The Sunnyvale Sun

Cover Story

Photograph courtesy of The King's Academy

Cutting Edge: Nancy Trang, a senior at The King's Academy, works on rebuilding a damaged house in Kentucky during a school trip last month.

Helping Hands

Youth 'spring break' in Mexico, southern U.S.

By Erin Hussey

The phrase "spring break" conjures up images of white sand beaches, out-of-control parties and naps on the pool deck.

But at The King's Academy , a Christian college preparatory middle and senior high school located in Sunnyvale, spring break means something completely different. It's about being uncomfortable, working hard and growing spiritually while doing something meaningful for others.

The idea for an annual "servant safari" to Mexico began more than 15 years ago.

"I had been down there with an organization called Young Life, and it just hit me really hard," says Paul Spates, TKA vice principal and athletic director, who has worked at the school for 16 years.

"I thought it would be really cool for our kids here to experience something very tangible that they could do, and that's build a house and give it away."

Each year the trip got larger. Students started going in consecutive years, and it seemed the entire high school community was marking it on their calendars.

"I look forward to it every year," says Rachel Lewis, a junior who has gone on the TKA mission trip to Mexico for three years.

"Not because I look forward to a week of sleeping in a tent or no showers, but because it's really awesome to spend a week doing something for other people who you know need the help."

Last month, 525 students, parent volunteers and staff members made up the Trippin '07 Servant Safari. They rode in 90 fully packed vans for 14 hours to the outskirts of Tijuana.

Carol Schultz, TKA's director of operations, said the trips always run fairly smoothly.

"The truth is, there is no reason that this should work with so many humans being in one place for one week,'' she says. "We should have far more accidents on the road with that many vehicles. We should have far more accidents on the sites with that many power tools and that many inexperienced kids. But we don't."

Schultz, who calls Spates the visionary and herself the logistical organizer, has been the lead coordinator for the past eight years.

Once they arrived in Mexico, they set up a campsite, which is always located on the same farmer's land.

"A milk farmer-cattle rancher down there got very excited that we were a group that kept coming back year after year," says Spates. "So he provides the field for us to camp in."

The campsite consists of 100 tents, 12 outhouses, a large fire pit, an amphitheater for worship and a temporary kitchen. All are constructed and then broken down each year.

During their week-long trip, the students are divided into groups of 30 and assigned to a specific site.

"Going into it, a lot of people complain about not being able to be with their friends," says Lewis, "but once you get out there, you forget about hanging out with your friends and realize you are here to build a house for a family."

The families who will receive the new houses are chosen ahead of time by a local pastor.

"He has been down there for 35 years and walks the communities and sees the needs," says Spates.

Many of the families live in small, makeshift houses with one bedroom for four people and blankets for front doors. Those are the lucky ones.

There are also single parents living in vans or under two propped-up garage doors. "It just hits you really hard," says Spates.

This year the safari was able to complete 18 houses. The homes are each 16-by-20-feet, weatherproof and have three rooms.

"It's always really emotional when you hand over the keys to the family on the last day," says Lewis. "They always start to cry, but it really reminds you why you are there--you just changed that family's life.''

In addition to building houses, some of the students work in the "Kid's Club," a three-day vacation Bible school program with arts and crafts, puppet shows, an inflatable jump house and singing for the local children.

A new project that was added this year was the construction of a new orphanage complex.

"The farmer who lets us camp on his field gave 5 acres of his prime property to Casa Builders, a group that works with us, to build it," explains Spates.

"It just keeps getting more fun. It's neat that we are making an impact like this."

The trips also have a positive influence on the students.

"I remember the first few years,it was overwhelming for me to see how the kids behaved when they were down there," remembers Schultz.

"They were thoughtful of each other, they were thankful for everything we did for them, there weren't any attitudes and they felt good about themselves and what they were doing. They could just truly be. It's a miracle in my mind."

With enormous devastation still prevalent in the gulf states from Hurricane Katrina, TKA students were given the option of traveling to Pascagoula, Miss. A group of 45 students, staff and adult volunteers went. Another group of 19 chose to work with the Christian Appalachian Project In Kentucky.

"I love Mexico and my heart goes out to the people there, but I feel like I have responsibilities to take of my home before we outreach," says senior Steven Lim, who lives in Cupertino.

Lim, who is also TKA's student body president, participated in the Servant Safari to Mexico his first three years.

"It was the first time our school had gone to Kentucky so most of us didn't know what to expect," he says. "We didn't know what kind of jobs we were going to do. All we knew was that we were going to go and we were going to work."

Lim, 12 other students and seven adults were sent to the poorest neighborhoods by CAP, which is sponsored by Operation New Hope and is designed to help meet the most basic housing needs of impoverished families.

"We helped out six families," says Lim. "Maybe it's not as many as Mexico, but with the number of people we had, I think we did a lot."

The TKA group was divided into three teams, and each did a variety of projects including painting, cleaning, re-roofing, installing new drywall and putting in new windows.

Lim, who will attend the University of Southern California next fall, plans on returning to Kentucky with TKA next year.

"The poverty that you see really struck me," says Lim. "After college I really want to do an internship with the Christian Appalachian Project."

The students and adults who chose to travel to Pascagoula, Miss., had a comparable experience to Lim's and the others who went to Kentucky.

"It is very different with 45 people total vs. 500," says principal Bob Kellogg, who was a member of the Mississippi mission. Kellogg, who was a teacher for 36 years, is in second year as principal.

When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast close to two years ago, Pascagoula received between 24 feet and 28 feet of storm surge, leaving an estimated 900 to 1,000 homes destroyed.

Unlike those who traveled to Mexico,or even Kentucky, the jobs in Pascagoula consisted of more demolition than building.

"We had kids work on one home that we called the swamp house," says Kellogg.

The house was surrounded by mud and water and had bowed sheetrock crawling with insect infestations and mold that needed to be completely removed.

"For those kids to do that willingly," says Kellogg, "I really respect them for not just getting in the van and saying, 'Take me home.' "

Plans are already being made for the three trips next year. The school is also looking at adding a fourth trip to Idaho, Canada or an Indian reservation in California.

For more information on The King's Academy visit www.tka.org.