It's a small church with a big heart spanning continents.
Despite average attendance at about 50 people, the Northland Community Church in Elmwood Township undertakes mission trips that impact people around the world.
Thursday, five parishioners and three guests will join members from two other Church of the United Brethren in Christ denomination churches for a mission trip to Nicaragua. During the two-week journey to the second-poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, the 23 volunteers will build a parsonage for a church in Masaya, a town near the capital of Managua.
Transcending the expense, physically demanding work and rough living conditions, veterans of previous mission trips speak of the opportunities to grow in their faith. They return home changed from even a short time of living and sharing with others, working together in the spirit of Christ.
"You wonder if it's more therapy for me than for them, to see people living on so little and being so happy you wonder what we're missing,” said Joe Reid of Elmwood Township. "They treat us good; they're so glad to have us there, pull out all the stops.”
Seeing poverty on a scale unimaginable in the United States — adults and children on their own living in a dump and foraging through garbage for food, for example — is also a humbling experience.
"I always come home with the sense that America doesn't have poor people — when you come home from people living in cardboard boxes, worrying over a roof over their heads and enough to eat, you can really appreciate what you do have,” said Kate Stephan of Traverse City. "When you go to these places, people are not unhappy, they're not like, 'Poor me!' Very often you come home uplifted.”
Launched 25 years ago, the Northland Community Church is part of a denomination dedicated to missionary outreach. A past local minister, Carlson Becker, who served from 1993-2002 with a subsequent stint as interim pastor, helped spearhead Northland's overseas outreach. Other destinations for church trips have included Ecuador, Belize, China and Biloxi, Miss., after Hurricane Katrina.
"One of the first things I noticed when I came here two and a half years ago is that the church had a heart for missions,” said pastor John Cole. "It's unusual, especially for a church of this size, where we could be focused on just surviving.”
"The way God has gifted this church is with people who can build so that's where we're going,” he added.
Builder Jim Porter of Bingham Township regularly takes his talents overseas to serve as "a partner, not a foreman” on various projects. The Nicaragua trip, organized by a church in Clare who has worked with the Masaya church before, will feature hard work interspersed with fellowship and recreation among volunteers and residents.
"You just have to pace yourself, you have some long days,” said Porter.
Ultimately, connecting and sharing through faith towards a mutual objective are as important as the physical act of building a minister's home.
"The building is not the focus of what we're doing, the focus is being a partner with them,” said Stephan. "So if you go ahead and play ball for a while during the day with the children, that's OK.”
Northland Community Church invites the public to celebrate the completed mission trip at a missions movie night scheduled for 5 p.m. on Saturday, February 16, at their church on 9105 E. Fouch Road. The free event also features dinner; reservations are requested but not required. For more information, call the church at 946-9693.