ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, August 22, 1996 TAG: 9608230018
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: E-15 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
Life at William Byrd High School won't be quite the same for senior Jonathan Thompson when he returns this fall.
Thompson, 17, was one of 14 members of Vinton Baptist Church who spent 11 days in Managua, Nicaragua, last month on a trip to assist a mission school.
His exposure to the extreme poverty of many of that city's residents "puts you in your place when you come back home" and consider the comforts of life in the Roanoke Valley, Thompson said.
Kate McCarty, an 18-year-old Byrd graduate who will enter the University of Virginia this fall, also was impressed by the economic disparity between life in Managua and home.
"They are so poor and we are so rich," she said. Yet she discovered a generosity exceeding any expectation.
"I invited a lady to a showing" of a film about Jesus' life, "and I told her that I liked her earrings. She immediately tried to take them off and give them to me," an astonished McCarty reported.
She was overwhelmed that someone who had so few material possessions would be willing to give her jewelry to a total stranger.
"This whole thing affected my vision of life ... and how God works through prayer," McCarty said. "Now that I'm back, I'm much more grateful for everything I see or get."
Kevin Meadows, Vinton Baptist's minister of youth, was the project director for the 95 people from six states who participated in the mission trip, which was coordinated through the Brotherhood Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.
"It was undoubtedly prayer" that got the group safely and smoothly through what was a complicated trip, Meadows said.
The group's return home was delayed by Hurricane Cesar, which disrupted air travel and left the group temporarily stranded. "It was amazing how doors opened" to rearrange travel on two different airlines and through three different governments, Meadows said.
The students and their adult chaperones worked as laborers for several projects at the Nicaraguan Christian Academy run by Southern Baptist missionaries Jim and Viola Palmer.
The project team mixed mortar and helped build a cinder-block wall around a portion of the mission school grounds. They also dug ditches and worked on a classroom addition.
On two nights, they set up outdoor showings of the film "Jesus" to evangelize to the city's residents.
The volunteers also had time for sightseeing and visiting beautiful Pacific Ocean beaches and a nearby active volcano.
The Vinton-area youth had raised the money for the trip over the past year with bake sales, car washes and other activities.
Gretchen Dress, who will attend Virginia Tech this fall, said she believes the trip helped prepare her for being on her own at college. At school, "I won't have Mom and Dad saying I have to go to church. This will make it easier for me to get in the habit of doing that and of reading my Bible and praying."
And, she said - though she had been a little tentative about making the trip in the first place - she'd gladly do it again.
For Dress, there was an image calling her back. A group of little children "who had not known any English waved goodbye and said `I love you' in English as we left."
It was a picture, she said, that she'd never forget.
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: WARREN JOHNSON. Gretchen Dress (left) says the image ofby CNBthe children in Nicaragua is calling her back. Here, she and Justin
Harber (right) pass out stickers.