During the summer, I was fortunate enough to travel to Guatemala with 13 other Jesuit seniors, where we plugged ourselves into the culture through learning and experiencing their daily lifestyles. Not only were we fortunate enough to have an amazing faculty team, but we were also able to share our experience with another Jesuit senior from Mexico. The thing...
A thick smog coats the skyline, smearing the clouds and swallowing the towering San Gabriel Mountains of Los Angeles. We walked single-file, cautiously, further and further south of downtown. As we proceeded, we watched as city blocks became more barren. It didn’t seem like street sweepers even bothered. In-N-Out napkins and heroin needles alike were sprinkled along street gutters.
When...
“Saving our planet, lifting people out of poverty, advancing economic growth...these are one and the same fight. We must connect the dots between climate change, water scarcity, energy shortages, global health, food security and women’s empowerment. Solutions to one problem must be solutions for all.” (Ban Ki-moon)
The Trip
From June 2nd until June 9th, a group of sixteen Jesuit students...
Cusco, Peru
Snow-capped peaks of the sacred valley pierce a strikingly blue sky. Jolting along in two weathered, foreign pickups, thirteen American passengers restlessly fidget, smothered in colorful plastic bags of donations for the young children of the village of Sullomayo. Their slight physical discomfort, nearly sacrilegious in the presence of such shockingly beautiful mountain terrain, shrinks as the rising...
An alumni of Jesuit, Mr. Ornelas is a very prominent member in our Jesuit society. Not only as a sophomore counselor, but also as a leader in the arrival of Jesuit's up and coming cultural committee for both parents and students. Mr. Ornelas is also the current Director of Diversity.
So, I was able to sit down with him and...
It's nighttime and the city lights dimly illuminate the mountains as the plane descends. Rushing through Customs, the officer stamps the student's passport to mark the beginning of their international journey. For seven days over Thanksgiving break, eleven adventuresome Jesuit students embarked on an exchange trip to Guadalajara, Mexico for the first time in nearly a decade. In Guadalajara,...
A bustling group of young teenagers with the Jesuit logo plastered across their chest and elderly folks wearing their native clothes, approach a golden beach. Soon one group ventures into a separated small lagoon, marked by a shallow sand bar, while another settles down by some rocks overlooking the ocean. At the lagoon, the elderly wade into the water...
Comfortable clothes, a warm bed, an air-conditioned home, filling food, and thirst-quenching drinks. All commodities the Jesuit junior group who trekked to Waco for an eye-opening weekend full of sweat, hunger, and discomfort did not have. Earlier this year in March, a group consisting of four faculty, and twelve juniors traveled to Waco, Texas in order to take part...
