My Educational Experience

As we pulled up to the massive elementary school building, I begged my mom to let me stay home from school, just once. As usual, she said no. Realizing my attempt to get out of school was futile, I shouldered my backpack, swung open the door, and trudged over to the front door. I would rather be anywhere else than here. For the majority of my life, I attended public schools. It wasn’t rare for me to fail a test or even a whole class. It was because of these failures that I would get even more demotivated and threw away the idea of working hard or completing quality work altogether.

One of the many impactful times was when the realization how happy the kids are with so little. Going into the trip you are told how they live in poverty, but the realization of how little they have does not seem real until it is experienced in person. It would have been normal if the kids walked in with glum faces and an ungrateful heart (it is what we are used to in America, after all- being ungrateful or sad about what you have/given), but instead the room lights up with the smiles of the children who are so grateful/proud of everything they have. One instance of how happy/proud they are of what they have is when we visited the homes of a student and teacher from Hope for Guatemala. When visiting Hadie’s home- one of the teachers at Hope for Guatemala- and meeting some of her family was an eye-opening experience. Hadie’s mom was 40 years old and has had 14 children and could not stop smiling, even though two of her children had died tragically just a couple years ago. Hadie’s mom ran her business- a tortilla shop- from the front of her house which was a considered nicer for that area. It had a 3 room house that was being renovated to have a bigger area than the hallway to sell tortillas and another room 2 rooms that 4 people could sleep/live in instead of 5 per room, and the renovations was affordable because of the donated money through the church and

The country was foreign, a first for me. Dilapidation and ruin scattered the horizon as far as one could see. Guatemala is a place where poverty has a strong grasp on its people. We traveled tirelessly for hours to reach the poorest of the poor. Upon arrival old, young, and natives of all shapes and sizes formed receiving lines, eager to welcome us with gifts of smiles and gratitude. It was an experience that forever changed me. This was the first time I had stepped outside the boundaries of the American culture into a world where nothing is taken for granted. Each day spent on my mission trip brought a fresh awareness of gratefulness. Any pre-trip reluctance quickly became a vague memory as my emotions welled within bring a fresh change to

Last summer, I flew to Nicaragua for ten days with a team of sixteen girls and boys. I knew a couple people who have gone to mission and service trips like this and they said it was a really good experience, so I thought about and eventually made the decision to go. It was both one of the most terrifying and amazing experiences I have ever had. When we landed and arrived in Managua, I saw people living in extreme poverty left and right. People lived in houses with large rusty metal sheets for walls and roofs. Kids played outside

After landing in Mexico and meeting up with the people I would be working with during a three-day mission trip, we were crammed into a bus and spent the next two hours getting to know each other. We were there to build homes for a multitude of families in the town of Xochimilco, Mexico. When we arrived late in the afternoon, we were led to an empty school where we would spend our nights. Sleeping on the floor next to school lockers with bugs buzzing in my ears in a country I did not know well was an interesting experience to say the least—but that was just the beginning. At dawn, the real work began and so did a change in my thinking that had a dramatic effect on my perspectives about life.

Narrow hallways walled by human heads and limbs crowding every space between metal bars surrounded me. Children starved on unpaved streets with only rags that wrapped their bodies. I ended my high school career by serving a foreign community. In Chinandega, Nicaragua I had the opportunity to befriend and support the sick, the imprisoned, the orphaned and impoverished. This experience among others shaped me to appreciate the value of philanthropy and social justice.

During my sophomore year, I got a chance to travel India to volunteer in a small hospital. Here I met many children and teens who walked over 10 miles from rural areas in an impoverished state, just to receive general health care. Being exposed to the conditions in India that has never

Over the past few years, I have had many opportunities to share myself in the service of others, but most importantly by mission trips to Guatemala. On such trips I helped indigenous Mayans living in some of the most impoverished regions. Throughout the duration of my visit, I helped build basic stoves, prepared and handed out food bags, gave away live chickens, handed out donations and water filters, and participated in eye clinics. While these actions may seem average, their impact has left a lasting effect.

Over the summer I went to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, for a Church Mission trip. Our group stayed at a place called El Hogar. El Hogar gives a place for kids who live in very poor families or have no families. El Hogar gives the kids an education and a place to live. My experience there was like most others that have gone but it was special to me. All of the kids welcomed my group with open arms and love, I never wanted to leave. I had seen things and experienced things that I know I would never experience anywhere else. The whole city was riddled with poverty, nothing compared to poverty in USA. Even though the city was very poor it had many beautiful aspects to it, the mountains, the artwork and some of the people too. Even though the kids of

On a recent trip to Nicaragua I encountered events that were life changing. It was a totally new experience for me, from the people, the culture, and the environment. This time gave me a new appreciation for the environment in which I live, a variety of eye opening experiences, and led to life changing personal growth.

Over the summer, a fellow classmate and I were able to attend a “She’s the First Summit”, which was a weekend long conference that featured different activists and two scholars, one from Ethiopia and the other from Guatemala, that She’s the First sponsors. Throughout the weekend we were constantly exposed to different views and beliefs that focused on the subject of education around the world. Speaking with the two STF scholars really opened my eyes to how unappreciative I am about being able to go to school every day. The opportunities I have been given, would be unfathomable to my family members that came before me.

We traveled down into the slums of Puerto Peñasco and walked around talking to the people of the area. Many of them lived in houses that were constructed out of spare sheets and pieces of wood. They didn’t appear to be ungrateful with what they had, and a majority of the people we talked to were very loving to us, and to others. This left an impression on me because I realized how fortunate it was that I lived in a nice home, and how they could be happy with even a portion of what I

Summer of 2015, my father made the decision for me to go to a mission trip to one of the most undeveloped cities in Central America, Managua, Nicaragua, without my input. This idea gradually started to grow on me as weeks of endless hours of training and prepping went by. On July 29th, the plane finally landed, and our crew of 15 teenagers went straight to work. We stayed in an air conditioned home with running water, flushing toilets, wifi, floors, windows, and a roof. To most people, this may seem like no big deal. To many, this is luxury. We spent 10 days building playgrounds for the kids, holding classes for students, providing food and water for families, and so much more. The kids and teens living here didn’t have the basic units of life, but were living each day of their lives with genuine smiles and positive attitudes. This experience changed my way of living by becoming more mature, knowledgeable, much more aware of my surroundings and realizing how truly blessed my family

I was reintroduced to a significant portion of my family, and I learned the conditions that people lived in outside of developed countries. My determination to help people stems to an extent from this event in my life because I’ve had the privilege to witness the unfortunate circumstances that people often experience when others are not paying attention or simply do not care. After my trip to Africa, my parents announced that they were purchasing a gas station. I witnessed my parent work hard to sustain our advantaged lifestyle, and I worked alongside them learning all of the skills and effort that it took to make one’s business successful. I began to appreciate the amount of effort my parents put in towards achieving the lifestyle that we lived. For about 3 years, I attended a local private Christian school until I eventually transferred to a private Catholic school to complete my middle school education. The school’s inability to educate their students left me approximately a year behind in my classes. It is this single event that I can definitively say changed my educational

American society values higher education. College provides many opportunities for developing a variety of social networks, both formal and informal. Obtaining a college degree will be such a valuable and