Destination summer: VHHS students, graduates share vacation plans
Three Vestavia Hills High School teens are using the summer months to immerse themselves in once-in-a-lifetime opportunities far from the comforts of their suburban home.
Rather than drift away poolside, graduates Elson Stewart and Haley Harmon, as well as student Matthew Kenny, will be boarding planes, riding trains and diving headfirst into cultures miles from their own.
From the heart of Germany to the bustling capital of Honduras, and from the Greek islands to South Africa, they said they hope to soak in worldwide cultures and, at the same time, share a little Southern hospitality.
Sharing the Gospel
Elson Stewart, who walked across the stage with her classmates in the VHHS graduation ceremony in May, didn’t waste much time tackling her next adventure. Just days later, she boarded a plane headed for the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa as part of a mission trip with Forgotten Children Ministries.
During her weeklong trip, Stewart lived and worked on the ministry’s land, known as Grace Farm, in the mountains just outside Tegucigalpa. Grace Farm, according to FCM’s website, is a 40-acre farm where the ministry’s rescued boys are given a new lease on life. There, FCM’s members teach, train, nurture and share the Gospel with formerly homeless children who now have the opportunity to reside there. The boys who live on the farm, many who have already experienced drugs, alcohol, physical, emotional and sexual abuse, are separated into three houses based on their age and maturity level. Mission groups, like those Stewart was part of, are in charge of educating and ministering to the children.
“I’m looking forward to loving on the kids, getting to know them,” Stewart said.
Stewart has been taking Spanish classes since she was in middle school, and she said she was looking forward to testing her speaking skills.
“I’ll be completely immersed in the language for a week,” she said.
Along with working with the children at the farm, Stewart said the group also would travel into the heart of the city for a type of “rice and beans” ministry, where they would hand out food and toys to Hondurans as a way to also share the word of God.
Stewart said she hoped the trip would open her eyes to the kinds of needs other children in the world have, as well as the differences of everyday life in a distant country.
“The perspective that I will gain on life will be priceless,” she said. “There are as many as 20,000 street kids in Honduras.”
Though she had never been on a mission trip outside the country, Stewart said she jumped on the opportunity to travel to Honduras when her Bible study leader, Jen Brister, encouraged her to come along. Brister, who is from Honduras, always spoke so lovingly of the country and its people, Stewart said, so she knew she didn’t want to miss out.
“The ministry is so close to her heart,” said Stewart.
In August, Stewart will take yet another big step when she moves in to her new home on the campus of the University of Mississippi in Oxford. Despite being back stateside, Stewart said her love for faraway adventure won’t leave her anytime soon.
“I plan to be an international-studies major, and minor in Spanish,” she said.
Just a ‘regular’ student
Matthew Kenny, a rising junior at VHHS, recently learned he was one of 50 students from the Southeastern United States awarded the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange Scholarship for the 2016-17 school year. As the sole recipient from the state of Alabama, Kenny said he was thrilled.
As a CBYX scholar, Kenny will spend the upcoming school year living in Germany with a host family, attending a German high school and participating in a three-week language and cultural immersion camp to gain a better understanding of German culture.
“Everything, except one English class, will be taught in full German,” he said. “It will be as if I were just a regular German kid in his junior year of high school.”
This summer, in preparation for his move to Germany on Aug. 13, Kenny said he expects to have his nose buried deep within German language books. Kenny said he took German classes in middle school and at VHHS, and he said his German is at about a “medium” level now.
“I’ll be studying over the summer,” he said. “I know the basic things and could get along pretty well, but it would probably take lots of gesturing and charades to get my message across if I traveled over there right now.”
Kenny is the fifth Vestavia Hills student since the 1990s to apply for and win the CBYX Scholarship. Previous winners include Amy Miller Tanner, Katie Ecklund, Brandy Nix and Stephen Norris.
Kenny said he’s been looking forward to applying for the scholarship since he noticed a poster about the CBYX program while sitting in his German class in middle school.
