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Welcome Pastor Dusty and Tracy Sprague By Sandy Murphy, reporter wife of his desire and calling to Harrison Sun readily Pastoral Care in homes for the become a Pastor. She lending agreed happen. needed, a shoulder, ear The United Methodist it needed to Sprague Churches of Harrison, Crawford Dusty became a Pastor five years and communion. Pastor Whitney pleased ago, is available at any time should and are to and hasn’t looked back. In help solving enjoys golf, drag someone need a welcome their new Pastor and his his free time, he problem just wife, Dusty and Tracy Sprague. racing, and riding motorcycles or want someone to community talk to. The Sprague’s would like Also welcomed to the with his wife. Therapy Dog is their dog, Muncie. Muncie is a Tracy is finishing her degree to enter Muncie into happy, go lucky Shepard. classes. German as a Nurse Practitioner. She They actively The couple most recently were currently an R.N. She would like want to become Columbus, Family Nursing involved in their area towns. The in Nebraska. The to Practice in Sprague’s embracing living Church was the seventh largest with a specialty in Gerontology. are in United Methodist Church in Both expressed how happy Western Nebraska. Sprague grew they Welcome to Harrison Pastor the State. Pastor are to be in a small Dusty Tracy Sprague! up in Kearney. He also lived community setting. They reside and in Holdrege and Hastings. He in Harrison. Plans are to do has traveled the United States extensively; Alaska is the only State he has not been to (yet). Dusty and Tracy both agree they haven’t led a traditional Pastor’s life. But they also feel they have a good understanding of people that way. Church and the Lord were always a part of the Pastor’s life. However, he did not answer “the call” for Ministry for a number of years. He was a salesman on the road, selling large equipment engines. He met and married Tracy six years ago. He told his New Methodist Church Pastor Sprague and wife Tracy Minden United Methodist Church Sends Mission Group To Honduras dren, the schools only hold 8,000. Unemployment and illiteracy Continued from page 1 A is very high there. Right off the coast lies the world's second largest barrier reef, creating a tremendous tourism industry. While tourism has created some jobs, it has mostly benefitted business and land owners. Blanchard said that young people are often sucked into nefarious means of making ends meet such as drug trafficking and prostitution. "The churches are trying to be a line of hope there," Blanchard said. "There are mis- sion groups going week after photo Courtesy week. It provides opportunity SINGING Carlie Bauer of Minden (middle) sings a song an — for these kids to be loved." with help from a mission group that went to Honduras with the United Methodist Church of Minden. The mission team helped run a vacation bible school at Members of the United Methodist Church in Minden joined with Bethesda Church in Flowers volunteers from Nebraska and even as far away as California for a Bay. Each day for two hours in mission trip to Honduras earlier this summer. Pastor Paul Blanchard the morning and two hours in the of the United Methodist Church in Minden organized the trip. afternoon, youth of all ages came Blanchard has been on numerous mission trips to Honduras. Six to the church to learn, sing, and years ago he took a team from Central City to work on a church play together with the mission there and met missionary Joe Summers. Over the years the two workers. Blanchard said they developed a friendship. "Joe has a heart for the poor people of typically saw 20 to 30 children northern Honduras," Blanchard said. a day but numbers could vary Last fall, Summers visited the United Methodist Church in greatly. Minden and gave a presentation about his mission work in Hon- One of the volunteers who duras. Blanchard said Summer's visit sparked the church's own helped with vacation bible vision to send a team to Honduras. school was Bryan Meyer, former The mission team included representatives from six different Minden Public Schools teacher churches, including nine people from the United Methodist Church who is moving to Elkhorn this of Minden. They hauled their own equipment and materials to year. Blanchard said that Meyer Honduras and much of it they left there. The group connected up would play basketball with the with Summers on the island of Roatan, a large bay island across kids that showed up each day. from the city of La Ceiba. "Many of the children there Summers is the official mission coordinator for the Methodist have absentee fathers. Bryan Church of the Caribbean and Americas in Honduras. These Meth- was a great male role model odist churches have had a presence in Honduras for hundreds of for them," Blanchard said. "Our years. He also serves as the ministerial leader for the Bethesda girls on the trip who helped with Methodist Church in Flowers Bay. The church exists in a very poor bible school got to interact with area of Flowers Bay. Most of the children in that area don't go to the children in a very personal school and for those that do it is rare for them to attend past second way. They gave these kids their grade. Families don't have the money to send children to school love and theirtime, which means and children often must work to help support their families. a lot." Blanchard told of one example of a young boy named Kyle. He In addition to teaching vaca- was around 10 years old and sold seashells to tourists as a means tion bible school and working to support his family. with neighborhood children, the While the island of Roatan has around 1 8,000 to 20,000 chil- mission group also worked on a The first one was in Flowers construction project. There are Bay. many homes on the island that "The primary goal of the are in very poor condition and mission trip is to make friends falling down. Many are owned and develop an ongoing rela- by elderly women of the com- tionship with the people there." munity who aren't able to do Blanchard said that while mis- the needed repairs themselves. sion groups can get a lot of work These women also serve as done, the real change happens important pillars of their com- when relationships are built and munity, often taking in orphaned sustained. children. "Many Americans who I The mission group worked have taken on these mission trips on a house owned by a 64 have never seen abject poverty. year old woman named Annie. People there don 't get enough to Blanchard said that Annie had eat and there is no government lived in the home, that once safety net to help them out." belonged to her father and Blanchard said the experi- before that her grandfather, all ence teaches Americans how her life. Her tiny house is also amazingly well off we are. home to three young girls she has "People gauge their wealth by adopted. They all sleep together the 5% who have more and not in one bed. by the 90% who have less." Summers has organized The church is already making fundraising for "Project Hon- plans for a return trip to Hondu- duras" to secure the resources ras next spring. Blanchard hopes to purchase raw materials, while that several from this year's weekly mission groups take group will go back and continue turns providing the labor nec- building their own friendships essary to make the repairs and and relationships with the people upgrades to the homes. While there. He also hopes others will there, the group from Minden join them. helped put up walls and roofing on a small addition to Annie's home which will become a kitchen. She now has plumbing in the home thanks for the work of an earlier mission team. A unique outreach that the mission team was able to provide while in Honduras was Christian music concerts. Their band was a compilation of talented musi- cians from different churches and included vocalist Carlie Bauer of Minden. Blanchard said that although the musicians didn't even know each other, let alone ever play together, the group put in some long practice sessions right before they left. We performed concerts in three different churches on Roatan. Let's Rally Around the Little Free Library By J.L. Schmidt — ■l akMMMl*H B^mmm !■■■■■ ImII^m Little Free Library is get- and hiring a handyman to I have concerns. What if ting a lot of ink these days. It build it and install it in their people drop off more books has grown from a Wisconsin neighborhood several years than they take? What if they man's tribute to his mother ago. There are now an esti- take more books than they — who was a teacher — to an mated 25 in Lincoln. But it's drop off? Well maybe that's Internet sensation. People not just an urban thing. not a problem since I have construct cute little house The tiny village of Hadar, a plenty of replacements. What looking structures, usually Madison County community if people judge me by the mounted on a pole and usu- between Pierce and Norfolk, titles of the books? Should I ally not much bigger than a has one that is their only really care? microwave.

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