Boynton teen takes part in mission trip with classmates
By Cynthia A. Roby
Special Correspondent
Posted June 2 2006
Josiah Lamerson,
16, of Boynton Beach, had to raise money to travel to Atmore, Ala.,
to help hurricane victims still suffering from Katrina and Ivan.
Lamerson, a 10th-grader at Boca Raton Christian School, spent a week
in March working as a missionary in Atmore.
He was one of 90 out of the school's 104 students who took mission
trips in March and April to Alabama, Orlando, Phoenix and a refugee
camp in Costa Rica, said the high school's principal, Leslie Lynch,
48, of Delray Beach.
Each grade was assigned a particular task at each location, and
Lamerson's mission was repair work.
"I worked on a team that rebuilt the deck of a damaged home," he
said. "I have no carpentry skills, but a couple of dads that work
construction came with us, worked with us, guided us through the
process."
The mission trips cost from $200 to $1,200, and the students raised
the money through donations and fundraisers.
"Our first mission trip, in spring 2000, was to the Adventure
Learning Centre in the Bahamas. It was for 20 freshmen. That has
grown into four trips each year, one for each grade," Lynch said.
The senior class traveled to Costa Rica to help build a church and
playground in a square-mile refugee camp called La Carpio, said
senior Joel Williams, 17, of Boca Raton.
"La Carpio is filled with Nicaraguan refugees hoping to find safety;
it's very poor," he said. "There are no paved roads. Homes have
nothing inside, only outside walls and dirt floors."
Each student took one piece of luggage filled with clothing and
hygiene products they gave to the refugees, Williams said.
"We unloaded three dump trucks filled with construction material for
a church. We cleaned the construction site as well," he said.
As part of the students' missionary training, they taught Sunday
school to the children in the camp and passed out toys. "The
language was a barrier, not a hindrance. There were a couple of
people in our group fluent in Spanish," Williams said.
The freshman class received 36 hours of missionary training at the
HEART Institute (Hunger and Education Resources Training), a
40-acre, mock Third World village on the campus of Warner Southern
College in Lake Wales, said student activities coordinator Joy
Rhodes, 48, of Boca Raton.
"It was a true boot camp for ninth-graders. It's how missionaries
get training, learn to prepare for and survive in the environment
they will be working," Rhodes said.
The freshmen trained to survive as missionaries in a Third World
environment.
"I immediately saw just how blessed I am," said Jennie Weil, 15, a
ninth-grader from Delray Beach. "The first day, we complained about
not having electricity. We slept in bunk beds inside of cabins.
"The toilets were outhouse latrines, so they did not flush. Overall,
we had a lot of fun just surviving," she said.
Church on the Street ministry in Phoenix welcomed the junior class
to help with its outreach program, said Steven Sengderg, 16, an
11th-grader from Delray Beach.
The students distributed food and took part in church services for
people on the street, just out of jail or homeless.
"We would minister to them as we served, sing songs or perform
skits, tried to make things better for them," Sengderg said. "Most
of them told me that the root of their situation was drug abuse."
Joanna Rhodes, 17, of Boca Raton described the accommodations.
"When we first got there, I stayed in a dorm with two women that had
gone through rehabilitation and were getting their lives together,
and three other girls from my school," she said.
"It was like a very tiny apartment. One of them sat and talked with
us, and talked about her life and the abuse she suffered. Hearing
her stories scared me at first. But later, I found her really cool.
It really opened my eyes, being around her."
When the students returned to school, they were assigned time to
organize their photos and speak to other students about their
experiences, Rhodes said.
"The children are changed more by the mission trips than any other
experience in the school," she said.
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