They made a pilgrimage out of a trip

 

By Rachel Pritchett, synod communicator

TACOMA — This year's synod global-mission event took participants from Tanzania to Uruguay, and back home to the Mississippi River and the Appalachian Mountains.

Along the way at the all-day event Nov. 10 at St. Mark's by The Narrows, they learned how to turn a trip into a pilgrimage.

The Rev. Dave Ellingson of Trinity Lutheran College of Everett recounted how he paddled 2,350 miles down the Mississippi this summer in his kayak to the ELCA Extravaganza for youth in New Orleans, La.

He concluded on his blog (paddlepilgrim.blogspot.com) that a pilgrimage never ends. "Like a river, there is always something or someone around the next bend. And even as the river flows into the sea, or in my case the Gulf of Mexico, there is now an ocean of paddling ahead."

Also speaking was Lori Sather, who served as an ELCA global Mission volunteer in Tanzania, where she served as a computer specialist at a medical center in Arusha.

For youth from Mountain View Lutheran Church who performed service in Appalachia this summer, a trip became a pilgrimage from the relationships they made.

ELCA Young Adults in Global Mission Erin Lee and Katy Keyes told how their lives were changed by a year spent in Uruguay. And the Rev. Jan Ruud of St. Mark's gave spiritual hints about getting much more from the trip.

Some 25 people attended the event organized by the synod's Global Missions committee, down from previous years due to the long Veterans Day weekend.

Pictured: Ellingson, top, addresses the global-mission gathering Saturday in Tacoma. Ellingson with the kayak he took going down the Mississippi River. "The hardest part was getting in and out," he said Saturday.