These are the kinds of experiences that Westminster students will discover at Engage St. Louis.

Engage St. Louis – also called ESTL, but known to the WCA community as ESL – became a reality for the St. Louis community in early 2010, when the well-known organization Refuge of Nations joined forces with other like-minded programs. Together, they provide immigrant families with opportunities for education, discipleship, and counseling.

“The purpose of our ministry is to walk alongside immigrant and refugee families, providing  them with personal support through long-term relationships as they navigate life in a new culture and country. This takes a multitude of different forms, including home visits, special events, and the provision of counseling and food,” said Tim Baldwin, ESTL staff member.

Yet, ESTL does not only provide for families’ physical needs.

“In addition to helping individuals settle in and providing for basic needs, ESTL is able to minister to families through the gospel,” said Joan Dudley, upper school Spanish teacher.

Dudley helps to organize WCA’s time at ESTL  on Wednesday nights once per month.  During this time, Westminster students watch the children of Hispanic families while parents have the opportunity to participate in a Bible study.

Holly Sumner, junior, never misses the chance to attend the program.

“I’ve missed only one ESTL night in the last three years. I don’t quite remember why, but it must have been a pretty compelling reason because I really love to do it,” said Sumner.

These Wednesday nights are not just a blessing to parents, who are able to take some time to study the Word of God, but they are also a blessing for the children.

“From the happy squeals I hear while we act like monsters and chase the kids around, it’s clear that they enjoy playing with high school students and getting individual attention,” said Sumner.

In addition to the program’s participants, there is one more group who is touched by the program: the students.

“After a few times, I realized that the wee ones were blessing me in so many ways. I love having the fellowship and spending the time with the kids even if some don’t speak English. It’s possible to be their friend even if their lives and ethnicities are completely different from your own,” said Nina Thampy, junior.

Though students may assume that they must speak Spanish in order to attend ESTL, this is not the case.

“I would encourage anyone who enjoys hanging out with kids to get involved with ESTL. This year, we’ve been privileged to have members of the French club come along with us, and we even sang some songs in French last month. Most of the kids speak some English anyway, so communication is no problem,” said Sumner.

But for those who do speak Spanish, ESTL offers a very unique opportunity.

“If you’re tired of all those tedious workbook pages and irregular verbs, here’s your official invitation to come see Spanish in a new, more meaningful light,” said Sumner.

Overall, what Westminster sees of ESTL once per month is just a small fraction of the entire program. Yet, it is still a huge blessing to families in the St. Louis community. If students are looking to bless others and be blessed, to both reach out to the community and be touched by the community, ESTL offers the perfect opportunity.

NHS, known as the National Honor Society, is a nationally known, prestigious organization of high school students who exhibit excellence in character, leadership, and academics.   In order to be a member at Westminster, one must maintain a 3.5 un-weighted GPA, partake in thirty hours of community service, and have admirable character qualities

Jacob Mohler, upper school math teacher and NHS overseer, separates the goals of NHS into two categories.

“For students, it is viewed as a transcript builder, but for me, personally, I think that NHS is a way of helping people become more service-minded,” said Mohler.

NHS members will serve at Room at the Inn for this year’s initiation project.

“This [Room at the Inn] was what got me started in NHS.  It is what I am most excited about,” said Mohler.

During Room at the Inn project, members will be serving the homeless of the community by cooking them dinner and breakfast, participating in fellowship, and providing a warm place for them to stay at a church.

“I am excited for helping students feel comfortable with people they don’t normally interact with,” said Mohler.

While becoming a member of NHS is quite an achievement, some people have found it difficult to maintain that membership.

“For some kids, one of the most difficult things would be to maintain a 3.5 GPA.  We have had to dismiss people in the past,” said Mohler.

NHS hopes to encourage its new members to become more service-minded, step outside of their comfort zone, and continue to develop their character.

Republican candidates who have officially declared that they are running for president in the 2012 election are Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Gary E. Johnson, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Buddy Roemer, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum.

The race is getting serious as the Florida primary approaches.

A recent article published by the Associated Press has declared Florida’s GOP presidential primary to be a “winner-take-all contest,” because the Republican National Committee has agreed to a plan to award 50 delegates to the Republican presidential candidate that comes in first during the primary on January 31.

The latest national poll from the New York Times and CBS shows that Herman Cain leads the Republicans with support from 25 percent of GOP voters with Mitt Romney close behind at 21 percent. No other candidate, however, has half the support of Cain or Romney with Newt Gingrich polling at 10 percent and Ron Paul receiving support from 8 percent of those surveyed.

Surprisingly, Rick Perry only has 6 percent of support from the Republicans surveyed, a huge decline from the 23 percent he had in the Times/CBS September poll. Another surprise is that Bachmann drew support from only 2 percent of those surveyed.

As Cain and Romney work to pull ahead, and other candidates struggle to regain a grip in the race, Republicans are anxious to see what will happen in January at the Florida primary.

“Clearly we are going to be an important contest, even more important than we initially thought,” said Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the Republican Party of Florida.

