Loading...St. Francis in the Fields Church, Harrods Creek, is hosting a festive Cinco de Mayo celebration tomorrow (Wednesday) as the second of three annual events being held this spring to support missions to the Dominican Republic and David, Ky., in Appalachia.
The celebration will be held from 6 to 7:30 p.m. (ET) at the parish, located at 6710 Wolf Pen Branch Road at the northwest corner of Wolf Pen Branch and U.S. 42. There will be crafts and a piñata for the kids as well as music and food for the whole family.
The first fundraising and fellowship event, St. Francis’ fifth annual pancake supper, was attended by about 100. Traditionally held on Shrove Tuesday, this year’s pancake supper had to be rescheduled because of inclement weather and was held on April 25. More than $800 was raised to support this year’s missions.
St. Francis is observing the 17th year of missions, the first being a trip to North Carolina in 1993 to glean the fields, picking what was left by the farmers in order to feed those in need. Since then, missions have included building houses in Mexico and renovating houses on the Dakota Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Two missions in particular have helped create long-lasting bonds and relationships with the people in two communities that couldn’t be farther apart: one in David, Ky., and the other in the Dominican Republic.
In 1998, youth minister Raleigh Langley began what has now become an annual mission to the former coal-mining community of David in rural Appalachia. The mission takes place at The David School, a private, nonprofit educational system for children who would otherwise be expelled from the local school system. The mission team has worked to do landscaping and construction jobs, as well as to hold a daily Vacation Bible School for the children of the community.
In addition to the summer mission, the St. Francis youth take Christmas to the children of David. Youth and adults travel to the school, where they stay overnight in a barracks, and prepare to host a Christmas party on Saturday morning. The festivities are complete with singing, making crafts, storytelling, playacting and a Bible lesson. In advance of the mission, gloves and hats, among other things as simple as toothbrushes, are collected and taken to be handed out as gifts. And yes, even Santa Claus makes an appearance to find out what the kids want every year.
As one adult said, “It is sad to think that each year these children ask for things knowing they aren’t going to receive them. If we can bring just a little bit of Christmas to them, reaching out to let them know we love them, then we’ve accomplished our goal.”
The church also sends mission workers to do similar work in the Dominican Republic. The mission began in 1999 as St. Francis youth and adults traveled together to join other Dominican youth and adults in order to build a church in San Rafael. Every year since then, St. Francis youth and adults have continued to travel to the community of San Rafael, helping with the upkeep of the first church they built there. In addition, they have traveled to other parts of the Dominican Republic, working alongside the Dominican youth and adults to complete construction projects and hold Vacation Bible School, complete with crafts, storytelling and singing.
The bond formed between the Americans and the Dominicans was realized when the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina struck the United States. The Dominicans wanted to find a way to give back to the Americans in the same way they had received hospitality. In 2006, 30 youth and adults participated in a joint mission, their first ever in the United States, in Pass Christian, Mississippi. There they helped restore houses and feed those who were left homeless from the hurricane.
Mission continues to grow as plans are now being considered to take a group of adults, and perhaps parents with youth, to the Congo in Africa, where former St. Francis children’s minister Carma Nelson is currently on mission with her husband, Wyman. Mission at St. Francis has grown to become what families do on their summer vacation, and several families have chosen purposefully to “give up” their vacation in order to participate on mission.
The third fundraiser, the eighth annual “Mission-Driven” Car Show, on Saturday, May 29, with a rain date of Monday, May 31. Watch for details about the event to be posted online. Contact the parish office at 228-1176 or visit the church’s website at www.stfrancisinthefields.org for more information.
