How does a high school student from Maine find herself on a campus in Minnesota? The answer is cross country skiing.
Actually Kendra Rinas, a junior at Gustavus, didn’t really cover that distance by skiing, but that sport is one of the reasons that she found her way to Gustavus.
“I was recruited by calls from a coach to come here to ski,” she says.
Rinas did not plan to attend Gustavus because her brother, Joshua, was a student here, and she wanted to do something different, but a visit to campus changed her mind.
“Gustavus was such a loving, caring community, and I felt so welcome that I decided to come here,” she says.
Brother Joshua now attends Yale Divinity School, and his little sister is very proud of him.
Rinas participated on the nordic ski team for her first two years as Gustavus, but the three hours a day of lifting weights, running, and skiing became too much of a time commitment.
“I decided that I would rather spend that time being an advocate to help people meet their basic needs,” she says.
She also had another reason for dropping skiing this year. During the fall session she applied to be one of 25 students to study and live in Uganda, and she was accepted.
“It was a life-changing experience,” she says.
The first few weeks in Uganda were spent in intense language study followed by a few weeks studying the history and culture of the country. Following that, the students were placed in homes with Ugandan families.
“I was placed with a family that was rich by their standards. The average wage in Uganda is about a dollar a day, and this family had a Range Rover and a Saab, and they lived in a gated complex. The neighbors just outside the gate were extremely poor, almost naked, with bloated bellies from not eating. It made me very uncomfortable,” she says.
The next portion of study allowed the students to go anywhere in the country for research and study. Rinas wanted to live with the “poorest of the poor” and moved to a small village.
“At first the villagers thought I was crazy because they think all whites are rich, and that I could live anywhere. I told them I wanted to be there to learn and experience their struggles first hand so I could really be effective in helping people like them,” she explains.
Her first task was to build herself a mud hut for a home. Her daily routine wasn’t any simpler as the first thing she did every morning was make the 20 minute trek down the mountain to get water from a spring and bring it back to her hut.
“The spring was filthy, so the first thing to do was strain the water and then boil it before you did anything with it,” she says.
Rinas learned a valuable lesson when she used a spoon washed in water that hadn’t been purified, and she was struck with dysentery, a disease that takes many lives in Uganda.
She went to the nearest hospital, but treatment wasn’t readily available, so she called her adviser, who immediately sent an ambulance to take her to a hospital in the capital.
It took the ambulance eight hours each way to make the trip, and Rinas spent four days in the hospital, but she recovered and returned to the village to spend her remaining three weeks.
Rinas fell in love with the people in Uganda because “they are so poor, but so happy with their life and so accepting. There is so much unconditional love there.”
Rinas has learned that she is going to be able to go back to Uganda this summer through Lutheran World Relief, and she can’t wait.
Rinas has had other good experiences at Gustavus. She was part of an organization called Gusties Against Poverty (GAP). One of the events she organized was a four day homeless sleepout where students tried to live like a homeless person during that time.
“I really have a passion for working with the impoverished,” she said.
Rinas helped start an organization called Action Supporting All People that replaced GAP. The goal of the organization is to work for basic human justice.
The group has held clothing drives and raises money for homeless shelters, and they have gone to the state legislature to lobby for the homeless.
Rinas was also involved in Big Partner/Little Partner, a program with St. Peter Schools, but she had to drop that when she studied abroad.
She has also received several awards and scholarships while at Gustavus. Her most memorable award is the Points of Light Freedom of America Award. She was one of three students nationally who won the award, and the ceremony took place at Rockefeller Center in New York City.
Rinas has also been awarded the Ruth Lundell peace studies scholarship for commitment to peace and justice. Her project for the award will be her work in Uganda this summer.
Following her freshman year, she received a peace studies scholarship and spent a month in Zambia working with Habitat for Humanity building houses out of sand and cement.
Last year during spring break Rinas again worked with Habitat for Humanity, this time building a house in Leland, Michigan.
“That was a blast,” she says. “We built the house in one weekend.”
Rinas praises Gustavus for the many opportunities available including her chance to study abroad.
“The Gustavus community is really amazing,” she said. “The best thing is the professors. They go above and beyond, and they are so caring. They invite students to their houses for dinner, and they have classes to their houses for movies.”
Rinas also embraces the Christian and community aspects at Gustavus. She is a chaplain apprentice as well as a chapel worship assistant.
Kendra Rinas came to Minnesota to ski and found herself in the middle of African heat, and she is very thankful to Gustavus for those opportunities.