“I drink down love like lemonade, but grace can’t come from Minute Maid.” Thought provoking words that thirst for a deeper meaning are crafted together in a song to take a person on a ride through their feelings and emotions.

Amanda Scott, junior, has been writing her own lyrics and music since the end of her eighth grade year. Her Bible teacher that year, Jeremy Scott, assigned a project to the class about each student writing their own psalm and that stirred her interest.

“I ended up going home and just sitting down and writing a song in about fifteen minutes. I took it to school the next day and played it for Mr. Scott, and I just remember him saying, ‘Not going to lie, I was prepared to have to pretend to like it, but that was pretty good,’ which was really awesome.  He ended up letting me play it for both of his Bible classes,” said Scott.

Scott wrote the song on an old guitar that her parents had given her in elementary school. She never had formal lessons or professional training. Her parents bought her a new one at the end of ninth grade as she became more serious about writing her own music. It is the only instrument she plays except for the song Fur Elise on the piano. Since then, she has written about thirty total songs.

“I never really try to write about a particular topic. A line will come into my head and sometimes I can write a song on it in ten minutes and sometimes it’ll be ten days. Other times I’ll sit on a line for a few months and eventually find a way to use it.  For example, I came up with the strange line ‘flowers, drowning out the sunshine, melting away the daylight’ and wrote a song in an hour or so even though it didn’t really seem to mean anything. I also came up with the line, ‘I wish I had seams to fall apart, but I’m stuck here solid with a broken heart’ and couldn’t write a song on it for a couple months,” said Scott.

Writing songs is Scott’s main hobby, and if she could spend the rest of her life doing one thing, this would be it because she enjoys it so much.

“If I don’t write I go crazy, I am drawn in by what can only be described as ‘literary gravity.’ Having lines stuck in my head and not writing them down is nearly impossible for me and if I don’t do anything with any of them, they haunt me in a sense.  I used to be the math and science kid, but my brain has done a total 180,” said Scott.

When it comes to performing, Scott performed at the poetry slam this past year, in the 2011 Wildcat Weekend variety show, and in Literary Rogues. She does not do many live performances, but posts videos of her songs online for people to listen to.

“I started putting songs up after I wrote a song called ‘My Little Star’ and didn’t want to annoy Facebook friends with videos on my regular page. It has actually been almost exactly a year since I wrote that song and put that video up, and since then I have written and posted around 20 more songs,” said Scott.

Everyone knows that school is a place students go to either learn or pretend to learn, whichever they choose. Most people do not view school as learning place for teachers.  Typically teachers teach, and students learn.

However, Westminster has recently gone against the norm and developed a new program that allows teachers to be teachers as well as students.

The creation of Westminster’s Center for Teaching and Learning  (CLT) began four years ago when Cindy Zavaglia, upper school English teacher, presented an innovative idea to Jim Marsch, Head of School. Zavaglia desired to design a program that would help the teachers become more effective, therefore improving the learning experience for students.

If the teachers do not have effective teaching techniques, their students will obviously learn less. This is why it is important for teachers to be as effective as possible.

Because Zavaglia recognized the importance of efficient teaching, she wanted to create a program to help teachers find the best ways to reach students.

“I was mostly interested in developing in-house professional development programs for our faculty and finding ways to encourage faculty to work together to share best practices (so) that we might improve student learning,” said Zavaglia.

The CLT gives all teachers a chance to grow by learning from each others mistakes and successes. However, its primary purpose is to help new teachers learn to be effective by pairing them up with veteran teachers. This helps them become easily acclimated to Westminster while receiving beneficial advice about teaching.

According to Academic Dean Scott Holley, who oversees all the work of the CLT, the program is effective because “Teaching isn’t a solo thing. We learn from each other. Iron sharpens iron.”

The concept of teachers mentoring other teachers is not new, but the idea of a structured learning program for teachers is.

The more intentional preparation for the CLT took place in 2010 as the school prepared to move to a new campus. That year, Marsch gave Zavaglia one less teaching period, giving her time to take her idea and run with it. Zavaglia still taught one section of Honors American Literature and three sections of regular American Literature but used her remaining time to develop the CLT.

Thanks to hard work and thoughtful planning, the four year project is now finished, and Westminster’s CLT is in full swing for the 2011/2012 school year.

The four teachers currently in charge of the CLT are Scott Holley, Cindy Zavaglia, Chris Knerr, and Scott Vonder Bruegge.

Zavaglia, Director of Professional Growth, plans faculty in-service days and connects the faculty to both in-house and external professional development opportunities.

“Our primary focus is on PLCs [professional learning communities].”

For the past three summers, Westminster has sent groups of teachers to Solution Tree’s Professional Learning Communities to train them to work  as PLCs, and this year PLC’s are an active part of department and neighborhood structures.

According to Holley, the PLC’s were developed because every teacher needs to be able to communicate with and learn from other teachers.

“We wanted teachers to be the best they can possibly be, and none of us can figure that out in isolation.”

