Our Father Lutheran Church (OFLC) of Centennial, CO has made it a tradition to bring members of their congregation to serve through Ysleta Lutheran Mission Human Care (YLM) on the weekend of Thanksgiving for the past twenty-seven years. For many of the families that come, the Alternative Thanksgiving mission trip has become part of their family holiday traditions. Their willingness to give up the usual Thanksgiving celebrations, and everything that’s part of this holiday, is evident in their joyful preparation and serving of Thanksgiving meals for 1,000 people, both in El Paso and Juarez.

Many of those who have come year after year confess the Alternative Thanksgiving is the way they prefer to spend Thanksgiving, sharing how much more meaning they find in serving others during this holiday of gratitude.

This year, the blessing of having a larger than usual team presented new opportunities for what this team could achieve in three days. Rev. Micah Steiner, who works throughout the year to recruit families for the Alternative Thanksgiving Mission Trip, was overjoyed at the unexpected large team for this year. The diverse team of 28 -with 11 first-time attenders, and ranging in age from 8 to 79, were eager to find where they could serve best during their stay here.

To the leaders of the team, it seemed there would be a need for more projects -they couldn’t have all twenty-eight members of their team in the kitchen preparing the meals! It would have resulted in people getting in each other’s way, so Pastor Micah reached out to YLM to ask, “What else can we do while we are there?”

A list of select projects, and the cost, was sent to the OFLC team leaders, and through a donor of the church, all of them were funded. Several of the team members joined the team specifically to do these hard labor projects, which would help improve the 100-year-old campus.

Thanksgiving morning started early for the kitchen crew, and sometime before nine in the morning, the work crew were hard at work cutting down the large, mostly dead, tree in the middle of the campus. Old stone benches were removed, uneven concrete broken up, and dead bushes pulled out. The plans for this area where many Servant Event teams would gather around the tree to pray, have devotions, and share their God sightings, is to create a beautiful fellowship plaza for people to gather for outdoor devotions and activities.

On Friday, while 22 of the team’s members made the trip across the border to serve Thanksgiving meals in Anapra, six stayed behind and completed the process of grinding down stumps, roto-tilling the two courts in front of San Pablo Lutheran Church. They installed weed-guard, then added new crushed rock around the palm trees to replace the patchy grass and dirt, creating a new, fresh landscape to the front of the church.

On Saturday, while majority of the team headed across the border to serve at KM30 for the San Pedro y San Pablo mission church, those who stayed behind trimmed more of the campus trees, raked the grass areas, replaced old, weathered wood panels of YLM’s tool shop, repaired toilets, removed old and installed new side-load washer and dryer in the dorms, which they had brought down with them in a U-Haul.

Additional new tools were donated by the team, they repaired the soffits and eaves of Building #14, and purchased the paint needed to give it a new, fresh look. Unfortunately, time ran out for the team, with all of them leaving either late Saturday night or early Sunday morning. Though they didn’t get to paint the building, everything needed is purchased for another team looking to continue to help preserve and improve the YLM campus.

Thank you, Our Father Lutheran Church, for the continued partnership in bringing God’s love to people in multiple ways. Your service of providing meals and helping improve the YLM campus has truly impacted and encouraged many to love and serve God and people.

Call us at (915) 858-2588 or send an email to luz.soto@ylm.org for more information on Servant Event opportunities through YLM!