Despite the lack of roads, shelter, food, clothing, clean water, medical supplies and basic necessities, the spirit of Lukulu’s residents remains unbreakable.

That's what Father Christian Tabares, a Colombia-born priest ordained in 2010 and current pastor at St. Agnes Catholic Church in Freeland and St. John Vianney Catholic Church in Saginaw, noticed most on his second trip to the impoverished and drought-stricken Lukulu region. Along with Helen Diedrich, Tom Slivinski, Nora Boruszewski and John Hutchinson, Father Christian traveled to the region July 7 through 26 last year through Love for Lukulu & Beyond, a charitable organization based in Freeland.

“In the middle of their challenges and lack of many resources, seeing these people dancing and singing is beautifully inspiring and heart-breaking at the same time,” said Father Christian. “I grew up in Colombia, and there is a lot of poverty. But I never saw poverty this way, like the poverty I saw in Lukulu.”

The mission team all have had their hearts broken by what they saw.

Starvation and severe malnutrition. Women pumping water from a community well. Lepers living in isolation. Victims of AIDS. Mothers dying in childbirth. Undernourished women unable to produce breast milk. Unstable mud huts for housing. No roadways or easy methods of travel, just oxcarts. Hospitals with no medical supplies or medicine. Hospital beds with no mattresses, only a few palm branches. Schools with no textbooks or supplies. Dry, sandy terrain barely able to grow maize and cassava (a type of starch).

“Going on these trips has impacted me in a million ways, and I will always go on this trip every summer as long as I physically can,” said Tom Slivinski, who serves as board president for Love for Lukulu & Beyond. Tom feels going to Lukulu gives him the opportunity to answer the prayers of others, after his prayers were answered in 2001, when his son survived a near-fatal accident.

“It is meaningful to serve the people of Lukulu alongside my Christian brothers and sisters. I went with the intention of helping them, but honestly, it felt like it was turned around and they actually helped me,” he said. “It changed my life in so many ways. We go to a place that literally has nothing. The one thing they have is their faith. Their faith is so strong. They are … loving and caring people.”

They are also dying.

“When you're standing in front of kids and babies dying of starvation, and you realize they're not the only ones dying,” said Father Christian. “It's difficult to see. There are people – men and women –  starving to death. Who is going to provide food for these babies, these people?”

That haunting question is one that Love for Lukulu & Beyond continues to answer.

Visiting the region changes perspectives and values.

“Going to Lukulu has more than increased my faith,” said Bob Herek, a parishioner from St. Catherine of Siena in Bay City, who went on the first mission trip in 2008 and four others since then. “Whenever I'm having a bad day, all I need to do is stop for a moment and think about what I witnessed there in the village. … When you ask them about their life, they will tell you that they live in the land of paradise. You look around and they have absolutely nothing. To me, it's very mind-boggling. I also have a recording of some of the Catholic Masses I attended there, and the music is so beautiful. When I listen to the music and remember the experiences, every problem I think I have just disappears.”

Rather than send money to a faraway place, the mission team lives, worships, eats and teaches the locals new skills in a two-week window to permanently change lives.

The team stays at Sancta Maria Catholic Church and assists the two priests and two nuns who live there while serving the Catholics in the surrounding 83 outstations, comprised of 4,000 square miles. An outstation is where a Catholic church is present. Each outstation can have 20 to 50 villages. There is Mass every single day.

“The first Mass I ever went to was four hours long,” Tom said. “It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever experienced.”

Father Christian joins the liturgical celebrations. The faithful walk up to seven or eight hours to attend Holy Mass. They arrive hours early to rehearse songs with local melodies, traditional instruments and liturgical dance, which takes place during the Gloria and preparation of the gifts.

They stay for hours after Mass to enjoy fellowship. Father Christian even speaks parts of the Mass in the SiLozi language – the people are quite impressed with his self-taught efforts. Despite the language barrier, Father Christian is able to celebrate the sacrament of reconciliation with them as well.

“I can't understand what they are confessing,” he admits. “But I give them my full attention and eye contact, and then I absolve them of their sins in English.”

