Pulling into Ellendale presented a very ominous feeling. I had already begun to get butterflies while driving on the country highways surrounding the town. Although much further north, the area reminded me of where I grew up. The day before our stop at the school, we arrived in the town of 1500.

On arrival in Ellendale, we had scheduled a community outreach event at the only location we could find to host it–the steakhouse next to our motel. Being one of the vegans on the trip, this was a very comical situation for me. After meeting a few local community members and the director of the county emergency services, who was very worried for our safety while in town, we decided to walk to the university to get an idea of what the next day would look like.

My hometown of Drexel, MO is somewhere that I find it very hard to visit. Often people I knew in high school will avoid me if I see them there, and make it a point not to talk to me. I, being one of the few out gay people from Drexel, have a somewhat infamous reputation in the town. Often times I will hear through the grapevine negative things about myself from people I have never met. This is relevant because the city of Ellendale is nearly a mirror image of Drexel. Trinity Bible College is located in the exact same spot as the school in which I spent the majority of my young life.

We arrived on foot to see how the school would be set up. We were given a small fenced area on the edge of campus which was our “free speech zone.” All of the streets surrounding us were barricaded off from traffic.

The next day we readied ourselves for the campus visit. Several students from the University of South Dakota involved with the reconciling campus ministry Coffee Loft had knitted nine prayer shawls, one for each of the nine colors of the original pride flag, and to represent the nine gifts of the Spirit. We planned to present these to the University. I was entrusted with the gift of prophecy.

We vigiled in silence for most of the morning. We held hands. Some of us prayed. Some of us thought. Some of us hoped. We had been greeted by the Vice President in the morning, who had told us that the students had neither been told to talk to us, nor to ignore us–that it was of their own volition if they wished to enter into dialogue with us. We found out the next day through the local newspaper that this was not the case. The students had been told not to leave campus. The VP also stood in between the students and the Equality Riders throughout most of the vigil, making it very awkward for any student who did want to talk to us.

After we held a short ceremony blessing each one of the shawls, we handed them to two students from USD and one of our Equality Riders. These three women carried the shawls onto campus, intending to place them at the foot of the chapel cross and to continue to pray. Shortly after stepping onto campus, they were met with administration and law enforcement who took them away, but not before they could lay the shawls out, forming a rainbow on the lawn of the Trinity Bible College campus.

We stayed in vigil formation long after our friends were arrested. Watching this happen, I had a flood of emotions rush through me. I realized that I felt as if I were back in Drexel. I grew up in this same atmosphere, around similar people, in a town that was very much the same as Ellendale. On that vigil line, I was opening myself up, I was presenting myself honestly and fully, to tell them that I was human, deserving of respect and love. And I was met with a fence, a physical barrier between us. I took all of this into myself, and wept. I cried for the majority of the time that we remained in the vigil line.

We left campus and marched to the library, where we presented the librarian with a gift of books on various social justice and queer issues. I hope that the kids in that town who need those books find them, because I know I was one of them, and I have no doubt that had my brother and sister not supported me while coming out, one of those books could have saved my life.

I know this blog is getting exceptionally long, but I cannot end it without mentioning the Red Rooster coffeehouse in Aberdeen, SD. I only wish I had a haven like that while growing up. We held a community outreach event at the Red Rooster after our school visit. It has been one of the few stops on this trip in which I have felt like I could be myself completely. It is truly a gift that places like that are available in a climate so hostile to anyone who is different than the majority.

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