“I knew I was too young to apply then,” he said. “So I made a note on my calendar to revisit the scholarship information a few years later.”
It was a combination of his time in German classrooms in Vestavia Hills as well as his ancestral ties back to the country that inspired him to apply, Kenny said.
“Matthew exemplifies the personal qualities that are essential for an exchange student,” German teacher Kathy Rogers said. “Matthew’s curiosity, open-mindedness and his academic achievements made him an excellent candidate for this program. I’m confident he will represent our school, state and nation with distinction.”
Though he was not yet sure of where in Germany he will be placed, Kenny said his top choice was Kiel, the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, because of its reputation as an international sailing destination.
But he said the temporary uncertainty does not bother him.
“I’ll go wherever the wind takes me,” Kenny said. “I know I have no say or control over where I am placed in Germany, and I’m comfortable with that.”
Despite his youth, Kenny said he is also comfortable with being so far from home. As part of the program’s rules, he said he will not be allowed to travel back home or have visitors for the first five months except for cases of extreme emergency.
“But compared to former applicants from the 1980s and 1990s, I’ll at least be able to text my parents,” he said. “If I do get homesick, my plan is to ignore it and go out and do something. Instead of thinking about life in America, I have to learn to think about what life in Germany could be.”
Kenny said he is a history buff, he said he is looking forward to traveling throughout Europe and exploring the places he’s only read about.
“I hope to bring back a lot of German culture and memories,” he said.
Along with taking in the German culture, Kenny said he hopes to share some Southern hospitality as well.
“I feel like there is a big misunderstanding when it comes to America, to the South,” he said. “I hope to break down barriers and show people what it’s actually like in the South.”
As part of the trip, Kenny will also have the chance to visit the German Bundestag (Parliament), as well as meet with American and German government officials.
Getting his parent’s approval for the trip did take a lot of convincing, but he knows they are on board, he said. “Compared to spending another year here in high school, this trip will open more doors and provide me with more opportunities,” Kenny said.
The CBYX Program is funded by the U.S. Congress and the German Bundestag in an effort to strengthen ties between the two countries. More than 24,000 students have participated in the program since its inception in 1983.
World traveler
VHHS graduate Haley Harmon said she had plans to travel to several different countries via a number of organized trips this summer.
In June, the tennis player and class secretary said she, along with her mother, Sandy, and sister, Mary Elizabeth, traveled with Texas-based Watermark Church members on a “Journeys of Paul” sailing tour.
From June 2-12, the family, along with about 100 others, sailed on the Star Clipper, a four-masted clipper ship, from Istanbul to Athens while exploring other places in between. During the 10 days, Senior Pastor Todd Wagner served as host and teacher, according to the church’s website. Family friend and fellow Watermark member Tom Doyle invited the Harmon family onboard.
“I’ve always wanted to go to Greece, and all the many different locations associated with the trip,” Harmon said. “Being able to stand where Paul would have stood so many years ago is really a cool experience.”
Almost as soon as she returned from her trip to Greece, Harmon again boarded a plane, but for South Africa instead. Traveling with Brookwood Baptist on the Inter-Generational Mission to Cape Town, Harmon said the trip was more mission-centered.
The group visited Living Hope ministries, where they worked with underprivileged kids, reading Bible stories, acting out skits and “bringing new light to an area very high in drugs and AIDS,” she said.
Before heading on the trip, Harmon said she expected the trip to be “very rewarding.”
“To be able to help others will have an impact on their lives, but mine as well,” she said. “I’ll be able to return to the States and not take everything for granted, be happy that I have a roof over my head and access to clean water.”
Harmon said she will then travel to California with her dad to take part in a parent/child relationship building camp. Her dad is who inspired her to pursue a career in medicine. Since she was a child, she said she has accompanied her father, who is a doctor, on countless medical mission trips around the world.
When Harmon wraps up her summer vacation, she will head to Auburn in the fall, where she plans on enrolling as a pre-med major.
“We’ll see what happens from there,” she said.