Menna Yohannes
A junior
at the Dayton Christian campus, Menna Johannes is not a veteran of the Costa
Rica mission team, but she does have experience in short-term missions. In eighth
grade, during spring break, she had the opportunity to go to Guatemala—a country
also in Central America as is Costa Rica. The trip opened her eyes to the fact
that so many people in the world are less fortunate than we are in the United
States. Menna shares, “It helped me realized how blessed I am and how thankful
I should be for the life I have.”
Menna
loved her trip to Guatemala. The people were great, and she loved helping the
kids and making people smile because of the help Menna’s team provided. “It was
an all around inspiring trip,” she states. For these reasons, Menna chose to partake
in another mission trip, and specifically Costa Rica because of her studies in
Spanish at DCS and because the locale is similar to that of Guatemala.
 |
| With fellow team member and friend Savannah |
On
this trip in January, Menna looks forward to hanging out with and teaching the
kids. She loves working with children and currently volunteers with children’s
ministries at her church. Menna also looks forward to developing her
relationship with the Lord and with the “wonderful people” with whom she is
traveling.
Menna
enjoys playing the piano and has been taking lessons since third grade.
Practicing and going to recitals and competitions take up most of her time. She
also enjoys reading all kinds of books. “Give me a good one,” she states, “and
I won’t be able to stop reading.”
Menna
encourages others to “TRUST GOD.” It’s important that each person follows what he
or she believes God wants for that person. “It's impossible to describe the
amount of love God has for you, and He only wants what’s best for you, so trust
Him,” she encourages. “It may seem like you're going through hard trials and that
you'll never get out of them, but you will get through with God's help. He'll
never leave or forsake you, so just follow Him and trust everything He says. In
the end it'll all be okay.”
Stephen Panosian
All four of our adult leaders have been on this trip before—this
will be Stephen Panosian’s second trip as a leader. But before that, as a XCHS senior,
Steve went on the first missions trip to Costa Rica—and it his life.
Currently a sophomore nursing student at Cedarville
University, Stephen plans on graduating in two more years with a BSN and would
then like to attend graduate school in order to become a nurse practitioner.
His ultimate goal with his career is to use that skill on the mission field.
During his first trip to Costa Rica, Stephen fell in love
with the people, and also with serving the Lord in a foreign country. Having spent
a significant portion of my childhood in Europe and having studied Spanish throughout
junior high and high school, Stephen sees how God has been preparing him
through each of these steps. Steve looks forward to God continuing to do so in
the future, just as He has given him a positive disposition to foreign culture
and the ability to adjust to different situations.
Besides these trips through Xenia Christian, Stephen has
taken an independent trip to serve in Costa Rica, and this summer, he plans on
returning as an intern to a career missionary there. Stephen says, “I think
that mission trips have developed compassion in my life. Being a nursing
student, it’s part of my DNA, but this type of compassion is different--it's a
compassion for those that Christ has compassion for, the hurting and the lost.”
On this trip, Stephen looks forward to serving in a new part
of the country and also seeing and working with many Tico friends with whom he has worked before. Furthermore, with all
the new faces on this year’s team, Steve feels that it will be great to get to
know and work with these new high school team members throughout our time of
preparation, as well as in country. He also enjoys and speaks Spanish
fairly well and hopes to be able to communicate well with the Costa Ricans we
meet.
A lot of Stephen’s life is taken up with soccer, as he both
plays and coaches. “A soccer player is what many of my friends know me as,” he
shares, “and I help coach the soccer team here at XC.” He also plays the guitar
and will help with the music ministry on the trip.
Stephen encourages others with the truth that God uses
unique situations to influence your life--let Him do so. “I didn't plan on
going on a mission trip my senior year, but my sister encouraged me to go with
her to Costa Rica. Now I feel called to the mission field (using medicine) and
it all started with going to Costa Rica as a senior.”
Evan Ramey
Several
of the guys on our team actually work with Steve Panosian on the XCHS soccer
team. Such is the case of one our veteran team members, Evan Ramey. Evan is a senior at the Xenia campus and
plans on studying nursing at Wright State University after graduating this
coming May.
Evan
first went to Costa Rica last year and shares that it was an “eye-opener.” Through
the trip, God distinctly showed him that God wants him involved in missions.
Evan states, “I’m interested in short term missions because I want to do long
term missions after college.” Doing short term missions, for Evan, is a great
transition toward career missions. He chose the Costa Rica trip because he had
gone before and because he aims to work in missions in Central or South
America.
“I’m looking forward to returning to Costa
Rica,” Evan says, “because I’m looking forward to seeing the happiness on
children's faces when they realize we’re there to spend time with them.”
Children’s ministries are the focus of the majority of our team’s time both on
the ground and in preparation.
As
stated earlier, Evan’s other interests include all sports, but as he states, “I
can never get enough soccer.” This year at Xenia Christian, he has participated
in both the soccer and golf teams.
“No
matter what season of life you are in,” Evan encourages, “Rejoice and don’t
worry. God is there even if it doesn’t seem like it. Just look for him every
day. You will find him.”
Andy Urschel
Another of our soccer player team-members, Andy Urschel is a senior at Xenia Christian planning
to study engineering after graduating in May. His belief that we as Christians have
been blessed with understanding of the Bible and God's love was the motivation
for participating in a mission trip this year. “I feel that we shouldn't just
let that knowledge sit and gather dust,” Andy shares, “And having
taken Spanish classes, I felt that this Costa Rica trip would be a
great way to share the gospel and use everything I've learned.”
In 2010, Andy participated in a mission trip
to Washington, D.C., on the 4th of July. While there, the team was able
to present the gospel by handing out CDs with the message of salvation
translated into hundreds of different languages. On this trip to Costa Rica,
Andy looks forward to growing closer to God and to his fellow teammates through
the preparation and efforts involved. He prays that God will use this new
experience to reshape his perspective on life. 
Andy reminds us that we don't always know what plans God has for us, so we should not get frustrated when things go wrong. “The small problems we face are only temporary compared to the eternal plans God has,” he encourages
No comments:
Post a Comment