The Madison Catholic Herald -- Youth page

Many of us celebrate the July 4th holiday with family picnics or other fun activities. I imagine few of us take time to reflect on the meaning of this holiday and its significance in our lives.

However, with news reports about the recent political upheaval in Iran, I began thinking how lucky we are to live in the United States of America. We owe our freedom and democratic system of government to the earliest Americans. They had to fight to establish this country -- and we should fight (not necessarily in the physical sense) to preserve the freedoms they gained for us.

St. James students learned more from Peter Amakobe (second from left) about the Windmill Project to help provide running water and electricity to African people in small villages. (Contributed photo)

St. James students experience cultures, help other countries

MADISON -- St. James School held its annual arts fair recently, this year focusing on the cultural arts. Students learned about the different crafts, arts, and traditions of different countries and cultures during the daylong celebration.

After a lunch featuring ethnic foods, students were entertained by an Aztec dance troupe, Ballet Folklórico; learned how to wrap a West African headdress; watched and listened to Jamaican music and dance; learned about Chinese silk and characters; heard the church's English organ played (and learned about its history); and more.

In the morning, students "traveled" to countries represented by volunteer parents and friends of the school who shared examples of clothing, crafts, maps, books, and even food from their heritage. They received stamps in their "passports" to show which countries they had learned about.

Meanwhile, other classes heard from storyteller Clare Noelle, listened to marimba player Ricky Vasquez, visited a nearby synogogue, and learned more from Peter Amakobe about the Windmill Project. Student Council leaders also set up a windmill game for students to play as they made donations.

Throughout the year, members of the Student Council at St. James School have worked on the windmill project to help people in small villages in Kenya, Africa.

The goal of this project was to help modernize areas of rural Kenya so they can have running water and electricity. Rural areas lack these basic conveniences.

The project is working to build a windmill to provide electricity and water for the community center and the area homes in Kenya. Most people have to walk miles to get clean water to drink and use in their homes. This windmill along with solar panels will be able to generate electricity and give clean water to the rural people of Kenya.

During the season of Lent, Student Council members made posters and asked parishioners at St. James and St. Joseph Parishes for donations.

Peter Amakobe presented a PowerPoint program to every class explaining the need for and value of clean water in rural areas in Kenya.

Students collected $2,284 at school and at Masses. This will help erect two windmills with solar panels. To learn more about the Windmill Project or to contribute, contact St. James School at 608-256-3095.

The theme for the spring contest was "Postcards and Letters from Friends of St. Paul." The following is one of the winners of the essay contest for grades five through high school, and at right a winner of the drawing contest for grades kindergarten through fourth.

"Sharing my mittens with my friend" by Liam S., First Grade

Be God’s Follower

By Melinda L., Grade 8

Dear Brothers in Sisters in Christ,

Believing in Jesus is more than just saying so. It’s about bearing His name with pride and letting others see how great following Him really is. Show them the immense love and forgiveness Jesus has and maybe you’ll inspire them to join our holy church.

It’s not great acts of charity that inspires, it’s the little things that take only a moment of our lives to perform. Help an elderly neighbor with heavy groceries, walk their dog when they can’t, or comfort a crying child that got hurt at the park.

These people will be grateful for your help and you will be surprised when you learn that just a small deed for someone in need will make you feel good too. Remember the great words of Jesus when he said “Do unto others as you would do unto me.”

Send your honors information to: info@madisoncatholicherald.org or Catholic Herald Youth Online, 702 S. High Point Rd., Madison, WI 53719.

Misericordia students get a different look at life in Peru

CHIMBOTE, Peru (CNS) -- Rachel Roa had visited Peru before, but on a trip with fellow U.S. university students she discovered her parents' homeland in a new way.

"I see the tourist sites when I come with my parents," Roa, 21, told Catholic News Service, but the visit to shantytowns, a hospice and a low-income parish off the tourist trail "let me see a different side" of the South American country.

In a matter of days, the nine students from Misericordia University in Dallas, Pa., met women whose lives revolve around waiting for the water truck to arrive; were mobbed by schoolchildren who wanted to touch their fair skin; received a warm welcome from women in a shantytown; and helped a group of confirmation students clean and paint their parish center.

