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Kansas teens on mission trip get close-up view of people in need
Nine high school seniors and recent graduates, along with four chaperones, became the hands and feet of Jesus when they served homeless people and others in need during a mission trip to Denver June 18-24. This was the fourth mission trip sponsored by the Sisters of St. Joseph Dear Neighbor Ministries. According to Kit Lambertz, director of DNM’s StepStone program, such trips have become part of the agency’s ministry. Three who attended DNM's trip to Chicago last June returned for this year’s trip.
Participants were Julia Brugman, Debbie Dolechek, Tara Elpers, Hollyn Ernstmann, Emily Savage and Teresa Zienkewicz, all of Wichita; Mary Leftwich of Wellington; and Anne McAtee and Alex Smith of St. Paul, Kansas. Chaperones were Kit Lambertz; Sisters Joan Burger and Karen Salsbery of the Congregation of St. Joseph; and Susan Pfeifer, a professor at Butler County Community College who is active in youth ministry.
“It wasn’t intentional that all of the participants this year turned out to be girls,” Kit said. “But since there were no boys, we chose hot pink as the color for our group’s tee shirts.”
Kit said participants were young women who haven’t in their own lives experienced extreme poverty or homelessness. It was the first time some of them had been exposed to homelessness and extreme poverty.
The group stayed at Catherine of Siena House of Discernment in Denver. This is a ministry of the Dominican Sisters from Great Bend, Kansas, run by Sisters Teri Wall and Francine Schwarzenberger for women who are discerning a vocation to religious life. The sisters opened their doors to the youth group.
The group volunteered, together and in smaller groups, at a clothing and food bank, a thrift shop, a homeless day program, shelters and transitional housing for homeless people, transitional housing for single-parent families who have been homeless or the victims of domestic violence, a Head Start pre-school program, and community gardens at transitional housing shelters and programs.
Sister Karen said, “We were master organizers. At many of the places we volunteered, they don’t have time to keep up.”
The trip provided a chance for participants to meet and work with other girls and to live in community. They saw the faces of poverty and homelessness close-up when they served sandwiches to people living on the street. Each evening there was time for praying together and talking about the day’s events. They discussed what they learned about homelessness and its causes.
“And they got to have fun in the process,” Kit added. “It was a real privilege for me to get to go along. I probably had more fun than they did.
“It’s my hope that they will understand that we’re all stewards of the gifts we’re given and that we’re called to serve one another. It’s that ‘paying it forward’ thing,” she said.
“As teenagers, they’re so impressionable that it’s a good time to learn these things.”
Sister Karen’s favorite place to work was the Franciscan Friends of the Poor, which was large enough for the entire group to volunteer together. The ministry serves hot breakfasts two mornings a week and hot lunches every day. Homeless people can get a shower, clothing or toiletries there. Sister Karen said liked that it didn’t have an “us and them” feel. Everyone is treated as a friend and there is a sense of community. If someone drove up with a truckload of bread, everyone would get up to help unload.
Some people who work for the Franciscan Friends of the Poor are former clients. Others are neighbors who say they volunteer because they know they’re just one paycheck away from homelessness themselves.
“I never saw so many homeless people as I saw in Denver,” said Sister Karen. “They were on the side of the road, under a tree, along the highway, pushing shopping carts. Mission trips like these are important. They get us out of our ordinary day-to-day lives. They open our eyes to situations people are in; open our hearts to understand and be more compassionate.
“In mission trips like this, there’s a grace of God that can move you in a way that isn’t possible in your busy day-to-day life. It opened our young women’s eyes a lot,” said Sister Karen.
The group took one afternoon and evening off to do a little site-seeing, including a trip to the Mother Cabrini Shrine. The statue of Jesus there had recently been struck by lightning, breaking off both arms and one foot. When participant Tara Elpers saw the statue, she said it hit home with her. At the end of each day, the girls had been praying the prayer of St. Teresa of Avila: “Christ has no body now but yours. No hand, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which He looks with compassion on the world; Yours are the feet with which He walks about to do good …”