There is nothing greater than to have the opportunity to get to know people from another culture. The past week that I have spent with the Lakota people on the Cheyenne River reservation was an unbelievable experience. The people I met, places I visited, and the tasks I performed shaped me into a better individual and gave me a larger perspective over the entirety of God’s work. As I have come to find out, when you go out into the mission field you are affecting more than just the lives of those you are serving, your changing your own life for the better. In addition, I realized that at the end of the day it doesn’t matter who you are or where you live, we all have a chance to do something special and all we have to do is stand up and do it. …show more content…
I brought along an air mattress to sleep on so I could sleep wherever there was a spot open. The location of the building was also really nice because it was close to the basketball courts, the playground, and the artesian well. In addition, Clea made us feel right at home with her kids and dog. I am the kind of person who can live in any kind of situation, yet I was incredibly pleased with the living arrangements for the week. I could not have asked for a more homely setting surrounded by loving and caring people. This also taught me that mission trips are not about how you are meant to live, but how you can impact the lives of those you encounter. This accompanied many other lessons and ideas that changed my life for the …show more content…
The biggest lesson I learned was that a mission trip doesn’t necessarily have to be all about helping someone in need. A Native American man came in and spoke to our group about our future experiences. He explained that with all of the mistrust and abuse of the “white man’s” power to restrict numerous Native American’s land, the best thing that we can do is to simply make friends and connections with them. People before us have lied to and broken the trust of the Lakota people and it is our job to help repair the damage that was done. I completely believe that these people have been wronged for the past two centuries and few people have made any kind of attempt to repair the damage done. One of the most memorable experiences for me was our visit to the Wounded Knee cemetery. It put into perspective the catastrophe that was caused by the misuse of power and permanently scarred the image of the Native American people. The same concept of Hitler’s mass genocide comes into effect when you consider the large-scale murder of men, women, and children of the same race. It really makes you realize how important it is to have morally sound individuals in situations where powerful and influential decisions are made. However, the Crazy Horse monument has been a shining light for Native Americans and will eventually be one of the largest and iconic symbols of the Native American society. I am really excited
Mission San Juan Capistrano is a mission like no other. Mission San Juan Capistrano was founded in 1775 and in 1776. Serra’s Chapel was the first permanent building. It was made out of Adobe brick instead of wood. Local native Americans helped build the mission and hang the bells. The people worked for 8 days then stopped. They buried the mission. The people came back the next year to dig out and rebuild the mission. A neat fact about San Juan Capistrano is the brand of their livestock is the letters C,A and P twisted together. San Juan Capistrano is called the jewel of the missions. This unique mission is not an ordinary, everyday mission.
Mission Santa Barbara was founded on December 4, 1786 by Father Fermin de Lasuen. Mission Santa Barbara was the 10th mission founded. Mission Santa Barbara was built near Siujtu,a Chumash village. Water was channeled from adam constructed in Pedragoso Creek, high above the mission. A two-mile long stone aqueduct carried water to a storage reservoir and settling tank constructed in 1806, and attributed to Indian mason Miguel Blanco of Baja, California. A second aqueduct carried drinking water to the mission,its fountains and lavanderia washing facilities. The original buildings were adobe,unpretentious, and a clay common to dry areas. The original purpose of the mission was christianazation of the Chumash Indians. Mission Santa Barbara is one of two missions who still run under Franciscan order.
During the early 1500s- mid 1800s, missions were the original destination by which the Spanish taught both Spanish and Catholicism lifestyle to the Native Americans/Indians. There are 21 missions scattered all over California. Mission San Jose is the fourteenth mission created in Alta California. It is a Spanish mission located in Fremont, California and established in the late 1700s by Padre Fermin Francisco de Lasuen. The mission is the label of the Mission San Jose district of Fremont, which was a free town admitted into the city when it was assimilated in 1957. The purpose of creating this mission was to secure Spain’s claim to this land and teach the native people Christianity and the Spanish way of life. Today, Mission San Jose serves
Missions were created to bring the word of God to a new land. They thought the Indians deserved a chance to go to heaven.. The country of Spain helped the Catholic church and the Spanish priests. They wanted to strengthen the Spanish Empire over in the New World. The thought they could teach the Indians how to be like the Spanish. Spain thought the Indians could become Spanish citizens. This would give the king more power. The missions were set up between 1769 and 1823 in California. The Spanish also build forts called "presidios." Presidios were supposed to protect California from foreign troops like the Russians and the British. Spain already had missions in Mexico. They went to Alta California which is not a part of Mexico. They made a trail of missions called the El Camino Real. El Camino Real means "Royal Highway" in Spanish. They called it this to honor the king of Spain. Each mission had a Franciscan priest called a "padre." Padre means "father" in Spanish. The head of the priests was Padre Junipero Serra.