They learned as much about themselves as about Peru and returned to Pennsylvania determined to stay connected with the people they had met.

"There's no better way to learn about a culture than to be out of your element," said Julianne Curry, 19, a speech language pathology major from Washington Township, N.J. The experience in Peru was "different from what you'd see on TV," she said.

"Young adults are searching for God. Part of our job is helping them connect with God in everyday experiences," said Christine Somers, 41, Misericordia University's campus ministry director, who organized the trip and accompanied the group. "We help them grow in spirituality."

While most of the students had participated in service trips in the United States, including helping rebuild homes in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, many had not traveled abroad. A few were nervous about the trip to Peru, because instead of doing a specific task, they would be immersing themselves in other people's lives.

They learned that relationships are as important as service and that it is crucial to listen to people before taking action.

"We have a lot of resources, but if we don't know what people need," those resources cannot be used effectively, said Roa, an accounting major from Lancaster, Pa., where her family belongs to San Juan Bautista parish.

The trip also gave the students a close look at the work of the Mercy Sisters, who founded Misericordia.

"I'd like to see them go back and make life decisions out of this, to choose careers that can be somewhat free of the materialistic environment they live in," said Sister Deborah Watson, 65, a Mercy Sister from Burlingame, Calif., who hosted the group in Lima, the Peruvian capital, and Chimbote, a fishing port on the north-central coast.

After making home visits with hospice workers in Chimbote, Andrew Roccograndi, 20, a nursing student from Kingston, Pa., said the trip reaffirmed his decision to study nursing and gave him new insight into the problem of poverty.

"The least we have is more than the most they have," he said of the families he visited. "We should be appreciative of what we have, even if it's not a lot."

Despite the poverty, however, the students found the Peruvians they met welcoming and hospitable.

Lauren LaSala, a 20-year-old speech language pathology major from Denville, N.J., and several classmates visited a family in a dirt-floor shack with straw mats for walls and the roof. A member of the family had just celebrated a birthday, and the mother welcomed the students warmly and offered them bowls of "mazamorra," a pudding-like desert made from fruit and purple corn.

The students were hesitant, knowing the family had little money for food, but when they finished, the woman filled their bowls again.

"We always say anybody can do anything if they work hard enough," said Jill Rafferty, 22, a physical therapy major from Rome, Pa., where she belongs to Epiphany Parish in nearby Sayre. But she and other students fear that some dreams may be out of reach for the young Peruvians they met.

At an elementary school they visited, children said they wanted to grow up to be doctors or lawyers, LaSala said, but the odds are against them in a country where people must struggle just to get water and electricity in low-income neighborhoods on the edges of cities like Lima and Chimbote.

"One of the things that surprised me was that (so many) people don't have running water," Curry said.

In a shantytown in Los Olivos, on the northern edge of Lima, the students visited Mercy Sisters who manage a clinic and help women find ways to earn money to support their families. The public water system has not reached that neighborhood, so every few days the women gather their buckets and wait for the water truck.

Besides suffering inconvenience, families in low-income neighborhoods pay four or five times as much for water from trucks as residents of wealthier districts pay for water from the public system.

"Each person can learn something if they're open to learn from the devastating poverty" in much of the world, said Caity Bryson, 22, a physical therapy major from Gettysburg, Pa. Bryson gave the Mercy Sisters $1,160 collected from her home parish of St. Francis Xavier for projects in Peru.

By the end of the 10-day trip, the students were talking about how to share what they had learned with their peers at school and at home and practical ways of helping the people they had met, such as selling handicrafts made by the women with whom the Mercy Sisters work.
Somers said making those connections was one goal of the trip.

"They go back with a different perspective -- they try to live simpler, and they become more aware about the world. The important thing is they go back and educate their friends," she said.

World Youth Day

Editor's note:

Realfaith TV

Reflections on July 4th: We owe our ancestors a debt of gratitude

St. James students experience cultures, help other countries

Be God’s Follower

St. William School

Misericordia students get a different look at life in Peru