In Amharic, Karen and Spanish, worship is like home for migrants in heartland town

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At noon on Sundays in Worthington, Minnesota, overlapping worship services, from Spanish-language Catholic Mass to Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, reflect how much the town has changed from a Midwestern farming community to a majority-minority hub. (AP Video: Jessie Wardarski)

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A small group prays together in Spanish at St. Mary’s Catholic Church on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Worthington, Minn. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

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Congregants attend the English-language Mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Church on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, in Worthington, Minn. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

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A reproduction of the “Cristo Negro de Esquipulas,” a representation of Christ on the cross widely venerated in Guatemala, hangs in the entryway of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Worthington, Minn., on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

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The Rev. Tim Biren leads the English-language Mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Church on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, in Worthington, Minn. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

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Congregants attend the English-language Mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Church on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, in Worthington, Minn. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

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Congregants attend the Spanish-language Mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Church on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, in Worthington, Minn. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

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A young boy runs back to his pew during the Spanish-language Mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Church on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, in Worthington, Minn. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

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Altar servers stand at the back of the sanctuary as ushers collect offerings during the Spanish-language Mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Church on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, in Worthington, Minn. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

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The choir “Nueva Inspiración” plays during the Spanish-language Mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Church on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, in Worthington, Minn. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

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Parishioners take Communion during the Spanish-language Mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Church on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, in Worthington, Minn. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

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A young member of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church holds the kebero, a hand drum used in worship, on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Worthington, Minn. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

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Members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church visit after service on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Worthington, Minn. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

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Members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church pray after a post-liturgy lunch of pancake-like injera bread on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Worthington, Minn. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

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A priest, left, leads prayers at the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church after a post-liturgy lunch on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Worthington, Minn. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

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Mintamir Endanew, left, and other members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church pray after a post-liturgy lunch of pancake-like injera bread on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Worthington, Minn. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

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Members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church visit after service on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Worthington, Minn. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

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A photo of the 1875 Swedish Baptist Church congregation sits on display in the entryway of the church, now known as the Indian Lake Baptist Church, in Worthington, Minn., on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

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Parishioners attend a Karen-language service at Indian lake Baptist Church, while celebrating 15 years of partnership with the 150-year-old congregation founded by Swedish immigrants, in Worthington, Minn., on Sunday Oct. 20, 2024.

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Parishioners sing during a Karen-language service at Indian lake Baptist Church, while celebrating 15 years of partnership with the 150-year-old congregation founded by Swedish immigrants, in Worthington, on Sunday Oct. 20, 2024.

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A parishioner takes offerings during Karen-language service at Indian lake Baptist Church in Worthington, Minn., on Sunday Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

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Young parishioners sit together during a Karen-language service at Indian Lake Baptist Church, while celebrating 15 years of partnership with the 150-year-old congregation founded by Swedish immigrants, in Worthington, Minn., on Sunday Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

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Parishioners pray during a Karen-language service at Indian Lake Baptist Church, while celebrating 15 years of partnership with the 150-year-old congregation founded by Swedish immigrants, in Worthington, Minn., on Sunday Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

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May Htoo, center, prays during a Karen-language service at Indian lake Baptist Church in Worthington, Minn., on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

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Light shines on the front door of the Indian Lake Baptist Church, formerly The Swedish Baptist Church, in Worthington, Minn., on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

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The sun rises over the Okabena Lake in Worthington, Minn., on Tuesday Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

By GIOVANNA DELL’ORTO and JESSIE WARDARSKI

WORTHINGTON, Minn. (AP) — Come noon on Sundays, overlapping worship options reflect how much Worthington has changed from a typical Midwestern farming community to a majority-minority hub with migrants from around the world.

An overflow crowd is still swaying to thumping praise music from one of 10 Latino choirs at St. Mary’s second Spanish-language Catholic Mass of the weekend. Half a mile away, Ethiopian Orthodox Christians are wrapping up their six-hour service in what used to be the offices of the local newspaper.

And in the cornfields just beyond the town’s edge, refugees from Southeast Asia gather to pray and sing in Karen at a Baptist church founded by Swedish farmers in 1873, many of whose descendants attend the morning English-language service.

These and other churches are trying to preserve widely diverse cultures in ways that feel like home, while also offering a chance at integration for communities that tend to self-segregate.

“My job, at least in the two congregations, is to unite them,” said the Rev. Lucio Berumen, the Mexican pastor at Indian Lake Baptist Church. “You’ve been here 150 years, you’ve been here 15 years, you know the problems that you have. The only thing that I want to know is that you can work together.”

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Berumen has been learning Swedish traditions like julotta (Christmas morning prayers), but also regularly sits through the two-hour Karen service, not understanding a word but praying silently for all his church members.

For Karen volunteer pastor Eh Ler Plaw Saw, who recently led the community in celebrating 15 years at Indian Lake, helping children practice Karen is as big a concern as the older generation’s struggles with English.

At St. Mary’s, the Rev. Tim Biren hopes to bridge the disconnect between Latino and mostly white communities with different pastoral needs and worship styles, down to the volume of choir music.

Some parishioners would like to try bilingual Masses -- “So we can learn some Spanish, and help them to build relationships outside their community,” said Pat Morphew, who has attended St. Mary’s since the 1980s.

For many members of the Spanish choirs, however, it’s been a relief to belong to something so familiar in a foreign land, said Dagoberto Mendez, who moved to Worthington in 2000 and directs the Nueva Inspiración group.

Three of his children and several fellow Guatemalans recently shook the rafters at Saturday evening and Sunday morning worship with the backing of trumpets, saxophone, an electric piano and the distinctive güira, a percussion instrument that resembles a giant cheese grater.

Big drums and tall sticks feature in Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo liturgy, which raised some eyebrows among the Lutherans who hosted the worshippers in their church for years until they built their own sanctuary.

“They don’t have a clue what we do, but they give us room for our worship,” Abebe Abetew recalled. “They’re God people.”

Today, most of the community’s 500 members gather before dawn in the sanctuary adorned with Ethiopian-made icons and start the afternoon with prayers over lunch in the basement.

“Church is basic for us, like eating the food. If you don’t eat you die,” Abetew said.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.