ENEMY SWIM, S.D. — The Choctaw Baptist Association in Ackerman, Miss., led its first combined mission trip last month when 21 adults and youth drove for two days to partner with an isolated church in remote South Dakota.
The team consisted of three churches — Macedonia Church, Pine Bluff Church and Stonewall Church — along with the financial contributions of many others, and was joined by Ray Duplessie, Choctaw Ministry Consultant with the Multicultural Ministries department of the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board.
Upon arrival at Bethany Church, standing alone amid a community of the Dakota people, the Choctaw team was surprised to find just how isolating the ministry could be.
In the middle of nowhere, the church — run by a single pastor working another job to support his family — sat in knee-high grass with many maintenance needs. Without much reinforcement or response in the community, the church had not held services in a long time. Seeing the challenging situation, the group discussed their concerns of whether children would show up for Vacation Bible School (VBS) the next day.
“We stood there a minute until Ray said, ‘Let’s clean the church up and have it ready for kids tomorrow,’” said Darnell Willis, member and youth leader of Macedonia Church. “So we started preparing the place. One thing that I was so impressed about was how my youth group jumped up and started cleaning. They didn’t need any push to get moving; they went right to work.”
While some continued to prepare the church’s rooms to teach the next day, Duplessie and others visited the neighborhoods to spread the word about VBS.
The circumstances looked bleak as they did not see a single child on the streets. Finally, the group came across a mother and son sitting outside who directed them to the community’s district office. The office staff kindly and quickly created and printed flyers and pointed the team to a nearby school where the principal offered to pass the flyers out to students before their departure that day.
After spending the night in First Baptist Church of Webster, S.D., the team returned to their preparation. With access to a mower, they were able to cut the grass around Bethany Church, and with help from the pastor of First Baptist Church in Sisseton, S.D., they installed a working sink and cooked meals for the children that day.
The issue remained, however, that the group still had not seen any children. Duplessie asked the youth group to walk around the neighborhood and invite any kids they could find.
“Our expectation was that we would be lucky to get five kids,” said Macedonia Church Pastor Tim Tubby. “But as we were waiting that day, we prayed, ‘Lord, it’s in Your hands.’ That night, we had 31 kids to show up. We praised the Lord because there was nothing we did to make it happen. Looking back on the week, it is interesting how God directed us to the people we needed to meet. We give all praise to Him because it wasn’t anything we did. It was all in His hands.”
“When the youth went out,” Duplessie said, “they found what I would call a person of peace. This one young girl they met knew the house of every kid in the neighborhood. So they followed her as she knocked on the doors and told them about the Vacation Bible School at the church.
“After everything was said and done, we had even more to come the next night — 36 kids. We were told our last night would probably see no one because there was an event at the school, but even then, we had 16 to show up until the event started. We ended early, but we were still able to share the gospel one more time.”
Duplessie highlighted their use of VBS material arranged by the Fellowship of Native American Christians, which equips teachers to contextually share the gospel to Native American children in a clear and precise way.
“With us being Choctaw, the Dakota people felt very comfortable with our group,” Duplessie said. “What really stood out to us about this specific community was its level of poverty, physically but most of all spiritually. As we collected emergency contact information, we learned that many of the adults do not have cellphones, let alone their children. Some of the kids did not even know you could have a wireless phone.”
When it came time for dinner each day, the children were unusually hungry and eager to eat. Their spiritual starvation was even more evident.
“Satan really has a stronghold there,” Duplessie said. “A majority of the kids are part of what they call traditional religion. I would say that for the Choctaws, we really have not seen that kind of religion in over 200 years or so. For most of our people, tradition is more of a cultural aspect than a real religion.
“In South Dakota, however, there is a strong pull for traditional religion as opposed to Christianity. The woman who directed us to the district office told us she was a Christian but that her son was more of a traditional person, and she said, ‘As long as he believes something, that’s OK.’ But we know that’s not how it works. So we could tell that Christianity is very surface-level there, and it is a very difficult place to grow in your faith.”
The few Bible stories the children knew were misconstrued or fragmentary. Most of them had heard of Jesus, but they had never heard the truth of His divinity nor of His death and resurrection. The team spent much of their time unpacking the gospel and giving the kids Christ-like love.
“When somebody asks how the trip went, I have to be honest and say it was very hard, but it was good, because we actually got a chance to sow seeds that were needed,” Duplessie said. “I feel for the pastor being alone in the middle of such a place. I want you to just imagine being in the center of miles of land that is hard to till, and you are the only one to do it. Nobody else is helping you. That is the kind of spiritual harvest field that he lives in.”
Willis shared her reservations about going on this mission trip. With her mother receiving an alarming doctor’s report and with many nightmares leading up to the trip, she worried what might happen at home while she was gone. But she trusted the Lord and is grateful to have been a part of the mission.
“Pray for the community and for the pastor up there,” said Willis, “that more believers will follow us to continue the ministry. On the last day of VBS, some of the children did not understand that we would be leaving that week and were excited to come back the next day. That really touched my heart, and I teared up because they wanted us to stay.”
