La Sierra students find their calling in ADRA Amazon adventure

The La Sierra University students, two seniors and a junior respectively, spent two weeks in July with more than 220 other Seventh-day Adventist college student volunteers from 10 schools around the United States and South America participating in a first extreme adventure project sponsored by international faith-based humanitarian aid organization, Adventist Development and Relief Agency, or ADRA.

Ensconced deep in Brazil’s Amazon jungle, the students lived on double-decker river boats where they slept in hammocks at night and spent their days completing the construction of a school campus along the river’s edge. They worked from sunup to sundown in steaming jungle heat, relied on bottled water, and learned to do without internet connectivity.

However, any hardships the La Sierra students endured during their missions adventure paled in comparison to the beauty they witnessed, the cultural experiences they gained, the friendships they forged, and especially the fulfilment and life direction they derived from helping to significantly improve the lives of others.

“This trip really opened our eyes as to what we want to do in the future and what God’s calling us to do, and we know that it’s service,” said Hardin, this year’s La Sierra student association president and a business management and legal studies major. “Regardless of whatever we’re doing, it’s about giving back and helping others.”

In total, six students from La Sierra University along with assistant chaplain and Center for Outreach & Mission Service leader Linda Biswas joined the missions trip called ADRA Connections Extreme. Their Brazilian adventure began with a 25-hour boat ride from the ADRA base in the city of Manaus up the mighty Amazon to reach the construction site of the new Adventist Technical School of Massauari, or ETAM. Several boats ferried the volunteer students and ADRA coordinators to their destination. La Sierra’s group rode the river with an ADRA media team, coordinators and translators.

“Within those 25 hours we started to bond with everybody on the boat. We shared stories and experiences and had worships together,” said Nuñez who studies business management and sociology. 

“That was so cool,” said Afalava, an art major and musician. “It was so fun because you got to see the stars at night. And we had pink dolphins follow us.”

Once docked at their destination, the student volunteers were assigned construction tasks. They helped build classrooms, a dormitory, a cafeteria, a library and houses for missionaries. The La Sierra students painted the inside and outside of two, two-bedroom, one-bath mission houses where school faculty will live. They also installed tile and grout, helped dig four-foot-deep holes for light poles and other tasks. It was hard work, Afalava said, “but it was fun and so fulfilling.”

In the midst of all the construction, the students experienced the exotic abundance of the jungle -- a jaguar’s paw prints in the mud, a baby crocodile in the river, massive lily pads many feet wide, and spider monkeys, some of which climbed onto students’ backs. 

On Sabbath, the students traveled a couple of hours down river to reach a remote village of short, tin-roofed homes where their arrival as the community’s first outside visitors in many years attracted curious and warm-hearted children. The youngsters held their hands and clambered around them. Many of the children would soon attend school at the ETAM campus which was scheduled for completion that month. 

“That was the highlight of the trip for me,” said Nuñez. “We spent all of Sabbath with them. We had Sabbath School with the kids and we went to natives’ houses and sang to them, they told us their stories, how they lived. They were very touched by the experience. Several of the women cried.”

The school campus is the result of a request seven years ago by villagers who told mission leaders of their children’s need for formal education. Land was purchased from a donor and two classrooms were built. The campus was inaugurated in July 2016. School organizers believed that without God’s intervention, it would take many years to complete the full project. But two years later, ETAM officially opened following the participation of ADRA Connections Extreme and the student volunteers. Forty-five children between ages 5 and 14 are attending classes in brand new buildings, and school teachers have new homes in which to live. 

“It’s an unexplainable feeling; the kids had dropped jaws when they saw their new classroom,” remarked ETAM teacher Gabriela Dos Santos in an interview with ADRA. “I also think the houses for teachers are beautiful. It’s a joy to see something so well done.”

The villagers told the students the construction of the campus was an answer to their prayers. The university students felt their own lives had been significantly impacted as well.

“I definitely want to do another mission trip,” said Nuñez. “It’s something I don’t think I’ll stop doing. I felt like I was called to help.”

Said Hardin, “I just came back really thinking that the mission doesn’t end. That even though we completed the work, God’s work is actually not done. We wanted to go back. We didn’t want to leave.”

To commemorate their experience, the student volunteers pressed green-painted thumb prints onto a tree image painted on a giant canvas that was created for the school. The prints formed the leaves of the tree. The image “is a symbolic reminder of the mental, physical, and spiritual growth that occurs for each student at ETAM,” an ADRA release states.

In a reflection piece for ADRA, La Sierra University student Lazarus Valenzuela writes about the transformative impact the Amazon mission trip had on his life. He originally joined the expedition for “selfish reasons,” he stated—it was an opportunity to travel, explore Earth’s natural wonders, and engage in a bit of soul searching. “Then, in my exhaustion, I forgot myself,” he wrote. “I realized that by immersing myself in service doing God’s work surrounded by His people, I was learning about myself. … I learned discernment comes when you let go and allow God to work in your life. 

I may not have discovered what God’s plan for my life is just yet, but who knows, maybe I’ll figure that out on my next ADRA Connections trip,” wrote Valenzuela.

ADRA Connections Extreme caters to university students interested in volunteering for large-scale construction and community development projects in areas of extreme need. For information about volunteering opportunities through ADRA Connections Extreme, visit ADRAConnections.org.