Man works with, learns from youths at SB mission

By BRAD A. GREENBERG, Staff Writer

Article Published: Thursday, August 11, 2005 - 7:21:46 PM PST

Thursday, August 11, 2005 - SAN BERNARDINO - After almost a year studying in England and Turkey, Alex Fel dt brought his studies to the Central City Lutheran Mission, a well-known ministry to the city's poor.

"This is a study abroad,' said Feldt, a 21-year-old senior at a small Lutheran college in rural Iowa.

Feldt has spent the past two months at the mission, where he has worked with youths trying to escape the lures of drugs and crime. Wednesday morning, he boarded a plane in Ontario and returned to Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa. He took with him a 35-page research paper about the hopelessness of urban living and the opportunities that can be provided by agencies such as the mission, which opened Feldt's eyes to the plight of poor urban neighborhoods.

"We talk about America as a land of freedom, chance and opportunity and they do a good job hiding this type of life from me,' said Feldt, who grew up in an upper-middle-class family in Norman, Okla.

Feldt is one of more than a dozen Wartburg students at a school of 1,800 who spent four weeks or more at the mission this year. Most of the students are majoring in religion and social work; Feldt is doubling in philosophy and religion.

"We are eager for our students to have this opportunity to connect what they are learning on campus with what is going on in communities,' said Ferol Menzel, Wartburg's vice president of academic affairs and dean of the faculty.

Feldt's time was split between social service and school research. He spent most afternoons socializing with and mentoring youths in the mission's after-school programs.

He wrote poetry for a collection mission youths are publishing titled "Never Say Die.' He spoke at Tuesday night hip-hop Masses and deejayed the Battle Zone dance competitions on Thursdays.

During his free time, he took bus No. 2 to Cal State San Bernardino to work on his research project about "urban nihilism.' On Saturdays, he looked at information about graduate schools and organized his application for the Rhodes Scholarship, academia's highest honor.

He boarded in the mission's Wartburg Hall, a six-bedroom dormitory named after the Rev. David Kalke's alma mater.

Kalke, the mission's executive director, said Wartburg students often are challenged by their time in San Bernardino, especially because most of them are white and the mission mainly serves Latinos and blacks.

"But that's what Wartburg wants,' he said.

Students, who have assisted the mission unofficially for years and more formally this year, help mainly with after-school programs and other youth ministries. They also encourage mission youths to escape poverty via a college education.

"It helps our neighborhood understand that there are really young people out there who do care,' Kalke said.