Transformed by mission: Alaskan mission trip inspires ACC to form ongoing relationship

Last year when Deacon Joe Kresky reached out to Bishop Emeritus Donald Kettler for help planning a mission trip to the Diocese of Fairbanks, Alaska, where he served before being named bishop of St. Cloud, he was responding to a request for more mission opportunities in his Area Catholic Community. But he was also motivated by something more — a desire to establish a long-term relationship with a community in that diocese.

He had taken groups on mission trips before, but was looking for something more permanent for his ACC, One in Christ, which includes Sacred Heart in Sauk Rapids, St. Francis Xavier in Sartell, Annunciation in Mayhew Lake and St. Stephen in St. Stephen.

“For a number of years now, I’ve been involved in facilitating mission trips,” Deacon Kresky said. “I went to Haiti twice with groups, the Dominican Republic and throughout the United States. There was a hope to do another mission trip this year, and it just seemed to be coming up a lot through conversation, my own desire and others who felt a call to that.”

As Catholics, we are all called to be missionary disciples, proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ in the world by living and sharing our life of faith.

“To be baptized and to be sent wherever we are —just from leaving after Mass — we are missionary disciples,” Deacon Kresky said. “We’re missionary disciples to our families, to our friends, to those in need and throughout the whole world. It’s the call to be sent as the hands and feet and voice and heart of mercy and compassion, just like the mission statement of our diocese says.”

Bishop Kettler was supportive of the idea of working with the Fairbanks Diocese, which covers 409,849 square miles, about two thirds of the entire state, and was happy to help facilitate the planning of a trip.

“What we were looking for, was to find a relationship like what we had in the past with Maracay, Venezuela. [Because of the political situation there], nothing’s really been able to happen with that for several years,” he said. “So, I was excited. It seemed like God was calling us to do this.”

There was a lot of interest when he put the word out about the trip, which would be focusing on Tununak and Toksook Bay, which are on the Nelson Island on the far western edge of Alaska. Initially more than 50 people signed on, but some stepped back for health reasons and concerns about being in such a remote location. They ended up with a group of 32.

Bishop Kettler contacted the current bishop of the Diocese of Fairbanks, Steven Maekawa, who provided contact information for Franciscan Sister Kathy Radich, coordinator of rural ministries for the diocese and Jesuit Father Tom Provinsal, pastoral minister serving Tununak and Toksook Bay, as well as neighboring Nightmute.

“Through those initial conversations, we learned of their hope to have Catholic missionaries come in and form relationships and hopefully build something long-term,” Deacon Kresky said. “Not a relationship where we’re here to give them something they need, as much as mutual solidarity, spiritual sharing and learning about each other’s culture and developing that communion.”

They worked with Praying Pelican Missions, an organization that helps facilitate long-term sustainable relationships between parishes or churches, to plan the June 2024 trip.

Karen Handeland, a volunteer at Sacred Heart Parish, was one of the missionaries on the trip.

“For me, I think my passion comes from helping and serving others, but it also comes from curiosity to learn and to know more about others,” she said. “And now that I’ve been on mission trips, I’m still curious to know more about people and their cultures and to just be present with people and form relationships.”

Father Provinsal was clear that the main focus was relationship, faith sharing and the Eucharist, Deacon Kresky said, but the group also wanted to contribute if there were specific needs.

A small group helped install windows in one of the churches, for example.

Joe Schulte, a member of St. Francis Xavier Parish, who made the trip with his wife and three children and worked on the window project, said he reflected on what it was they were trying to “bring” to the Yupik people.

“I believe now that it was hope, specifically Christian hope, the kind that does not disappoint,” he said. “In this jubilee year of hope, it is all the more apparent that while the windows we replaced in their church served as a sign of our love for them and allowed us to do His works in this life, paramount to this is the understanding that all are made in His image and likeness. The Christian hope is the promise of being together in this life and the next.”

Because they were only there for a few days, they tried to engage as many people as they could, Deacon Kresky said.
“I wanted to continue to build that relationship and not only learn from their spirituality and their culture, but offer some of our gifts as well,” he said.

As a deacon, many people would seek him out for spiritual support and just to talk. The community is so small and isolated that it’s hard for people to get the support they need without family members or others hearing about it, he said.
“[A safe person to talk to] is obviously a huge need that they have,” he added.

Because of the vast area he covers, Father Provinsal can’t do as much preparation for sacraments as he would like, so Deacon Kresky said that was one thing the One in Christ ACC could help with.

“That’s what we were getting excited about,” he said. “How can we include them in our adult sessions even remotely?”
He said they are working to get better internet and arrange a place for people to gather so they can connect with the ACC here via Zoom for faith formation and other speaker events.

Deacon Kresky took a follow-up trip to the area in early February.

“We have touched the Yupik people with our compassion and desire to walk with them in Christ,” he told the group from the original trip, who he keeps in touch with through an app called GroupMe. “I believe they know we are ‘for real’ and want to continue building a relationship of hope. The authentic openness and desire for friendship touched my heart. From the 7th grade Yupik class [I visited] to the kindness of the elders — we are blessed.”

After his return, he and Handeland met over Zoom with Susie Carl, a Yupik teacher at the school there and an active Catholic.

“Creating opportunities like this for mutual faith sharing and supporting them with their Catholic faith, was one of the main reasons I went back during the winter,” he said. “It was wonderful that we were able to make this connection before I left and it has already produced some spiritual fruit.”

Deacon Kresky hopes to continue this mutually beneficial relationship, sharing the experience with the ACC and taking more groups to Tununak and Toksook Bay in the near future.

“Mission is an emergent experience that helps transform us to come back, and energize our own parish community with more sustainable values of what it means to be Catholic and Christian,” Deacon Kresky said. “The body of Christ has no borders and doesn’t care what color you are, what language you speak, what your background is, how much money you have … and that gives me hope, hope that doesn’t disappoint.”