This summer, Parkway Central teens embarked on their own journeys to make summer 2019 one to remember, a few teens made their own summer as well as others’ memorable through efforts done on mission trips and volunteering.

Mission trips are volunteer trips with the main goal in an impoverished country/city that benefits the community or a group of people in need. Each trip one goes on, even if they are similar, tells a different story of one’s personal growth and connection to the love of giving back to others.

The mission trips PCH teens went on, took place in San Luis Potosí, Mexico and Nicaragua, tackling jobs such as installing a water pipe and working in a home for kids that have troubled families. 1 teen headed to San Luis Potosí, Mexico, and 4 to Nicaragua. Whether the role is more labor or emotionally heavy, the takeaway is quite large, leaving participants wanting to go back or volunteer somewhere else.
We pulled aside two of the PCH teens who went on these trips and asked them why they wanted to go on one:

“You get so much out of it with helping people that you know don’t have a lot,” said sophomore Lilly Huss.

“It’s an experience that I wanted to have, just being able to impact the kids down there and I love meeting new people it’s like one of my favorite things,” said senior Isabel Roman.

Roman’s journey took place in San Luis Potosí, Mexico. She went with a youth group in the Maryland-Washington D.C. area and heard about it through a family friend. Roman knew this trip was the perfect fit for her because she “was looking for any way to be able to contribute and do a mission trip like that and anything at that point seemed perfect,” Roman said.

Roman’s role during her trip was to work in a foster-like home for children with troubled families, called “Casa Hogar de San Juan”. This was a place owned by a couple who had grown up together in the same home years ago and was where children can be fed, play with others, and be given temporary caretakers.

Her biggest takeaway from her experience was, “Even though they have so little and I can come back every situation that they were some of the happiest people I learned a lot from them because they just showed how much they loved each other and it really impacted me,” said Roman.

Huss’ journey took place in Nicaragua in Central America. She went with Amigos for Christ, a Christian youth organization known for its Nicaragua mission trips. The focus of her trip was building water systems for a small village. The steps taken for her role was being guided to go to the building area, “and there’s no big builder tools or anything we just do shovels and pickaxes and we dig up a meter and a half down of dirt. Once we dig it all up and they put the pipe in,” said Huss.

Huss noted that watching the pipe go down and covering it up was one of her favorite parts and was something that she thought was so amazing.

Her biggest takeaway from her experience was “to see all the joy in the people when they don’t have as much as you do. People here are never as joyful as the people you see and they don’t have anything compared to us,” said Huss

These extraordinary students made their summer a priority for a time to give back, in hopes of returning on the same or a similar trip in the summer of 2020. If you are hesitant on going on a Mission Trip here are some words of advice from Huss and Roman:

“It was one of the best experiences I’ve had for sure, if you aren’t really good with going by yourself, definitely try to go with someone. But I think everyone should try to do it because it’s really eye-opening to see what kinds of situations people live in and being able to see what kind of impact you can leave on them,” said Roman.

“Do not be scared to think of it because it’s a foreign country, it’s all safe and everything and if you go with a certain organization they make sure you’re safe the whole time. You’ll get so much out of it even if you’re there for only a couple of days,” said Huss.