FCA's Senior Class travels to Puerto Rico
Eleven amazing humans from the Faith Christian Academy community traveled to Puerto Rico over Spring Break to assist a local church known as Mar Azul.
Translated “Blue Ocean,” Mar Azul has been helping the area recover from Hurricane Maria, a category five hurricane that triggered numerous landslides and plunged the entire island into darkness in 2017. Power grids, water supplies, roadways, and communications were destroyed. Reconstruction is ongoing.
When they arrived, the team of teens and parents were tasked with helping a small Christian school with painting and relocating supplies. Bayamon Christian Academy, a private Christian school with about 50 students, was thankful for the help. When asked what she learned, senior classman Laura Reynolds said “It gave me a better understanding of missions in general. You can be sharing the Gospel through your actions, not just your words. And the culture was not as different as I thought it would be.” Laura was accompanied by her mother, Marsha Reynolds, five classmates, three parents, and Lori Metzger, Spanish Teacher and FCA’s Teacher of the Year.
“I am so proud of how they worked”, said Metzger. “They dug in and did the work without complaint, which allowed us extra time to see the island.”
Of all the things they experienced, the kayak trip to a bioluminescent waterway was everyone’s favorite! Puerto Rico is home to three such waterways, an amazing and rare natural phenomena best experienced at night, when microscopic plankton produce light at the touch of a hand (or paddle)!
Pictured left to right at Bayamon Christian Academy:
Yize “Bob” Liu, Shannon Pritchard, Margaret Gregory, Marsha Reynolds, Laura Reynolds, Kaytlin McKay, Robert “Ben” Burnette, Matthew Burnette, Thomas “Tommy” Irby Jr, Lori Metzger, and Thomas Irby Sr.