Article

Hillcrest Christian High School Students use Summer Break to Deliver Hope in Chile
By: Cynthia Peterson

On June 14, 2007 while most southern California teenagers were enjoying the beach and sleeping in; four Hillcrest Christian School students and teachers Dr. and Mrs. James Green boarded a plane to a cold wintery Chile, to change lives and enrich their own.  

Since 2001 Dr. Green, a teacher at Hillcrest Christian School in Granada Hills and his wife Mrs. Green, a third grade teacher at Hillcrest, use their summer break as a chance to journey to Chile to visit and encourage the leaders of the church they established in Santiago ten years ago.  As many as 13 students and faculty members of Hillcrest have accompanied the Greens in the past. This year Hillcrest Christian high school students Bryant Galindo, Joshua Dansker, Nicole Lewis and Lauren Montague made the pilgrimage with the Greens.

“We take the students in order to give them an intensive introduction to a new culture and to demonstrate that lasting friendships and family relationships easily transcend language barriers” states Dr. Green.  Nicole Lewis, one of the four students in attendance had this to say of her experience in Chile: “I left part of my heart in Chile. I miss my Chilean family very much. I brought home a renewed faith, a newfound passion for God and new perspective on His purpose for me”. 

In addition to the intrapersonal experience the students shared they had the opportunity to present much needed gifts to their new Chilean friends. Each trip the philanthropic goal changes and this year the objective was met by delivering wheelchairs, donated by Joni and Friends’ program “Wheels for the World”, to the neediest of recipients.  “The most moving was Hector, an older man in Lota, the poorest city in Chile, who has lost most of his ability to walk due to diabetes.” recalled Dr. Green “When we delivered his wheel chair to him he beamed. His wife gave an emotional testimony that they had been praying for a wheel chair and we arrived in answer to that prayer”.

In total the Hillcrest team spent nearly 3 weeks in Ciudad Satélite, a bedroom community outside of Maipú, Chile. In addition to delivering the ten much needed wheelchairs they took the time to visit five schools, both public and private returning to the United States on July 3.