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Abby Allgeyer

Senior Abby Allgeyer poses with a group from the Life Teen program in Haiti.

While some West students spent their spring break catching rays on the beach and relaxing, seniors Abby Allgeyer, Jacob Cupps, Rachel Osborne and freshman Natalie Butler spent their time off sharing their Christian faiths on mission trips, both abroad and locally.

“I went [to Guatemala] with people from my church, and also my family,” Butler said. “We did lots of different projects while we were there. We ran a Vacation Bible School for the children, we did house renovations where we would plaster and paint a house, and we went on walks where we would go and give food to people on the streets”, Butler said.

Cupps and Osborne also participated in service activities for their trip, but closer to home in underprivileged areas of St. Louis City.

“With this mission trip in particular, we talked so much about the history of the city and race relations,” Cupps said. “I think that it’s important to recognize that because I live out here and people from the West community are raised out here, we live in a privileged bubble.”

While Cupps and Osborne spoke English with the people they were serving on their trip, on Allgeyer’s mission trip to Haiti, the language initially proved to be a barrier.

“While I was down there, I learned that speaking the same language is not always a way to express love. There are so many different ways to express love and joy, and I had to do that through my body language, like smiling or waving at someone. It really forced me to be outward with my expressions,” Allgeyer said.

By serving individuals in a Haitian prison, Allgeyer also grew in her awareness of how her actions can have a positive influence on others.

“The system there is very corrupt, so there were twenty to thirty men crammed into a 15 by 15 cell. They were only allowed outside once a day for five minutes just to shower, and that was only if they had soap,” Allgeyer said. “It was my favorite part because I got to bring joy to them. I got to make them laugh, which in return made me smile.”

Students, abroad and at home, discovered through their experiences that poverty can manifest itself in both extreme financial need and in the lack of strong interpersonal relationships.

“I learned about all the different kinds of poverty in life,” Butler said. “Not just economic, but relational, I learned that everyone has a kind of poverty, they just have different kind of poverty than I might have. It just makes you look at people differently and how everyone is just very similar. We are all lacking in something.”

Cupps’ encourages his peers to perform service to not only better the communities and individuals they are aiding, but also for personal growth.

“The more you can separate yourself from your ignorance, even if it’s something you’ve grown up with, or something that isn’t your fault, you’re just benefitting from it,” Cupps said. “The more you can go out of your way to fix that or work against that, the better you will be as a person.”