PCUM Mission Trip To Indian Reservation In North Dakota

By Pastor Greg Horn

From Memorial Day weekend through the first days in June, a 10-member mission team from the Presbyterian Church of Upper Montclair (PCUM) traveled to the Spirit Lake (Dakota Sioux) Indian Reservation in North Dakota for a week of serving others, building new friendships, and learning about a rich and challenged culture.

The eight adults and two teenagers taught a Vacation Bible School program for local children, made repairs and improvements to a local Presbyterian church, and had the privilege of witnessing rare Native American rituals honoring the dead as well as those Dakota military veterans  who gave their lives in service to the United States.  The local congregation includes a sanctuary, a food bank serving the larger reservation community, and a historic cemetery.

The Montclair mission team also mowed lawns, painted walls, built a fire pit, cleared the cemetery for Memorial Day observances, and added much-needed shelving to the food bank. They shared the community's grief and took part in the centuries-old mourning rituals following the tragic death that week of a 15 year-old boy.

The people of the Spirit Lake reservation face shortened life expectancy, poverty, the lack of employment, and many disadvantages resulting from over a century of displacement, neglect and U.S. governmental antagonism and/or indifference.

The 500-plus-member Presbyterian Church of Upper Montclair is committed to providing its members, friends, and youth with opportunities to serve after the example of Jesus Christ and to experience the personal transformation that comes from reaching beyond ones' self to help others. In recent years, PCUM has sent four mission teams of adults and teenagers to New Orleans to take part in Hurricane Katrina recovery. The church recently began a twice-monthly, volunteer-driven soup kitchen ministry in Newark's Clinton Avenue neighborhood, and next summer will send a mission team of teenagers to Salvador, Brazil to work with a local congregation serving the children and women of a poverty-stricken neighborhood.

Editor's note:

The Presbyterian Church of Upper Montclair is located at 53 Norwood Avenue. This is a vibrant, extremely active church, full of families, young people, and those who've attended the church for decades. The church offers many ways for people to get involved. There are beach days and trips to Jackals games for the youth, as well as Wednesday evening "fun nights" for middle school students during the school year. There is a band and various choirs. And, finally, there are a variety of ways for members to reach out and serve their community and those in need.

For more information, contact PCUM at 973-746-3854 or by email at pcum@pcum.org. Or check out the church's caleandar of events at www.pcum.org.