Oct. 29, 2008

Students to share experiences from serving on mission teams

Morningside College students who have served on past Volunteers in Mission (VIM) teams will share their experiences when the college hosts “Missionary Soul” on Wednesday, Nov. 5, at 11:45 a.m. in the UPS Auditorium of the Lincoln Center, 3627 Peters Avenue.

The public is invited to the free event, which is sponsored by Morningside’s Academic and Cultural Arts Series (ACAS).

Morningside VIM teams have made four trips to the Gulf Coast communities of Lake Charles, La.; New Orleans, La.; Beaumont, Texas; and Picayune, Miss., to assist survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. Morningside VIM teams have also made two trips to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to assist with recovery from the massive flooding that occurred this past summer. Their most recent trip to Cedar Rapids took place earlier this month.

The Morningside mission trips have been organized and led by The Rev. Kathy Olson, chaplain and director of church relations at Morningside.

The title of the presentation comes from the name of a song that Diana Garcia, a 2008 Morningside graduate of Le Mars, Iowa, translated from Spanish to English for the mission team that went to New Orleans last spring.

“The lyrics are a person’s prayer to be guided to people who need to know God’s love and hope,” Olson said. “The lyrics touched a chord that accurately described how the team felt at the end of their mission trip.”

Olson said the students will show pictures and tell stories about their experiences with the people from the communities they assisted.

“They will discuss some of the work they did, but the majority of their presentation will be about the relationships that were built because those are what have made the greatest impact on the students,” Olson said.

Their work during the mission trips has included digging mud out of homes, removing moldy drywall, carpeting, and insulation, and installing new roofs and drywall.

The Morningside mission trips were organized through the Volunteers in Mission program of the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR). UMCOR is a nonprofit agency of the United Methodist Church that reaches worldwide to provide relief in the five core areas of hunger, health, refugees, emergencies, and relief supplies.