Monday, September 15, 2014

Detroit Lakes Needs High School Missionaries?

I was reading my local weekly paper - news of new Eagle Scouts, church vendor fairs, etc. - when I came across an account of a nearby church sending a group of adult and teens to Detroit Lakes, MN, for a summer mission trip. The group "...painted 3 homes, 8 decks, 1 fence, 3 sheds, and several rooms. We worked in boys and girls clubs, shelters, and thrift stores. We also beautified several yards and gardens, built and repaired 4 decks, poured a sidewalk, framed a room, and made a lot of new friends, young and old."

Now I think it's great that all this work got done for grateful Detroit Lakers, but I have to ask myself how this location was selected. From years of hanging around this area in the summers when all my grandparents spent the time at their lake homes, I know that this is a prime tourist spot. I'm sure it was easier to sign people up to spend a week working in Detroit Lakes, than in, say, inner-city Chicago.

I'm also thinking maybe I haven't kept up with what's happening in this old town. My parents met and fell in love at a summer dance pavilion there. In those days, you got out of the stifling heat of towns like Fargo and headed for Detroit Lakes to kick up your heels and cool off. I don't remember hearing much about townspeople needing mission trips from city kids to get things cleaned up, but I've been gone for almost 50 years. Anybody been there lately?

2 comments:

  1. I haven't been there since I was what...three? But often church groups don't want to trek down to South America, New Orleans, or even blighted areas of Chicago or Detroit with their young'uns to lend a hand. Perhaps this was an effort to help address a more local need? Our area in NJ is relatively affluent, but you certainly don't have to go far to see some really struggling neighborhoods.

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  2. Susan, this is too funny for words, although the town of Detroit Lakes itself does have some poverty pockets. When I think of "The Lakes," though, I think of the rich or at least middle-class folks in the cottages at Lakes Sallie and Melissa and Pelican, et al. But on my summer weekends in Shoreham from age 10 or so, I also played with kids who did not live ON the lakeshore, and who lived in the woods year-round without indoor plumbing. Perhaps the church leaders were hoping, in addition to painting docks and fences, to have some fun at the lake paid for by contributions, not their own credit cards.

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What do you think?