Gibault seniors and parents display a copy of the Republic-Times newspaper while in Ecuador. (submitted photo)

Several Gibault Catholic High School students took their senior service project to new heights – 8,000 feet above sea level in the Ecuadorian Andes mountains to be exact.

Fourteen students and seven adults recently returned from two weeks in Cuenca, Ecuador, and surrounding villages, where they worked alongside Bless an Orphan ministries.

The team built a chicken coop and started a food garden for an orphanage. They traveled to remote villages to serve meals, distribute clothes and shoes, and help with medical care for children, elderly and homeless villagers.

The seniors were Anna Cook, Ashley Grohmann, Abby Hasenstab, Joe Hippisley, Jason Merz, Owen Murphy, Maddie O’Neill, Amanda Schmidt, Lauren Schmidt, Monica Shuler, Veronica Southworth, Brock Vonderheide, Josh Witges and Adam Zeveski.

Seven parents split time with the group. Jane and Scott Hippisley and Ryan Grohmann spent the first week with the students. Shanna and James Witges and Todd Vonderheide were there during the second week.  Lauren Schmidt’s father, Elmer, was with the team both weeks.

Bless an Orphan, Inc., is a nonprofit international organization aimed at finding, helping and transforming the lives of orphaned, abused and trafficked children. BAO partners with individuals, churches, schools, businesses and organizations to support its mission to rescue children.

During the first week, the team stayed in the BAO orphanage in Cuenca with 15 children ages 5-15 and three of the children’s mothers. There were no children living at the orphanage at the time the Gibault team was there because BAO did not receive its license to house orphans until the week after the students left.

Some children that stayed with the students were orphans and others were children from poor families. The students played games with them, took them to a movie — where their favorite thing was popcorn — and took them horseback riding through the orphanage’s horse therapy program.

The village children left after the first week, and the Gibault team had a going-away party for them.

“We had cake and games and gifts for them,” Lauren Schmidt said. “Some of the children were crying because they had never been given a gift before.”

The girls received dolls and headbands and the boys were given soccer balls.

“We played soccer with them every day,” she said.

“The kids gave speeches, which the translator had to translate for us,” Ashley Grohmann said. “They told us how thankful they were and sang songs for us. They were so cute.”
Shuler agreed.

“The first day we got there, the kids kept running past our room yelling ‘Hola, hola, hola!’  We couldn’t have asked for a warmer welcome.”

Cook said they blew up 500 balloons as a surprise for the children one day.

“But it was hard keeping it a surprise,” she said. “We had to tape the curtains shut to the dressing room to keep the balloons hidden. The children kept trying to break into our room to see what we were hiding.”

When they weren’t playing with the children, the team worked to build a chicken coop to provide eggs and meat for the orphanage.  The first step in that process was to move a 50-pound rock out from where the coop was to be built – a task that took the group a couple hours.

The job didn’t get much easier after that, as the team had limited tools to use.

“The drill was broken and the screws kept breaking,” Merz said.

The tools for starting a garden provided challenges of their own. They used hand tools for gardening and a pick axe to till the garden.

“Well, we thought the tiller was broken so we plowed by hand the first week,” said Josh Witges. “Then someone pulled the cord and it started.”

Before they left, the group purchased 12 adult chickens and 20 chicks. Some of the chickens will be used to lay eggs and others will be used for meat.

During the second week, the team rode horses across the Andes and traveled to three remote villages. Some parents rode in the van that was also carrying supplies.

“They told us it would take about two hours to ride to one of the villages, but these horses were not meant to carry riders and it took three to four hours,” Hasenstab said.  “Except Veronica’s horse wanted to go fast, so she probably did get there in two hours,”

“It was so hard to get these horses to move. I just got off and walked the last hour,” Hippisley said.

They prepared and served lunches to poor children, elderly and homeless in the villages.  One day was spent shopping at the animal market and produce market to get food to prepare.

“But they were mostly excited about the juice,” Hasenstab said. “After they finished eating, they brought us empty bottles and even trash bags for us to fill with leftover juice.”

The parents that accompanied the students the second week served in the medical field and were able to provide medical treatment to the villagers.  Vonderheide is a physician, Shanna Witges is a nurse practitioner and Elmer Schmidt is a pharmacist.

“In two days, we served 500 people with food and medical treatment,” Hasenstab said.

The students were able to check vitals while parents dealt with particular medical needs.  The villagers also received antibiotics and parasite medicine.

Patients came from as far away as 50 miles and had never previously seen a doctor.

There was also time for sightseeing while in Ecuador.  The group took a double-decker tour of Cuenca, visited the city’s church and cathedral, visited a waterfall and took in a water park.

“Everyone back here was having a snow day from school and we were at a water park,” Shuler said.

They camped out one night in between horseback trips to villages in tents provided by the Ecuadorian military. Shuler said it was the clearest night she had ever seen and loved seeing all the stars. Cook chose to sleep outside the tent in a hammock that night. They were treated to a home-cooked Peruvian meal and were also served guinea pig with the head and claws still attached.

“Guinea pig is a delicacy and it is considered an insult not to eat it, so we all tried it. And no one liked it,” Josh Witges said.

There was a language barrier, even for those students who knew some Spanish. But the teenagers got the biggest laughs at the expense of their Spanish-challenged parent chaperones.

One of the fathers was the last server in a food line. The village children would say “Gracias,” thank you, to him.  He thought he was responding “You are welcome,” or de nada.

Instead, he was saying “Grenada” to them, which means grenade.

Another father would ask the Ecuadorians if they “speak-o English” when he was trying to communicate.

Graduating seniors at Gibault are required to participate in the senior service project. The school blocks out a three-week period for the students to do community work.  Seniors and staff choose project facilities which correspond to student interests and talents.

“It’s about going out into the community and giving back – serving as Jesus served,” said Susan Mackin, a guidance counselor who coordinates the program with Scott Ruppel, campus minister.

Sixty Gibault seniors completed service projects at 25 different locations this year.

Two other groups of seniors have previously traveled internationally for their project. In 2009, a group went to Bolivia to help the Adorers of the Blood of Christ in their work with the poor in LaPaz, Bolivia. Another group of students traveled to Ecuador in 2013.

“Putting them in all these different settings is life changing for many of them,” Mackin said.  “Some of them just bloom after they finish their service project. Many keep helping after the project is completed.”

Shanna Witges said the trip to Ecuador is an eye-opening experience.

“Nobody, no matter how poor you are in this country, can understand the degree of third world poverty,” she said.

The students raised money to fund their trip by giving speeches at churches and asking for donations, sponsoring dress-down days at school, and selling pizza for lunch on designated days.