FORT YATES, N.D. — This is wrap-up day for Virginia Baptist volunteers at Standing Rock. Tomorrow we leave.
Teams are saying their goodbyes to children, youth and adults at Cannon Ball, Fort Yates, Porcupine, McLaughlin, Bullhead, Little Eagle and Wakpala. One of life’s little seredipities is how the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, in five short days, can become Cameron, Issac, Donna and Ragan.
What are the measures of success for a week like this? How do we know when we’ve done good work?
It is easier, or the markers are more tangible, for some volunteers than for others. Take construction, for example. You’re handed a list of 10 projects. You complete nine of them. The trailer gets painted. Check. The ceiling fan is rewired. Check. The rotting boards are replaced and repainted. Check.
The work is visible.
As children we are taught to keep score. Tangible tasks have visible results. We add up the totals and feel good, or bad, about our work.
It’s the only way most churches know how to measure success. We conclude we are successful when we count noses, nickels and baptisms. I’m an alumnus of a Southern Baptist record-keeping system that had us checking off present, on time, Bible brought, lesson studied, offering brought, attending worship, Bible read daily and contacts made. Success quantified.
Keeping score is not all bad. It makes us accountable. It inculcates habits. It inflicts enough guilt to keep us striving.
Keeping score is hard to do, however, when the goal is building relationships, showing the love of Christ, caring for people instead of changing systems. And that’s what the Virginia Baptist-Standing Rock partnership is about.
I posed the “measuring success” question to Pastor Boots Marsh of Tipi Wakan while we were driving from Cannon Ball to McLaughlin yesterday.
He gave me two answers. The first was child-related, because Boots and his wife Jackie work primarily with children. He measures success with preschool children by whether women keep sending their children to Tipi Wakan — evidence that they see it as a safe haven. He measures success with older children by the degree to which their lives are more under control and disciplined.
The second measure is more nebulous, but maybe more accurate: “I show up, believe that God led us here and see what happens. I stand back and let God keep the work moving at his own pace.”
Maybe that’s all any of us can do — whether we live west or east of the Missouri River.
I’m a pastor. I encourage our congregation’s involvement in hand-on missions for three reasons.
First, there are needs to be met, and we have the means to do our part.
Second, when we work together we grow closer — to one another and to our Lord.
Third, it makes us more alert to opportunities around us. WMUV’s Maria Lynn summarized it nicely for me this week: “Sometimes you have to go far away see what’s up close.”
To the degree that any of these happened this week, it was a success.