Xavier’s service trip to Guatemala each winter has a lasting impact in so many ways: from the housing built for the people who live there to the lessons learned by the students who give up a week’s vacation for a lifetime of memories.
About 20 Xavier students go each year to help build shelter, visit with young children, and deliver non-perishable food and cleaning supplies to families. What the students see is people who have little in the way of materialistic things but a lot in the way of love, joy and thankfulness.
"I said to our students on the last day, that you came here thinking you would change people's lives, and you have, but equally these people have changed your lives,” said Assistant Director of Campus Ministry John Guinan of the 2020 trip.
Says Wes Harris ’21: “It is living out the Christian mission actively, not just sitting back and saying someone else will do it."
Lessons are everywhere. Here’s one on selflessness. When a family was given the care package, these words were expressed: “We do need this, but we know of another family that needs it more.”
Brother John Sullivan, C.F.X., brings his camera on the trip for photos that appear in the yearbook. Those images will live on. So, too, will the ones etched in the minds of the Xavier students.