Witnessing the Body of Christ in Pelican Rapids

The Pelican Rapids suspension bridge

Pelican Rapids in northern Minnesota, is a thriving community of 2296 people many of whom migrated from places far away such as Cambodia, Somalia, Mexico, Laos, Bosnia, Holland, Yugoslavia, Kurdistan to become a community with people whose families migrated from Norway and Sweden often two or three generations ago. For more than twenty years this lovely community along the Pelican River has been welcoming people to their town often to work in the local turkey factory. Their story is worthy of note!

Johanna Christianson, a Dutch woman, came to Pelican Rapids after meeting and marrying Jim Christianson, a man who had grown up in Pelican Rapids and decided to work in Europe after high school graduation.

Joan Ellison of the Multicultural Committee speaks to the Immigration Team about her experiences with immigrant communities in Pelican

Johanna and Diane Kimm and Joanie Ellison from Pelican Rapids began to mobilize their town into action as waves of immigrants came there to work. Refugees from Vietnam were the first, followed by migrant workers from Mexico, and than Bosnia and a host of others. Johanna describes the transformation of this town by using the Biblical image of the body of Christ. She shares the involvement of Lutheran Social Services (a branch of which opened in their town). They were joined by individuals who saw needs and provided household items and rides to stores and doctor appointments. The school and the community education programs offered ESL classes and the Multicultural Committee was formed to find ways to welcome the newcomers. The Community Resource Center and the Rotary Club became very active as did the Chief of Police who became educated about the various cultures that were represented by the newcomers. He became trusted by students and others in the community and educated his police officers about how to gain trust of these new people. He understood that having a cup of coffee and talking for 45 minutes was an important bridge to building trust. Teachers saw needs in their community for some activities for the children and noticed that the Hispanic students often got together to play soccer in a parking lot. Their part in the body of Christ led to them creating an after school soccer program for the 200 children that indicated an interest and to create a high school soccer team. The team of 15 included 11 Hispanics, a Bosnian refugee, two American boys and one girl. They did not all understand each others languages but this first year team went on to win second place in the state, losing only to Woodbury.

Focus groups were held with the Multicultural Committee and the various cultural groups to talk about what the needs and concerns were of each and how they could all work together to solve these. Johanna, a member of one of the local Lutheran parishes, sees her part in the towns’ transformation, as just one part working together with the rest of the body of Christ. The results of all the parts working together have led to a vibrant, thriving town where one third of the residents are new citizens of this country. They are living proof that when the individual parts of the body are doing what they are gifted to do, amazing things can happen.

– Diane Haines

‘Food is Memory’ in Pelican Rapids

Mexican Grocery Store in Pelican Rapids, MN

They came for security; they came for freedom; they came for jobs. The work was hard and dirty and dangerous, but the wages were relatively good for people who had been struggling to survive in zones of war and grinding poverty and over-crowded refugee camps. So, over the decades, waves of immigrants have found their way to Pelican Rapids to work in the local turkey processing plant.

Food played a big part in our visit to Pelican Rapids the weekend of July 13-15, 2012, just as it has in nearly all of the efforts of the Pelican community to welcome and include
the immigrants. No sooner had we arrived in town than a taco stand food truck parked on the main street captured our attention. Following the outdoor naturalization ceremony for 23 new U.S. citizens, we made a beeline to the taco truck for lunch. We were not disappointed.

After lunch, we were guided on a walk around town by Joanie Ellison, one of the
founding leaders of the Pelican Rapids Multicultural Committee. Joanie took us to visit two of the three local businesses owned by immigrants – a Mexican food market, where we bought Mexican sodas, sweet breads and an enormous papaya for breakfast; then on to the Somali ‘halal’ meat market, where the owner served us steaming cups of sweet tea with milk. He told us that the large room adjoining the Somali market housed Pelican’s only mosque.

Pelican Rapids Festival

On Saturday morning, we returned to Pelican’s city park to attend the town’s annual summer festival. The park was filled with antique cars and people from the many ethnic communities that have settled in Pelican. Flags of each of their nations of origin adorned the bridge spanning the Pelican River. The air in the park was heavy with the smoke and savory aroma of 80 turkeys being barbecued on a huge brick grill, faithfully tended since 4:30 that morning by members of the Pelican Rotary Club. As we munched turkey sandwiches, we learned more from Johanna Christianson and Sally Williams, also leaders of the Pelican Rapids Multicultural Committee. Sally proudly shared with us one of the most recent products of the committee, a cookbook entitled “Many Cultures, One
Community: A book of stories and recipes.”

“Food is memory,” I quote from the Introduction to the cookbook. Yes, food is memory, food is politics, food is substance and spirit of the One that welcomes and nourishes and connects us – immigrants all – in the One Body. This we experienced in multiple and
profound ways in Pelican Rapids.

– Don Christensen