Seniors share mission trip experiences

“In the mornings we would go to strips in the town square. I would go to stores and talk to them and get to know them personally,” Senior Joseph Rury said.

Over the summer, not everyone was kicking back watching Netflix or hanging out by the pool.

Instead, three students decided to take their faith and let it lead them in crazy directions.

Rury went to Aosta, Italy with his youth group from Mount Zion Baptist Church to spread the word of God.

“In the afternoons we would go to parks and playgrounds to play with the children or do arts and crafts with them,” Rury said.

Seniors Emily Frady and Cassie Foshee also found themselves branching out. Frady and Foshee are members of First Baptist Huntsville church’s youth group. Their group contributed sweat and hard work as they built a school in the Dominican Republic. The school was built across the road from a church the group constructed three years prior. Along with the school, the group also constructed a concrete house.

“The houses there are like shacks. They’re made of tin. Hopefully, within the next who knows how many years we can get all of those tin houses to be concrete houses,” Frady said.

While abroad, Frady and Foshee found themselves shocked at the day-to-day life of children in the Dominican Republic, wishing to love and help these children in any way they could.

“It’s heartbreaking because they don’t want anything except for love. The kids have to go and get their own water that is not clean,” Frady said. “They get mangos from a tree. That’s pretty much all the food they get except for what the city gives to them.”

Not only did they care for the children, but the children cared for them. They gave when they could and helped when they found an opportunity.

“We would be sitting on the dust and when we would get up all the kids would dust you off, so that you wouldn’t have any dust on you. It was cute,” Foshee said. “They’re very generous, like when I went to their houses, they would give me their drinks and their chairs and stuff. They don’t even have anything and they’re offering it to you.”

The kids these volunteers met do not have many material items, but they know how improvise when they fall short.

“They don’t have toys. They play with sticks and rocks for baseball. When we went, we brought baseball bats, baseballs and gloves. Once we brought them out they were so grateful for it. They loved us and we loved them,” said Frady.

For Rury, traveling to Italy was a way to help those in need, but he has found that the trip has given him a newfound sense of confidence and openness.

“They really opened me up more than I could imagine. I can talk to random strangers easily now,” Rury said.

Since Foshee has returned from the Dominican Republic, she has a different perspective on the way Americans live their lives and how she lives her own.

“We take everything for granted. We have so many luxuries and so many things,” Foshee said. “They don’t even have clothes and we get mad if we don’t have the newest thing. It kind of put things in a perspective for that.”