Our vision:
To help realize the parish’s desire to increase and strengthen mission opportunities and educational pilgrimages in order to allow our parishioners to grow in their faith,
to develop a better understanding of what it means to be a member of the body of Christ, and to deepen relationships within the community of our parish family.
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Mission - POSSIBLE!!!
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In the months ahead it will be possible for each and every parishioner to be a contributing part of a mission trip. Once again we will be going to Bolivia, Honduras, New Orleans, and Rosebud – very diverse locations with unique agendas to suit your individual interests. While the number of missionaries that will be traveling has increased, the opportunities to be an integral part of these trips without leaving home have also increased.
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Rosebud Lakota Indian Reservation
July 11 - 18, 2008
Although it is in a very remote location, travel to Todd County, South Dakota, home to the Rosebud Lakota Sioux Indian Reservation, requires no passport, visa or foreign currency. Geographic distance aside, life on the reservation is a world apart from our lives in Dallas. Todd County ranks as one of the top three most impoverished counties in the US. Between 60 - 65 % of its students will not finish high school. Unemployment is over 80% (for reference national unemployment rates never exceeded 24% during the Great Depression). Running water, paved roads, fresh produce and access to health-care are just a few examples of the things that people on the reservation typically do without. Despite all this, or perhaps because of it, the Lakota people you will meet enjoy a deep spiritual life. Perhaps this comes from their radical dependence on God. Traditional Lakota culture and language are experiencing resurgence on the reservation. Some are working to bring their native spirituality into our Episcopal faith.
Our mission purpose is to explore the reservation and Lakota culture, meet its people and with luck return to Dallas with a better understanding of how we in Dallas and the Lakota people at Rosebud might be able to help each other on a long term basis. Our work projects, to plant a community garden and conduct a Vacation Bible School for the children will be carried out with this larger purpose in mind. This is a trip where new friendships are made, rewarding labor is performed and doors are opened to a deeper more fulfilling spiritual life.
For further information, contact Hill Martin 214 890-7987 (home) or 972 860-3051 (office).
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