Longtime Wakarusa Case Study

Longtime Wakarusa resident Elizabeth Fleetwood always enjoyed teaching in a ministry context. Understanding her compassion and empathy for any and all people who were struggling, Fleetwood began teaching in her church, but her decision to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in order to teach history began as what she thought was a departure from God’s will. Originally, Fleetwood planned to attend Indiana Weselyan University and become a missionary, but while dealing with some personal problems she decided rather to attend Indiana University South Bend and focus her educational pursuits on secular matters. That said, the community she found herself in, even on IUSB’s public campus was surprisingly Christian. This is certainly not the norm for IUSB students but she found herself sitting in classes run by Christian professors, planning her degree path with a Christian advisor, and pursuing relationships with Christian friends. After re-involving herself in ministry-focused projects she found herself questioning her previous decisions. Due to the fact that she had a rough patch in her faith at the onset of her
While she did stay in a smaller farming town away from the big city while working in the DRC, the similarity of her experiences stop there. The most striking difference between our two cultures is their lack of reliable electricity, clean water, or licensed vehicular operation. Instead of driving cars, numerous locals would commute atop mopeds and motorcycles with a bottle of whiskey. While a majority of persons in the DRC are Christian, Islam and other “indigenous” religious make up roughly fifteen percent of the DRC’s belief systems. That said, Fleetwood did comment on the influence of Haitain voodoo on the culture of the DRC, although she said that she never witnessed any practice of the religion first