Good Samaritan students to embark on mission to Cambodia
Seventeen KingsWay students are looking forward to the end of exams for more than one reason.
They’ll be joining four teachers flying to Cambodia on a whirlwind mission trip – the first school group in the country to travel with aid organisation Samaritan’s Purse.
The students will be doing as much as they can in the short trip, visiting schools, villages and prisons. Their first stop on arriving will be the killing fields of the Cambodian civil war.
Teacher Ann Bailey says they’ll be like a ‘‘discovery team’’.
‘‘They will see if it’s something the school wants to keep doing.’’
Student Donaley Watson says they are starting to get excited about the trip.
‘‘It’s going to be insane because we’re doing so much each day. We’re also distributing over 300 Christmas Boxes.’’
Watson was responsible for organising the Christmas Boxes, part of Samaritan’s Purse’s Operation Christmas Child where gifts are handed out worldwide.
Student Courtney Dwyer is looking forward to ‘‘being in a third world country, away from everything and in the moment’’.
The students aren’t allowed to bring cellphones on the trip, which hasn’t raised many complaints.
‘‘It means we can spend time with the kids and concentrate,’’ Joseph Hagen says.
They have all raised money for their trip in different ways, some with part- time j obs and others having money donated towards the cause.
Student Dallace Robertson had The Warehouse Silverdale sponsor the team $ 600 worth of sports equipment and art supplies for schools.
The primary school pupils have also been helping out by collecting stationery which the group will take over with them.
The trip to Cambodia is one of many mission trips made by the school, with two groups going to Fiji and two going to Vanuatu next year. ‘‘It’s only 10 days,’’ Bailey says. ‘‘But it’s 10 days that will change their lives forever.’’