What do you get when you take two teachers and 27 excited students to see three amazing exhibits? You get a recent overnight field trip to Seattle with Spokane Junior Academy (SJA) students in grades seven to 10.
SJA has a long history of traveling with students, both on mission trips as well as study tours throughout the Northwest. One of our goals is to offer a variety of educational opportunities to our students.
So when the upper-grade teachers at SJA heard about the Dead Sea Scrolls being on display at Seattle’s Pacific Science Center, they thought it would be wonderful to take their students to see the 2,000 year-old Old Testament manuscripts. However, it seemed like the time and cost to do the trip would be too much. Then the teachers heard about “Bodies: The Experience” and a Leonardo DaVinci exhibit at the Museum of Flight, and decided to see if they could make the trip a reality.
Several interested parents agreed to underwrite a major portion of the trip. One parent approached the Pepper Tree Inn in Auburn and received a donation of 10 hotel rooms, enough free rooms for the entire group. With the cost per student now more affordable, all the students were able to go!
Why did we take this trip? The primary reason was to show God to our students in three different ways. The Bodies exhibit showed the creative genius of God in making our bodies in such an incredibly complex way. The DaVinci exhibit showed how God works on the minds of men to come up with inventions, ideas and art which reminded everyone how infinitely brilliant He is. The Dead Sea Scrolls renewed faith in the validity and accuracy of Scripture as it has been handed down to us through the centuries. By exposing our students to these ideas, they have had their faith strengthened.
Four Spokane Junior Academy students pose with a pilot's statue at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.
Spokane Junior Academy students in the seventh to tenth grades viewed the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle as well as visiting the Museum of Flight during an overnight field trip.