Holley and others believed giving teachers a place to talk about teaching would be beneficial.

The CLT demonstrates that Westminster’s head honchos are serious about creating a unified community, not only in the student body, but among the teachers as well.

“The Talk Extended” seminar is a class where sophomores can relate with teachers and gain an understanding of biblical teachings and principles of relationships and sex.

Many parents do not know how to have “the talk” with their teenaged children, so most teens do not know what to do when they face a problem involving sex or relationships. This seminar gets students informed about how to deal with their behind the scenes sexual struggles.

“I know that there are a lot of students at Westminster that have a lot of questions and have experienced a lot of brokenness and hurt as a result of these topics,” said Tim Holley, spiritual life director.

When first arriving to the class, some students just expected for scripture to be preached at them by counselors and bible teachers, but this seminar proved to be something else.

Mallory Scholten, upper school science teacher, is involved, along with Craig Walseth, middle school counselor.

“I can tell you on a personal level that I wanted to be involved in this because I feel like dating and sex are both real issues that are discussed a lot in our culture and amongst peers, but rarely get talked about by adults with students once they enter into high school,” said Holley

Annie Westhoff, P.E. teacher, is also involved with the seminar also. She introduces a new topic called “source idols” that help sophomores understand their motives behind or roles in relationships. The “source idols” are control, power, approval, and comfort.

“The source idols came from a pastor we communicated with and his book we read. Darren Patrick is the pastor at the Journey (a thriving church here in St. Louis) and while talking to him he brought up the subject of Source Idols and everything clicked in our heads probably the same way they would in sstudents’ heads,” said Westhoff

Westhoff teaches that every person has a source idol that they show in a relationship through their actions.

“Source idols” help students to think about what they do in a relationship and why. They also help to relieve a little tension of feeling regret for what you do.

“I think that a lot of students will come into the seminar with a lot of apprehension, and that there is a negative stigma about a class that discusses sex and I’m sure that there are assumptions that students are bringing into this class based on how they have heard this talked about in the past. I also think that there are a number of students that will probably feel like this is a seminar where they will be judged and yelled at, and I’m sure that will cause students to have some fear as well,” said Holley.

In the seminar, students are taught that God will forgive them no matter how many times they have fallen, or how much wrong they have done.

“My biggest hope is that students will be able to walk out of this seminar able to breathe a little easier.  I also believe that one of our biggest goals is to know that the Lord loves them and forgives them.  A lot of times in our culture we treat sex as the unforgivable sin, and although there are some very real and serious consequences to sex outside of marriage, the Lord does forgive and restore in this area,” said Holley

This is a seminar where everyone is expected to be open and not feel regret.

Not many people are truly willing to risk their lives for what they love.  Adan Larraga Manzano, eighth grade, who came all the way from San Luis Potosi in Mexico, has been willing to do this ever since he was a young child.

Manzano was put on a horse at a very young age, but riding a horse wasn’t enough for him.  He eventually picked up a sport which he calls Charreria.

“Charreria consists of a lot of different activities.  You need to be able to ride a bull, horse and bronco extremely well.  When you ride the horse you are only allowed to use the reigns on the horse, so there is no saddle or anything else to keep you up.  In this sport you also have to be able to use a rope well.  I often have to lasso small animals,” said Manzano.

For Manzano, riding a horse or a bronco is not extreme enough.  He has perfected one of the most dangerous acts someone might see in a Charreria tournament, which is called the paso de la muerte.

“In English this can be loosely translated as the jump of death.  It is probably considered one of the hardest tricks to perfect. In this trick, I have to be able to jump from a moving horse onto a moving bronco,” said Manzano.

Manzano could be considered one of the best Charreria competitors in Mexico for his age.

“I have played in many tournaments in my life.  I have contended in three national tournaments, and I placed second in one of them,” said Manzano,

Manzano is very good at what he does, and there are very few people that can compete with what he considers his strength in this sport.

“My strength in this sport would have to be paso de la muerte.  I placed first in this category in the national tournament, and I placed second overall,” said Manzano.

There are many reasons why Manzano has been willing to compete in this terribly dangerous sport.

“I play Charreria because I love how extreme the sport can get.  I also love the competitiveness that comes in every tournament that I attend, but more than anything I love riding the animals,” said Manzano.

Obviously, with a dangerous sport like this one, Manzano has had to face many tough and excruciating injuries.

“I once tore a ligament in my leg when I fell off a bronco which kept me out of the sport for three months.  I also was riding a horse when it fell and I broke my arm,” said Manzano.

Manzano moved in with his aunt so he could live in America and get a better understanding of the language.  Unfortunately, he has not been able to compete in any tournaments here.

“I miss the sport, but I also enjoy living and going to school in America,” said Manzano.

Charreria is not the only sport that Manzano enjoys playing.  He is an all-around very good athlete, participating in many sports.

“I love to play soccer and golf.  I have been playing for the eighth grade soccer team and it has been good fun,” said Manzano.

Manzano is a great Charreria competitor.  He is considered one of the best at what he does, and for good reason.