own needy right here at home. I think the answer to that is simple. We need to be removed from our everyday lives to really get the whole effect. We leave our activities, electronics, etc. at home to concentrate only on the task at hand, helping others. With this immersion, it is our hope that we can come home and continue with our service to those in our area. It is also good to work with the youth that are at the site from other places. We make new friends and get new ideas from them as to what we can do at home to help others. Our youth are already planning and trying to come up with some projects that they can do here at home now.

This was my fourth trip and I encourage others to try a mission of some sort. I always come home excited about what our youth are able to accomplish. Our youth are hard workers and always willing to go the extra mile. This trip was a real test of them. We endured 90 degree days with extremely high humidity.