This year we are excited to announce summer mission opportunities for our high school students. The total costs includes meals, lodging, transportation and incidentals. We invite YOU to prayerfully consider this experience. Here’s the overview and check back as we are updating our local mission trip in January:
Working Boys’ Center in Quito, Ecuador from June 18 through June 30, 2015.
Click here for an application – Friday, January 16>>
The Working Boys’ Center is a Catholic institution that serves over 400 families of street children at three locations in Quito. Its objective is to eliminate poverty among the working children and their families, and it does this by providing them with daily showers, mass, meals, medical and dental care, and an education.
It’s a wonderful place in which to volunteer. Quito is located in the Andes mountains at an elevation of 9,300 feet, about the same as Winter Park, Colorado. So while the altitude takes some getting used to, it’s so high and dry that there are very few flying insects, and none of the mosquito-borne diseases, such as yellow fever and malaria, that are found at lower elevations. Ecuador Time is the same as Central Daylight Time, Ecuador uses the U.S. dollar as its currency, and even the electrical current is the same as in the United States, so you don’t need a converter.
The mild climate, beautiful facility, and warm-hearted people there make for a mission trip that’s inspiring as well as spiritually rewarding. We’ll stay in the Center’s modern volunteer house in Quito and attend daily Mass. We’ll participate in an orientation program, tour all Center locations, visit member’s homes, participate in a “minga” or community work project, tour popular tourism sites in and around Quito, shadow the year-long volunteers for a day, and work on a special project in the Center’s technical education shops. We’ll even get to meet with the Center’s founders, Padre John Halligan, S.J., and Madre Miguel Conway, BVM. You’ll return home not only with a better understanding of the challenges facing families in the third world, but also with wonderful memories of a life-changing experience. You will be witnesses to the joy of the Gospel, and living signs of the love of Christ to the people we encounter.
You must apply to go on this trip. It is open to those who have completed their sophomore, junior, or senior year of high school in June, 2015. Two chaperones and ten youth will go. Due to the anticipated number of applicants, we expect that not everyone who applies will be accepted.
Please visit the Christian Formation office for an application. The payment for the Working Boys’ Center trip is payable in four installments described in the application cover letter. The total cost of $2,500.00 for the trip includes airfare, meals, lodging, ground transportation and incidentals.
Please note that grants to defray the costs of mission trips for St. John Vianney parishioners are available from our parish Mission Trip Endowment Fund. Mission trip grant applications are available at the SJV Christian Formation Office.
If you would like more information, please contact John Thompson (johnt@stjohnv.org) or Claire Hoffmeyer (claireh@stjohnv.org). Or call the Christian Formation Office at 262-796-3944.
REGISTRATION DEADLINE FOR THE WORKING BOYS’ CENTER TRIP:
FRIDAY, JANUARY 16, 2015
