When many students were trudging through snow to return to school in January, high school students from Traders Point Christian Academy were boarding planes for Nicaragua.
This is the fifth year that freshmen and sophomores from the academy have traveled to Managua as part of the school’s language-immersion and service project. It also provides an opportunity for students to get a glimpse of a culture far different than their own.
TPCA partners with the Nicaraguan Resource Network, Rey Solomon School and the adjoining Bethsaida Church in inner-city Managua.
“The students’ Spanish fluency is greatly increased as they are immersed in the language for an extended period of time,” said TPCA Spanish teacher Amy Malott. “Each student is paired up with a Nicaraguan student, which motivates them to communicate and stretches them in their language skills. They spend several hours with their Nicaraguan buddies for five days.”
TPCA students purchased food locally to distribute to needy families that are part of this church community. The students went in groups with a teacher, translator and a TPCA chaperone to deliver food bags to church families. In addition, students helped prepare a school for re-opening after their break while other students led a food and play program for approximately 80 impoverished Nicaraguan children aged 2 – 14 years old.
“This was eye opening I am sure for the students,” said TPCA Admissions Director Toni Kanzler, who accompanied the students on the trip. “So much need, yet such joy and faith in God. The families we visited with were so very gracious and exuberant in their gratitude. Some had dire financial need, others had dire physical need. Our students were very kind and respectful, asking questions and praying for the families.”
Rae Schaffer’s son, Gabe, traveled with the group last year as a freshman and retuned again this year as a sophomore. She said the experience has been life-changing for him.
“They get to know their Nicaraguan buddies as peers—just another 14 or 15 year old kid like them,” said Schaffer. “They get to know them as people first and then they go to their homes. They live in very different places and in very different ways than we do. Then they get to worship with them.”
Gabe borrowed a guitar and he and his classmates helped lead worship songs in both Spanish and English at the small Nicaraguan church.
“It was really great to help lead worship in two different languages,” he said.
Gabe and his Nicaraguan buddy, Julio, continued to correspond online last year after Gabe returned home, making their reunion this year especially meaningful. An extra year of Spanish helped Gabe and his classmates communicate even better in Spanish.
“Our Nicaraguan buddies are not much different than us. They have the same likes and dislikes, and we can joke about the same things,” he said. “Now we know them well and they are like old friends to us. It really broke us when we had to say goodbye.”
There were tears as the two groups of students separated for the last time. Schaffer said the trip had a huge impact on everyone who went.
“Each year, the trip changes and transforms each person,” he said, adding that the second trip was even better for him than the first.
“Seeing the poverty hit me hard last year,” Gabe said. “I realized I don’t need all of the things I have. The fact is they live better than we do in some ways because they have so much joy. We [American students] can be kind of apathetic. It taught me how to be more grateful and gracious in the U.S. I had been kind of living the American life, and kind of ungrateful towards my sisters.”
