Mt. Ellis Academy’s (MEA’s) yearly alumni reunion brings many former students back to campus, where they revel in renewed friendships, clean air, and mountain scenery.
They also eagerly trek across campus to locate “their” class gifts, read the accompanying plaques, and reassure themselves that their classes did, indeed, leave noteworthy legacies.
This year’s graduating class spent many meetings discussing how they, too, might leave a memorial that MEA students would appreciate for years to come.
At first, the seniors seemed unable to settle on a project, but after spring vacation and mission trips diverted their attention and energy, a new idea surfaced.
One of the mission trip groups found itself amid century-old Spanish mansions and cobblestone streets in Alamos, Sonora, Mexico, building a church.
They returned with tales of laying adobe block and erecting church walls. But lack of funds had made it impossible for them to complete the project in 2002.
Responding to that need, on Mt. Ellis Alumni Sabbath, April 20, Mike Unterseher, Senior Class president, stepped to the microphone and asked Principal Ray Cummings to join him on the rostrum, as he announced, “As a Class gift, the Class of 2002 has chosen to donate $2,002 toward completion of the roof for the Alamos church.”
“I was really proud of the class,” said Cummings. “They have chosen to reach out to others, rather than getting something just for our own use.”
A few weeks later, a team led by Pastor Bill Smith returned to Mexico to put the funds to work, and the group of believers in Alamos will soon be able to worship in the first-ever Adventist church building in the several-hundred-year history of the historic community.
In years to come, when members of the Class of 2002 return to visit MEA, they will be unable to point out their class gift on campus. But they know they will see those results, someday soon, at their heavenly homecoming. •
