As we
move toward the end of the 25th anniversary year of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America we remember our partnership with Lutheran helping
agencies that are much older than our current denominational structure. Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota has been
a partner with Lutheran churches in this state since the mid-1800s when a group
of Swedish Lutherans began an orphanage down in the Red Wing area. While the denominational configuration of
Lutherans in the state has gone through many changes in the last century and a
half, Lutheran Social Service has continued to do work our behalf with some of
the state’s more vulnerable citizens, young and old.
The era of orphanages has
passed, of course, and been replaced with foster care and adoption. LSS has had to move with the times as the
views of society on how to be of assistance to those in need have changed. In the previous century LSS was in the
forefront of the adoption process in this state. As the number of children available for
adoption within the state dwindled, LSS then helped people with international
adoptions. In the Twin Cities LSS works
with homeless teens through a variety of programs, often dealing with mental
illness, emotional turmoil, sexual exploitation, and drug addiction. It is hard work on the darker side of modern
American life, and sometimes those who help, such as LSS, get embroiled in some
nasty situations and conflicts.
In the aftermath of World War
II Lutheran Social Service partnered with Lutheran World Relief to help
resettle homeless refugees from Europe.
In the days of the Vietnam War refugees from southeast Asia were brought
to the safety of America, including to Karlstad and Halma. Some of you remember being a part of that
project of our parish. In more recent
times LSS has brought Somali refugees from the heat and violence of east Africa
to our frigid state, making Minnesota home to the largest Somali population in
America. In each of these eras the
resettlement programs were not universally popular as they touched on
controversial issues such as the suspected involvement of Minnesota Somalis in
African violence through the terrorist group “al Shabab.”
Lutheran Social Service of
Minnesota, and similar agencies in other states are often helping in difficult
and messy situations. We should be
grateful for their work in places many of us might fear to tread and with people
we don’t understand well. The work of
LSS is one way that Lutherans seek to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit
the sick, and welcome the stranger as Jesus so powerfully told us to do in the
Great Judgment story. “When you do it to
one of the least of these my brethren, you do it to me,” he said. (Matthew
25:40)
Here in our local community
Lutheran Social Service is most visible in administering the senior citizens
nutrition site and the two group homes, all in Karlstad. On Monday, October 28, the nutrition site
celebrated 40 years of LSS providing nutritious meals and social interaction
for senior citizens in Northwestern Minnesota with an evening meal and
program. The group home situation has
changed over the years as they have moved from one large facility in the old
hotel at the corner of Main and Lincoln streets to the new building the city
built on the same site, to the current emphasis on living in small homes that
look and feel like any other family home in the community. Thus a new home is going up right now on
Third Street in Karlstad.
Locally, too, LSS sometimes
gets into controversy as it deals with ever changing government mandates
(remember most of the money for these programs comes from the federal and state governments) and the evolving philosophies
about how best to help people in need.
It never has been easy, but Jesus described those who do this work as
“blest of my Father.” (Matthew 25:34) So
in this month of thanksgiving in this 25th year of the ELCA let us
give thanks for the work that Lutheran Social Service does in our name.