JESUIT PERSPECTIVES • FALL 2017 15 Jesuit football players serving in Cuba Student Council president Tyler Peterson ’18 (front right) and 16 other students served in Nicaragua Jake Rodriguez ’18 was among the Jesuit students welcomed into a new family A week before he led the mission trip to Nicaragua, Fr. Capuano took a group of eight Jesuit football players with him on a four-day trip to Cuba in mid-July. They performed manual labor and numerous tasks while experiencing the nearby island country that had been largely closed off for decades while incurring widespread poverty. The fi rst Jesuit mission trip of the summer, the fi rst week in June, was the annual trek to the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota (see story at right by Chris Jennings ’18 about his experience in South Dakota). For several years, 10 Jesuit rising seniors have assisted the local St. Francis Mission in its work there. Led by Jesuit teachers Nick Werner and Amy Martin, the experience was once again a huge success. Providing hands-on assistance to the Lakota Sioux people, the students operated the “Mind, Body, and Soul” Vacation Bible School for about 30 Lakota children each day, and in the evenings they labored in the community food garden. Via these mission trips, as part of Jesuit’s community service program, the virtue of serving others who have real needs is integrated into the process of forming young men to do God’s will. My New Family in South Dakota By Chris Jennings ’18 I had been on a service trip before, the previous year to Nicaragua, so I felt like I had a good idea of what to expect when I headed to the Lakota Reservation in South Dakota with nine friends from the Class of 2018, along with Mr. Werner and Mrs. Martin. The only diff erence was that this time we would be staying inside the United States, so we would experience poverty suff ered by fellow Americans. It was an awakening to see how much the country we live in today is not as perfect as it sometimes seems in our daily lives here in Tampa, in our homes, neighborhoods, and schools. South Dakota was a great eye-opener for myself and the other nine rising seniors: Seth Cashen, Ian Halme, Preston Lawn, Shaughn Layton, Ben Ledwon, Jack Mahoney, Harrison Redd, Jake Rodriguez, and Jordan Vivero. Each day we would wake up, grab breakfast, and go across the street to where we operated a Vacation Bible School for kids on the reservation. The VBS would take up most of the day, and then we would head out to the local community food garden, getting dirty and helping out however we could, trying to make farmers out of ourselves. The fi rst day the Lakota kids were shy and hesitant. We broke the ice with card games and other activities that forced us to interact. Once we had played a few games, the kids realized that we were there to have fun with them while also teaching them. By snack time of the fi rst day, it was like we had known each other for years. We were having full conversations about all of their favorite topics, while discussing Saint of the Day cards that we handed out daily. By the end of the week, each child had made a signifi cant impact on all 12 of us. Not only did they smile every day, all the time, but they treated us like family. Understanding what family is to the Lakota tribe was the most impactful part of the trip. The children who could have been shy and wary instead took in this group of strangers from far away. They made us feel as if we were ordinary people in town who they had known for years. Family is what keeps a community together. Even in diffi cult situations family is what makes everything seem better and makes people happy. The Lakota people have sacred rituals and beliefs. The most important belief to them is that family means everything and that God will always love you. Learning from each child that God is always going to love me, and my family will be there no matter what, gave me joy and pleasure every day we were there. With a smaller group on this trip compared to other Jesuit missions, it gave us the sense of family every night, as we took turns cooking meals for each other and playing cards in the family room. Making a new family full of my brothers is why I’ll cherish this trip. I’ll take back the lessons of family and God to Tampa, to share with everyone.
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