Mission life in the Turtle Mountains

The Society of Our Lady of the Trinity (S.O.L.T.) Missionary Volunteer program attracts a large number of individuals each year throughout the United States, Mexico, and Central America. The northern most location is St. Ann’s Mission on the Turtle Mountain Reservation in Belcourt. Volunteers with a deep desire to serve come during a gap year to try community life before joining a religious order, or they come with a need to re-center their lives on God in a concrete way. What they come away with is nearly always more than what they hoped to find.
           
Most volunteers work in the St. Ann’s Catholic school as teachers, classroom aides, bus drivers, and lunchroom monitors. Several help in the development office, the kitchen, the second-hand store and food pantry, or by visiting the elderly. Throughout the year, they participate in the rich prayer life of the parish at daily mass by praying the rosary or learning how to chant the divine office with the priests. Alongside the other missionaries, they join in communal holy hours and times of personal sharing, or attend prayer services and retreats in the Queen of Peace chapel with parishioners. Two of the current missionary volunteers, Mary Grace Sevigny and Christian Goedel, can trace their heritage to the Ojibwe and Tulalip tribes (respectively), and have spoken of the special way in which their time here strengthened their connection to their own family and identity.
           
Christian’s journey with his family identity began early on. “I grew up knowing that I was Native, but because my dad died when I was young, I didn’t have as much connection to that part of my heritage as I would have liked.”

His mother and paternal grandmother tried to enroll him and his younger sister in their tribe, but ran into complications. After Christian’s grandmother died, he tried again, feeling a desire to honor her memory, and discovered he was too old to enroll.

“Even though we’re not from the same tribe, it makes me feel privileged to serve another tribe that I would never have known about otherwise,” he said. “It’s cool to connect to it and feel more connected to my Indian roots.”
He also reflected on his own mixed heritage in relation to those with Metis identity. “I think this is a very unique place, because the people here have mixed heritage as well. It is beautiful to see how they embrace the mixed heritage of their French and Native background.”
           
Christian is serving at St. Ann’s school as the 5th and 6th grade homeroom teacher, and mentioned that one of the greatest blessings for him are students in his class.

“They’ve taught me so much about how to meet people where they’re at, how to be more of a kid myself, and how to not take everything so seriously. I look back on 5th and 6th grade and the one-on-one attention I got in my parochial school. I want them to have that.”
For Christian, the greatest challenge has been letting go of perfectionism. In that process, he has learned to accept himself and others where they are.
           
What most touched Christian during his year-and-a-half of service was the continual outpouring of love and concern he witnessed.
“I saw how much they love the people in their own community—how they serve and love those who come to serve. I saw some of the core pillars of the Church. As someone who has moved around a lot, I know how tough perpetual goodbyes are. In spite of that, they continue to perpetually give of themselves and welcome each new group of volunteers.”
           
Both Christian and Mary count their blessings, but they also acknowledge that letting go is a part of mission life. For Mary Grace, giving up control was particularly hard. “Before I came here I was living on my own, I had a job, and my own schedule. Here you have to go with the flow,” she said. “Learning how to live in a community has been an adjustment. Living and working with all of the same people can be really challenging. I think that community within the Catholic faith is such a big thing and that we don’t give enough credit to how much it can impact our faith and help us. This year has been a really good reminder of that.”
           
Reflecting on the reality that you come to serve but receive a lot in the process, Mary Grace said, “A little-talked about element of mission life is that the community often impacts the missionaries more than the missionaries impact the mission.”

She loves the relationships that have developed during this year and recalls a special moment with an elder shortly after her arrival. “Leonard Keplin said to me, ‘You’re my daughter now, if you ever need anything, you let me know.’ It made me feel a part of the family, part of the community, to be so welcomed and to know that they are so invested in our well-being and growth as human beings.”
 
Another gift for Mary Grace was a deeper understanding of her family. “My mom was adopted and discovered that her birth family was part of the Bad River Band of Chippewa located by Lake Superior in Wisconsin.”
Mary Grace was in middle school when she first visited the reservation and became an enrolled member of her tribe. “It was really interesting to meet my mom’s birth family. I saw the family resemblance, but they were also complete strangers.”

While her mom took time to explore her heritage, Mary Grace wasn’t that interested. “I would say that coming here (Belcourt) and getting to know the tribe and the people here was the first time that I ever really connected with and identified with that side of my culture.”
           
Being in Belcourt also deepened her connection to her dad’s north-eastern North Dakotan French heritage. “The sense of humor, the way things are grounded in the faith, reminded me of my family,” she laughed. “The humor is identical to my uncles’!”

Hearing local speakers talk about the Metis infusion of Native and French with a trip to the Heritage Museum in Bismarck, which contains work by Dan Jerome (a Turtle Mountain historian), brought the rest of her culture to life.  “This [Ojibwe culture] is part of my heritage too,” she exclaimed. “Being around the people here and seeing how they bring those traditions into their everyday life, made me understand how to connect the two in spite of the fact that I don’t live on the reservation.”
           
Christian and Mary Grace strengthened personal ties to their Native American identity, but everyone who comes to serve can name countless ways in which the community, the work, and the love they received makes serving on mission a life-altering experience.