My experiences working in the poor neighborhood soup kitchen allowed me the opportunity to serve the less fortunate. The diners were composed of a variety of ethnic cultures. In serving them, it prompted a push for equality by allowing for interaction between two separate ethnic and social cultures. Serving them helped me understand their struggles with daily survival. Likewise, the assembling of Thanksgiving dinners and visiting the home-bound has succeeded in doing the same. Finally, for three summers I have attended week long mission trips aimed to repair the homes of those in need throughout the poorer areas of America. I've attended trips in Trenton, NJ, Hammond, IN, and Parma, OH. During my experiences, the resident that I served for the week had been from a different ethnic culture. Spending a week with a complete stranger from both a different race as well as a different socioeconomic class is a unique and humbling experience. I learned regardless of that fact, we are all human beings who share common values of kindness, compassion, etc. In all three of my years, our resident was as eager to serve us as we were likewise. Every day of
Since childhood, my parents, teachers and pastors, have often taught me to be considerate of underprivileged people in our society and thereby help to make a positive difference in their lives. Despite hearing these positive remarks on a consistent basis, I never experienced the impact of being in an advocacy helping role. Participating in an advocacy role started in 2004 when I was encouraged by my choir teacher in high school, to attend a mission trip to Guyana. Experiencing this mission trip to Guyana was life changing for me. I had an opportunity to visit and spend time with children at orphanages, as well as packaging and distributing food items to families in need. The experience and advocacy skills I gained from the Guyana missionary program motivated me to participate in a community outreach project for Aboriginals in Winnipeg, in November of that same year.
Mission of San Carlos Borromeo Del Rio Carmelo more commonly know as the Carmel Mission is apart of California’s remarkable chain of 21 missions. This exceptional landmark shows 244 years of historical significance through its architecture, museums, and exhibitions that hold many scared preserved artifacts.
I spent every spring and summer in middle school doing mission work and community service. I loved the opportunity that it gave me to build relationships and share my beliefs with people I didn’t know. Little did I know that this would pave the way for a life-changing experience that I would encounter one day. Each spring my church would host a missionary event called “The Ignite Project.” I felt an urge to join the group, recognizing that it was a calling to profess my faith in Jesus. These mission trips helped me to go out
A major life event that started me to pursue an education in nursing was my time in basic training. The most life changing event during my induction into the army at ft. Jackson before starting basic training was accepting Christ as my personal lord and savior. When I decided to go into the Army 4 years out of high school I was a student firefighter E.M.T. working towards my paramedic, incidents at the Dept. I worked at both before and after some traumatic emergency responses actually turned me away from practicing any sort of medicine and causing me to seek the military for a new career or to pay for me to go back to school for another career if the military wasn’t my thing. During Basic training as stated above I was already a licensed E.M.T.
I do not think that everyone fits in one hundred percent of the time. I think there are times that we all feel out of the loop, and there are times when we feel like we do not belong. Whether we like it or not, those moments can change us and shape us. I have had times like this in my life too. One of these instances that is still affecting me to this very day has become even more prevalent in the past few months. This experience I am having has changed the way I think, act, and feel about the world surrounding me.
It happened around the time families are home sitting around the table together, laughing together, making memories together in the warmth and comfort of their own home. This is something my family would be doing at home too, but on this evening we decided to go out to eat, so Sizzlers it was! As we sat there stuffing our faces I was thinking about how much food we consume, how much food we waste, just how much of everything we had. It was in that moment when I got the memory of a mission trip I went on a couple years ago...
Life can have many ups and downs. One positive thing that has happened to me is being able to go on Mission Trips with my local youth group. I have been on a total of four mission trips in my life. Each one I go on opens my eyes to God. It brings people together and allows everyone to go and help the communities out. The mission trips are filled with teenagers from all over Missouri, that go all over America to help out. All the mission trips are put together by the CCYM (Conference Council on Youth Ministries.)
Last winter, I went on a service trip to the Navajo Nation. I was with my church youth group, a collection of extremely conscientious and considerate people. But as the week progressed, we found ourselves becoming more and more agitated. Their culture was so different from ours, and we felt as if there was nothing we could do to truly help them. I remember sitting on a hill looking over a beautiful expansive landscape, sobbing because their way of life seemed inevitably doomed and there was nothing I could do to salvage it.
I put in my papers and shortly got my call to the South Carolina Columbia Mission. Over the course of my mission I have seen such a change in myself that pre-mission me wouldn't even recognize who I am. The change that has taken place has definitely come because of
For the purpose of this paper I will be describing a personal life experience and I will be applying concepts from the texts to best describe the event. I was born here in the United States (US) but, I was raised in the Dominican Republic (DR). I lived in the DR basically my entire life, I would only come to the US for vacation during summer. It was not until I turned 12 that I decided to move back to the US to continue my studies and learn the language. So I did, I moved with my uncle and his wife on the summer of 2009. At the time, they resided in the Mayfair area of Philadelphia, PA. My uncle and his wife arranged everything for school and as of August of that year I was officially enrolled in Abraham Lincoln High School. Everything was