Students become `amigos for Christ’ VIEW GALLERY(use keyboard arrow keys to navigate)
By Fabvienen Taylor
MADISON — Television images of people struggling to survive in many developing countries is nothing new to Iesha Smith, 16.
“You can see it on TV, but you really don’t understand it until you go to a third world country,” said the St. Joseph School junior. “It was an opportunity to see how people live who are less fortunate than we are. It was a good experience, an eye-opener.”
Elizabeth Younger, 18, was struck by the unflagging spirit of the people living in Villa Catalina, a village on the outskirts of Chinandega, Nicaragua.
“With all of the opposition, setbacks and disappointments they’ve experienced, they are some of the most generous people I’ve ever seen. They are really resilient.”
Working alongside his St. Joseph schoolmates and the people of Villa Catalina, 17-year-old Hayden Warner helped dig a trench for a bridge.
“It was pretty tough work,” said the high school junior. “We were preparing for a bridge to be built in a place that floods during the rainy season.”
Smith, Younger and Warner were among the 30 St. Joseph students who traveled to Nicaragua during spring break, March 15-22, to work with Amigos for Christ.
Amigos for Christ – amigosforchrist.org — is an international nonprofit organization in Buford, Ga., serving the poor in Chinandega, Nicaragua.
It began at Prince of Peace Catholic Church in 1997 as a service project for the parish’s high school students. In 1998, Hurricane Mitch devastated the area, killing thousands.
Since then the organization has worked to settle and sustain 120 displaced families in safe, healthy communities through their mission trips and sponsoring medical, housing, feeding, educational and clean water programs to enable the families to be self-sufficient.
This was the second trip for St. Joseph students and the third trip for their teacher, Kristen Kulavic, who teaches Spanish. Another teacher, Brittany Furlan, and parents Paul Berlin and Roger Venable accompanied the students.
Kulavic’s first Amigos for Christ trip was with college friends in 2004. After coming to St. Joseph three years ago, she wanted the students to have the same opportunity.
In Nicaragua the students painted houses, dug trenches, did farmwork and interacted with the teens and young children. They also participated in devotionals, visited an orphanage, mixed cement, celebrated Mass, held a prayer service on Holy Thursday and washed the feet of over 50 children and some adults.
It wasn’t all work and no play for the team of students who climbed a volcano, went to the beach and played with the children.
“You see so much down there,” Kulvanic said. “You learn so much about yourself and the ways other people live. It’s an eye-opener, especially for students who haven’t traveled much or been out of the country. They get to see life is so different in other parts of the world.”
Participating in the mission trip is one way the group could experience serving others, she said. “And we can also deepen our faith and our relationship with Christ,” she said.
A number of the students have taken Spanish but it’s not required.
This year’s trip was the second one for Smith and Warner.
“This year we went to a dump where a number of the families lived before moving to Villa Catalina,” said Smith. “It is really sad to watch the families at the dump waiting for the truck to come in with trash. They collect plastic bottles to sell in town.”
Hooked on the mission experience, Smith will return next year. “You could see the improvement made since last year. But my best memory is of all the families we met, and the kids.”
On the trip this year, Warner experienced a greater sense of community. “This year I got a lot closer to my friends down there than I did last year. I was a little more prepared for what we would be doing there, so I could focus more on becoming friends with people.”
This was Younger’s first trip to Villa Catalina and during the visit to the orphanage, she felt a little ill-at-ease.
“At first I didn’t know what to do. It was kind of awkward for me. The people who went last year found the kids they knew and played with them and I felt kind of out-of-place.”
But she persevered.
“By the end of our visit, I was just sitting next to this little girl who could not speak. She was holding my hand and I was holding hers. She didn’t really seem like she knew what was going on, but she seemed happy with me sitting there with her and I felt like I actually had a purpose in being there, I guess. I felt a lot more comfortable.”
