NoeoQuest When Mark Kooy, fine arts and communication instructor at Portland Adventist Academy, organized some spring break student mission trips, he felt there was something missing. Kooy was concerned that the students came back with only a superficial observation and limited knowledge of the unique cultures they visited. Because of this concern, he met with faculty members from other North Pacific Union academies, and together they developed an organization called Noeoquest. Their objectives are to enable secondary students to not only travel and experience other lands and cultures, but to go deeper and do anthropological studies to actually understand the basis for what they see superficially. Each student is expected to complete a survey of local individuals and cultures, keep a log of these surveys, write a paper based on these surveys, and to prepare a video on what they have seen and done. They also study flora and fauna, both land and marine. Successfully completed, each student receives five humanities credits, and as a side benefit receives SCUBA diving certification. In return for access to the social and religious mores of the indigenous populace, each trip includes the team doing a project to improve the living conditions in the local area. For example, the last trip taken to Fiji included building kitchen cabinets in a newly constructed kitchen and dining hall at Vatuvanu Mission School. Noeoquest paid for and provided all of the building materials. It utilized both students and local workers in the project. The Don Keele Foundation has provided funding to help support the Noeoquest activities. All of the students participating in these mission trips with the additional cultural emphasis testify that they have new respect for the cultures they study and for the new friends they have made in these cultures. Noeoquest welcomes visitors to its Web page at www.noeoquest.org.
NoeoQuest
When Mark Kooy, fine arts and communication instructor at Portland Adventist Academy, organized some spring break student mission trips, he felt there was something missing. Kooy was concerned that the students came back with only a superficial observation and limited knowledge of the unique cultures they visited. Because of this concern, he met with faculty members from other North Pacific Union academies, and together they developed an organization called Noeoquest.
Their objectives are to enable secondary students to not only travel and experience other lands and cultures, but to go deeper and do anthropological studies to actually understand the basis for what they see superficially. Each student is expected to complete a survey of local individuals and cultures, keep a log of these surveys, write a paper based on these surveys, and to prepare a video on what they have seen and done. They also study flora and fauna, both land and marine. Successfully completed, each student receives five humanities credits, and as a side benefit receives SCUBA diving certification.
In return for access to the social and religious mores of the indigenous populace, each trip includes the team doing a project to improve the living conditions in the local area. For example, the last trip taken to Fiji included building kitchen cabinets in a newly constructed kitchen and dining hall at Vatuvanu Mission School. Noeoquest paid for and provided all of the building materials. It utilized both students and local workers in the project.
The Don Keele Foundation has provided funding to help support the Noeoquest activities. All of the students participating in these mission trips with the additional cultural emphasis testify that they have new respect for the cultures they study and for the new friends they have made in these cultures.
Noeoquest welcomes visitors to its Web page at www.noeoquest.org.
This group of students from Portland Adventist Academy, Columbia Academy and Walla Walla Valley Academy and their sponsors traveled to Fiji on a NoeoQuest trip. Jim Campbell, front row, second from right, a business man from Citrus Heights, Calif., and a master diver, taught the SCUBA classes.
Kristina Ashlock, from PAA and Jen Jorgenson from CAA, expand their world view at the Vatuvonu Adventist Mission School in Fiji.
Crystal Christianson, Jen Jorgenson, Jeanne Tayler, NQs writing instructor, and Jessica Chaffey are shown the intricacies of the women's traditional "Hand" dance by a very patient Salome Vosarogo, the wife of the chief's son, in Loa village.
Kusitina, the healing lady from Buca Village in Fiji, shows Jen Jorgenson a natural remedy for bug bites.
