Cultural Exchange Travel

Part of LPGM’s mission is to raise the level of awareness of mission and inspire stewardship for mission amongst individuals. The most powerful tool that we have discovered to accomplish this is to travel with people to visit our global partners. LPGM leads one or two each trips each year, generally to India and Argentina, but other locations are possible.

Cultural Exchange Programs
INDIA

• August 2010 — Ten youth and five adults from Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, spent two weeks on a Service Learning Trip to India. You can read about their experiences on Pastor Chris Nelson’s blog and Mandy Licklider Baseman’s blog.
• January 2011 — LPGM group trip
  • It has been a couple years since LPGM hosted a group trip to India. We are now in the planning stages for January 2011 and you are invited! You can plan on being gone for approximately two weeks. The cost will be about $3,000, dependent upon airline costs and foreign currency exchange. Please send a message to office@lutheranpartners.org or call 612.823.5058 if you are interested.

ARGENTINA: Partner to Partner

• February 2011 — Mt. Pleasant Lutheran Church, Racine, Wisconsin, to Buenos Aires

Have you ever thought about visiting India, perhaps to meet the child or visit the library you sponsor? Is 2-3 weeks in January/February 2011 an option for you? This is a perfect time of year to visit south India, when it’s not too hot and still a pleasant diversion from a cold, winter clime. Let us know if you would like to be on the list of possible travelers. Call the office at 612.823.5058 or email us at office@lutheranpartners.org.

Please read the testimonials from past travelers and contact us if you are interested in having one of these life changing experiences for yourself.

Reflections from India Travelers

After many years of desiring to go to India to visit the children our Sunday School kids sponsor, my dream came true this past January. I traveled with a group of eight to visit the schools and libraries that LPGM supports. I met five of the eleven children we’ve sponsored over the years, including Subulakshmi, a young woman we helped for nearly ten years attend both boarding school and teacher training. She’s now 21 and working at Siloam. I also got to visit Park Town SchoolVacation Bible School kids sponsor a library. Throughout the trip, I kept asking, “Why India?” and “Why us?” I came back convinced that the partnership between LPGM and the Arcot Lutheran Church is vital. The ALC has the vision and people-resources to carry out the ministry, and we have the financial resources to support it. LPGM is doing important, life-changing work in India, and the scope is far broader than I imagined!

Shortly after I returned from India, I had an Aha! moment when I visited Simpson’s Men’s Shelter in Minneapolis with my teenage children as part of the 30-Hour Famine. When I toured the shelter and saw the mattresses on the concrete floor, I had a flashback to India and remembered the kids sleeping on the floors of the boarding homes. Then I saw the small cupboards the homeless men at Simpson have to store their belongings in and realized it was about the amount of space the kids in India have for their personal belongings. It hit me that the passion I feel for the work in India can also be directed right here in my own back yard. Gordon Olson [LPGM Executive Director] told our group that the most important part of the trip would be what we did with it when we returned home, and I think he was right. I have a story to tell about India and the important work being done there, and I have a renewed sense of mission for addressing poverty at home. Thanks to LPGM for a wonderful experience!  – Kris Tostengard-Michel, Director of Children’s Ministry at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, MN

Kris made some excellent videos from the footage she got in India. You can view them on our website.
A Day in the Life
Sponsorship Stories
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With the help of Lutheran Partner’s Project Education (India), the school children all look happy, healthy and well dressed. But then you visit their homes and see how little they have. Their two room mud huts have nothing in them, but a few pots for cooking and one light bulb, if any, and no running water. The children at school have one little suitcase or a 12″ x 12″ locker that holds everything they own including their bed. Can any of us understand this without seeing it first hand? We came wanting to get to know you and your culture and to walk in your ’sandals’ (barefoot prints). You taught us gracious hospitality, how to eat, sing, pray, and live simply or is it simply live. God is with us all. Let us live in friendship, harmony and peace. Emmanuel

Partner in Christ,
Sharon Klabunde
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Our trip to India with LPGM was a unique opportunity to observe the culture and interact with the people in ways that most tourists do not experience.

To become personally involved with our sponsored children, whom we knew before only by pictures and letters, has changed our lives forever. Now when we pray for them, we see their faces, hear their voices, and remember their families and village homes.

The joy, excitement, and contentment expressed in singing, dancing, and reaching hands, by the hundreds of children in the boarding homes and schools, as well as those we visited in the churches, hospital, and homes, are evidence of the impact the Christian Church has in India. The love of Jesus changes not only spiritual worship, but educational opportunities and way of life.

We received from the people far more than we gave, but it is exciting to know that we have a small part in influencing future leaders of the Indian society by sponsoring children in whom seeds of Christian truths are being planted. We pray for God’s continued blessing on His work in India.

Dale & Arleth Anderson