Following Christmas break, and before the second semester of school starts, Timothy Christian students participate in an eight-day term called Renew, which offers unique classes at the school, internships and mission trips.
This year, a majority of the Trojans girls basketball team, as well as other students from the Elmhurst school, went on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic from Jan. 4-11 and stayed in a primitive dormitory.
Traveling to the Caribbean nation gave senior center Emily DeBoer a new perspective on both foreign countries and the luxuries that she has back home in Westmont.
“It was amazing. It was my first time being out of the country, so it was cool to see a different country,” DeBoer said. “It was very eye-opening. It is crazy to see the conditions over there — unimaginable for us who live in the United States.
“They cannot drink any of their water, and they cannot flush toilet paper. It is just hard to imagine living like that their whole lives.”
On the first day of the trip, the students painted a few of the rooms at a new medical center that was under construction. The girls basketball players worked together to paint one room and some of the lessons learned on the hardwood carried over to the task of painting.
“Our room was done quickly and efficiently,” Trojans coach Michele Strube said. “We worked together really well.”
She added: “Being on a team, you work really well together. So it was kind of cool how they saw that outside the court, that it works well when you do other things together.”
The team also ran a basketball clinic for local girls in the community. In addition to DeBoer, senior Olivia Schuringa and juniors Jordyn Strube, Heidi Westra, Celeste VanderMeer and Abby Carstensen are other members of the girls basketball team who made the trip. Junior Maggie Troxel, who played basketball last season, also helped with the clinic.
The clinic included running drills and a scrimmage in which the Timothy Christian girls split up and played on teams with the local girls.
“It was an outdoor, asphalt court with broken-down nets, so it was just playing outside with the kids,” Michele Strube said. “That was a wonderful way to start to get to know the girls in the community. Because then the rest of the week, they showed up at our dorm, they came to our church service. They came to our kids festivals that we held in the community.
“After the clinic, we invited them back to where we were staying and made friendship bracelets.”
Michele Strube, who went on the trip with her daughter Jordyn, became less of a coach and more of an observer as the week went on.
“I just sat back and watched. I was pretty quiet,” Michele Strube said. “I am always telling them what to do as their coach. I just wanted to sit back and let them go.
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“I was floored. They are amazing young ladies. They just took over. They took charge of these little kid festivals that we did.”
The festivals took place in a church parking lot and the Timothy Christian students brought chalk, bubbles, jump ropes, basketballs, foam baseball bats and balls and played with local children.
DeBoer took to the role of teaching children basketball.
“I enjoyed it a lot. I liked being able to mentor the girls,” said DeBoer, who is taking AP Spanish at Timothy Christian. “Even though it was hard (to communicate). I know Spanish, but in basketball language like dribble and shoot, I did not know those words. It was still cool to be in a coach’s position. I still enjoyed it.”
The mission trip created a bond among the Trojans teammates that DeBoer expects will last beyond the basketball season.
“Being able to experience all that we did together definitely drew us closer,” DeBoer said. “Seeing the hardships they went through, and then when we got back from the day trips we went on, we would gather as a group and talk about it as a whole. That really brought us closer and we bonded over that.”
Patrick Kelly is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Twitter @Pioneer_Press