Some Mississippi State University students have witnessed first-hand subjects learned about in history class through their mission work at the Yakama Native American Reservation in Washington.
    According to Sacred Road Ministries, since 1855, the year the American government established the reservation, the Yakama people’s culture and standard of life has been crumbling.
Sacred Road Ministries’ mission in the town of White Swan, Wash., is to establish a dynamic, healthy church in the remote town.
    MSU students have been members of the determined team to help achieve their mission.
    Lauren Sensing, sophomore graphic design major, said she has been to the reservation six times on one-week teams and spent the summer of 2011 as an intern.
    ”Our youth director (at Highlands Presbyterian Church in Ridgeland) found Sacred Road randomly on the Internet,” she said. “When we showed up on the reservation, we instantly fell in love with the reservation and have gone back every year since.”
    Sensing is not the only student who has made working at Yakama a common fixture in their lives.
    Mollie Simpkins, junior graphic design major, said she has been volunteering on the reservation for eight years on either one-week trip teams and as an intern with Sacred Road during the summer of 2009.
    Another student who has sweated it out on the reservation also became involved through the Highlands Presbyterian youth group.
    Melissa McBride, freshman nursing major, said the Highlands Presbyterian youth group had been on a couple of trips out to Washington and, when she was old enough, she jumped at the chance.
“I had heard so much about Yakama that I was ecstatic at a chance to actually go myself,” she said.
Volunteer responsibilities and duties on the Yakama Reservation are abundant.
“As part of a one-week team, we do construction typically on people’s homes in the community like roofing, painting and cleaning up trash,” Simpkins said. ‘‘Then in the afternoons, we help with a backyard Bible club in local project neighborhoods. During that time our duty is to love on the kids well, play with them and get really dusty and covered in face paint. As an intern, my duties were to help host these teams during the summer. I would help run kids’ club, photography and cooking.”
McBride said life on the reservation, even for a week, can be very challenging.
“The reservation is a poverty-stricken place, and this isn’t hard to see,” she said. ‘‘Many injustices have been done against the Yakama people and, because of this, hopelessness is a huge part of life out there.”
    But with the constant help of willing volunteers and team members, progress has been made.
“The first summer I went to the reservation, I was overwhelmed by the darkness, poverty and despair.  It seemed helpless,” Sensing said. ‘‘However, year after year, I see more hope. It’s such a beautiful thing to see how lives have changed over the years.  The Lord is mightily at work, and the hope of the gospel is changing the Yakama Nation.”
McBride, Sensing and Simpkins are returning to the reservation with Reformed University Fellowship and Highlands Presbyterian Church this spring break.
“It is just such a joy to witness the Lord at work and to get to be a small part of that,” McBride said. ‘‘The children on the reservation have definitely stolen my heart. Not a day goes by when I do not think of them and my heart aches to see them.”