By Elizabeth Sims
Enterprise Editor

 Inner city communities in South America or the African bush never cross a person’s mind when thinking of ideal international destinations. However, four students from Coppell High School travelled to these very places this summer. They were not visiting for a simple vacation; they were there on a mission rooted in faith and love.

 After saving her money for nearly a year, senior Stacey Spaans departed on June 17 to fly to Mombasa, Kenya

with a mission group from The Village Church in Dallas.

 “We partnered with a local village church and went out with translators and did door-to-door ministry, trying to get the village members to come to the church,” Spaans said.

 Through her experiences in planting churches and sharing the gospel with the village people, Spaans was personally impacted by the connections she made with the village children.

 “I got really attached to the little kids we were working with. Whenever the translators would come, the kids from the church would just follow us,” Spaans said. “Just seeing how close we got even though we didn’t speak the same language was awesome.”

 After two life-changing weeks, Spaans returned with more confidence in her ability to reach out to others and plans to return to Mombasa next summer.

 Just three days after Spaans returned to Texas on July 1,  another group left for Africa. Rather than travelling to Kenya, senior Nick Hruby, junior Jordan Logan, along with her parents Mona and Howard Logan, and CHS 2013 graduates Preston Ramsey and Kiley Bratton were bound for Lusaka, the capital city of Zambia. Though they were all heading for the same destination, each had a different reason for going.

 “I have always loved travelling, and I had just read the book ‘Radical’ by David Platt, which inspired me to go on a mission trip to a third world country,” Hruby said.

 For Jordan, this trip was an answer to a higher calling after the death of her brother, Jacob, last year.

 “After Jacob died, I felt God telling me that there was more to life and that his plan for me wasn’t here but elsewhere,” Jordan said. “I was inspired to go on this trip because I felt it was what God was calling me to do.”

 Once the group arrived in Zambia with 106 other volunteers, they went to work with an organization called Family Legacy, which provides a weeklong camp for orphans in the city. Accompanied by two translators, each volunteer acted as a counselor for 10 of the children for the week.

 “These children live off one or no meals every day, are not schooled, barely have shelter and have never been loved on,” Hruby said. “During this week we just loved on the children and taught them how precious they are in God’s eyes.”

 After nearly two weeks of loving on the children and experiencing the challenges of their lives, Jordan felt a strong conviction that could potentially guide her future.

 “This experience has changed my whole life. Africa is home now and it has set my life on track,” Jordan said. “In the future, I want to build an orphanage there. It has just turned my life upside down, or I should say upright.”

Not only did this trip impact everyone individually, it has forever changed the family relationship for the Logans.

“It wouldn’t be the same if only one of us had gone, but we had the same experience and were able to share that memory and share that bond. When you share memories like that it creates a bond,” Mona said. “We will always have that trip between us and the positive impact it had on our lives.”

 While these students went overseas, one student stayed a little closer to home. For 10 days at the beginning of August, senior Alexa Ramirez travelled south of the border to Guatemala City for a medical mission trip. She felt drawn to this part of the world after hearing stories and seeing pictures from her father’s own trips.

 “I speak Spanish, for one thing, and hearing my father talk about his trips just made it really appealing to me,”

Ramirez said. ”My heart is just drawn to Central and South America.”

 Accompanied by her mother and ten other missionaries, Ramirez spent her time checking on patients in a hospital, working with children in a nearby orphanage and visiting David, a child she sponsors through a mission program called Compassion International. Through these experiences, she felt a significant change in her outlook on life and began to contemplate the prospects for her future.

 “It was a huge culture shock. It made me a lot more grateful for the opportunities that I have, and I realized that I don’t need a lot to live; I just need Jesus. Seeing kids in need just rocked my world,” Ramirez said. “Since there is so much medical need there, I’d like to go back for a few years after I am done with school to offer my services.”

 Though they all travelled to different places, each student returned with memories and experiences that changed their lives. When asked what they would say to someone interested in an international mission trip, the answer was an overwhelming “just do it”.

 “When I decided to raise money for the trip, there were times that I didn’t think it would be possible and maybe not even worth it, but I am so thankful that I kept trying and ended up raising all the money,” Hruby said. “To hear and see pictures of how poor these third world countries are is one thing but to personally see and meet the children living in these awful conditions is a completely different thing.”