Love for Lukulu & Beyond makes progress with each mission trip visit.

They have built five new Catholic churches and refurbished four more— replacing the mud-and-straw churches with brick-and-mortar is an ongoing goal. They helped build a brick-and-mortar home for a family and establish a school lunch program for children. They offer new clothes, shoes, small toys and Rosaries. Food, clothing and full-time care is provided to lepers who reside at the leprosarium. Funds also support a local seminarian’s studies and a nursing and midwifery school.

At night, the mission team and locals gather for bonfires and learn how to roast a pig. Locals young and old ask the Michiganders about their lives.

“I remember two youngsters asking me about my life, family and wife,” Tom said. “One was a child of eight and her father was on his deathbed, the other was a child of seven and her family lost their crop because of the drought – which was equivalent to a small garden. These children revealed to me that they were happy to be at the bonfire because they had not eaten a meal in several days.”

Perhaps the most life-changing and popular program supported by the mission team is the Mother's Milk program, founded by the Sisters of Loreto. It provides tins of powdered formula for infants whose mothers die in childbirth or cannot produce breast milk because of malnutrition.

One of the recipients in the Mother's Milk program was a young man raising an infant after his sister died in childbirth. He walked 15 miles to get the formula to feed the baby.

Father Christian recalls a set of twins who were skin and bone last year.

“This year, thanks to the Mother's Milk program, I saw the same twins. They are healthy looking and growing. They are so happy and smiling now,” he said.

The Mother's Milk program, which helps keep babies alive, is the largest part of Love for Lukulu & Beyond’s budget.

“It takes close to $17,000 to fund the Mother's Milk program each year,” Tom said.

“It's hard to talk about what [some people] did with the babies out of sorrowful necessity,” Bob said. “In the 1960s, if the mother died in childbirth, they would often bury the baby alive with the mother.”

Thankfully, that practice has ended. Still, caretakers struggle to provide nutrition to infants when breast milk is unavailable.

“A tin of milk cost $5,” Bob said. “It takes two tins of milk to feed a baby, so if you only make [the average wage of] $5 to $10 per week, you can see how tough things are.”

Awareness about Love for Lukulu & Beyond is critical and grows each year.

“Our funding is through grants and private donations,” Tom said. “We get grants from the Catholic Community Foundation and the Wolohan Family Foundation. Grants also come from several Saginaw [Diocese] Catholic churches:  Blessed Trinity, Blessed Sacrament, Holy Spirit and recently St. Catherine of Siena in Bay City.”

In addition, Lukulu missionary group members shared their efforts at St. Dominic, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. John Vianney and St. Agnes Parishes, raising awareness, funds, interest and hopefully encouraging new volunteers for the next mission trip in 2025.

Two annual events also bring in hefty donations. There is a free-will rummage sale during Walleye Festival which brings in about $6,000 to $7,000.  During Lent, the Knights of Columbus Council #4232 and Tom’s wife Debi and son Tommy  put together auction baskets, which raises between $8,000 and $10,000.

Lessons on gratitude flow from the trip and its life-changing experiences.

“After one of my first trips I came home and woke up in the morning and I made a bowl of cereal –  and as I poured the milk I just started crying,” he said. “That was too easy. I realized how grateful I, and all of us, need to be.

God hears and listens to the needs of the poor.

“The poverty is not their own fault,” said Father Christian. “The country might have many resources, but usually the resources stay in the hands of the elite. We can feel a sense of discouragement. It's not a feeling of anger. You are feeling more like, ‘Gosh, why does this happen? Why this gap between the rich and the poor?’ Yes, we have been dealing with this forever, since the beginning of time.”

Father Christian and the team discovers how sharing Catholic teaching about the dignity, worth and value of every human life is so true. The trips create an encounter with beloved sons and daughters of God from two different sides of the globe.

“We are to mirror God's love to everybody without exception,” he said. “We are called to welcome the stranger – by language, culture or nationality – we who are involved in Love for Lukulu & Beyond set out to show God's love and kindness, especially to the most needy – and they, in turn, show it to us, too.”