Youth on a mission

Barbara Diamond

Ten days in Costa Rica sounds like a dream vacation.

But not for a team of volunteers from Laguna Beach United

Methodist Church. They went to build a church for people who couldn’t

afford to do it for themselves.

“We had only 1 1/2 days off,” said Ann Quilter, team leader. “And

it was a joy, a pure joy to be in service. This was not about us,

nothing about us.”

The church sponsored four volunteer work teams this summer.

Besides the construction crew to Costa Rica, a group of young church

members spent eight days repairing houses on an Indian reservation in

Northern California, a youth group went to San Diego’s inner city to

feed and comfort the needy, and a fourth team traveled to Fiji to

build homes and a church.

“It is exceptional for a church of our size to send out four major

work teams to all corners of the earth,” Quilter said. “Our project

in Costa Rica was to finish a new church that basically replaced a

wooden building with dirt floors, no windows and no electricity.

“The local residents have enough money for food, clothing and

housing, but nothing left over to build a church ... $5 is a lot of

money to them. Without us, the church would never have been built.”

The Laguna Beach congregation raised the money to construct the

island church. The team even toted some of the materials from the

United States.

“I had 70 pounds of Romex wire and electrical outlets in my

suitcase,” Quilter said.

That didn’t leave much room for a lot of personal items, but she

did squeeze in bug spray and a skirt for Sunday church.

Eating and cooking utensils, towels and bed linens were provided.

Beds were a surprising luxury -- the team expected mattresses at

best.

“It was kind of rough,” said Emily Quilter, 24, who accompanied

her mother and served as team translator. “Some of the locals thought

it was bizarre that we would do this.

“Anyone can give money,” she said. “It takes special people to

give muscles and sweat.”

She liked the fact that the church was there to give, not to get.

“We were not down there to proselytize,” Quilter said.

Laughter is the memory from Costa Rica that warms her mother’s

heart.

Some of it came at the team’s expense.

“Our singing was sooo bad, we cracked up,” said Costa Rica team

co-leader Linda Grossman.

More than 50 volunteers, not all of them from Laguna Beach, gave

up their time this summer to participate in the work teams. They

ranged in age from 12 to 64.

Austen Grossman, who accompanied her mother and her sister, Laguna

Beach High School student Cameron Cler, 15, to Costa Mesa, was one of

the two pre-teens who gave their vacation time.

The number of volunteers varies from year to year, depending on

how much money the church raises and who will make the commitment.

“Some of the teams started meeting last year,” said Aerin

Bender-Stone, director of the church’s Youth and Family Ministries.

“The youth teams began meeting in January.”

Thurston Middle School student Sarah Zuziak, 12 at the time,

extended a helping hand to inner city kids in San Diego in lieu of a

trip to Hawaii.

“I wanted to help people,” Zuziak said. “We served food to the

homeless, taught Vacation Bible School at the Salvation Army, sorted

clothes for the thrift shop and worked with little kids at Head

Start.”

Her mother, Thasa, city Recreation Committee member, was a tad

nervous about sending off her young daughter, but was “very proud of

her.”

Burnetta Tate, chair of the church’s Youth Council, led the San

Diego team of nine middle school students.

“It was rewarding to see the kids in action and their work ethic,”

Tate said. “It was great for all of us to meet representatives of

other denominations that were working in the same area. It keeps you

grounded to realize that there is need right in our own backyard.”

Five other students from the church spent eight days in 100

degree-plus weather in July making houses more habitable for the

dwellers on the Round Valley reservation near Ukiah.

“We were all split up when we got there,” said Laguna Beach High

School student body Vice President Brent Kling, 17. “My team built a

flight of stairs and a deck for a Native American couple.

“Friends ask me why I pay my own money to go work. I enjoy

building, but ... we have so much here that the least you can do is

take a week to help somebody else.”

As an added bonus, Kling said he made new friends in the work

teams sent by two other churches.

Sharon Stewart and George Noonan were the team leaders. Stewart’s

daughter, Heather, and Jake Wheeler, 17, also were on the team.

Wheeler went off to the reservation less than two weeks after he

returned from Fiji.

The primary Fiji project was the construction of a church in the

village of Lao. Kay Ostensen was the leader of the team of four young

people and 11 adults that included Lee Kucera.

It was the second trip to Fiji for Ostensen and Kucera.

“My two best memories are the overall feeling of success when the

first [church] pillar was poured and seeing the joy on the faces of

the family that I stayed with two years ago,” Kucera said. “Even the

little boy, who is now four, remembered me.”

As a memento of her visit, she left him a pair of her rainbow

sandals that he loved.

“We get so much more than we give and we learn so much,” Kucera

said. “I would definitely go again.”

Working without power tools, the team laid the foundations,

completed one pillar and left 19 others in various stages of framing

for the ongoing construction project.

“We figure it takes three days for each pillar,” Kucera said.

“Doing two at a time, it should take six-to-eight weeks to finish

them.”

The team also made arrangements to fund materials for the project,

to be paid out as needed.

“We stayed in the villagers’ homes for five days and then we spent

three days as a group talking about what worked and what didn’t,”

Kucera said.

She also took some extra time to stay at the resort owned by

Laguna Beach private-school owner Anneliese Schimmelpfennig and

visited some nearby villages where Methodist churches had been built.

“It took them 10 years,” Kucera said. “A small group of local men

worked when they had the money for materials and when they had the

time, weather permitting. We are hoping it doesn’t take us 10 years.”

Life on the island is lived on “Fiji time” -- a phrase the team

heard over and over that means “no worries.”

“Every day, the group would come back in the afternoon, like at

sunset, and sit on one of the villagers’ porches and talk about our

day,” said Wheeler, the youngest son of the Laguna church’s senior

minister. “Sometimes we wouldn’t talk at all but just look at the

surroundings: the sunset, the beach was right there, the bay, and the

villagers at work.

“For me that represents Fiji: laid back, surrounded by community,

and enjoying what God has made for us.”

An outstanding scholar athlete at Laguna Beach High School,

Wheeler will enter Emory University this fall. “Bringing Love to

Life” is the church’s motto.

“That is the springboard that gets us out into the world instead

of staying in our own backyards,” said the Rev. Virginia Wheeler.

“Physical presence is the connection created by love in a

relationship whether its man and woman, parent and child, a person of

one faith and a person of another, or of different races.”

The Laguna Beach United Methodist Church was built in 1953 at

21632 Wesley Drive in South Laguna. For more information, call (949)

499-3088.