Dalat International School: Senior Scribble

Xu An Lim On April 26 th , the eighth graders and all of the high school were engaged in StuCo’s Color War, which lasted for 2 hours and 30 minutes. At 6:30p the eighth graders and the high schoolers met on the outdoor basketball court. The war was a version of Capture the Flag, Freeze Tag, and darts: the teams had to throw stockings full of colored powder onto the other team’s target, which was the replacement of a flag, or at an opposing team member in order to tag them out, freezing them where they were hit. To get untagged, someone from your own team had to tap you and bring you back to your team’s base camp. After twenty minutes, whichever team received the most points on the target won the game. The teams of the first round were a combination of the eighth and tenth graders, who used yellow powder, versus the ninth and twelfth graders, who used green. The first round was already underway when I arrived because I was taking my AP Bio mock exam. When I arrived, I unta...

Nathan Chand 100 feet in the air, dangling from a parachute and clothes drenched, Seong Min Kim (12) extended his massive JSB asking sign out to be seen by his girlfriend, En Min Saw (12), who stood on the beach; the sign read, “Will you go to JSB with me?” He was met with an ecstatic ‘yes’,   in which Saw jumped into the ‘yes’ hole that Kim had dug in the beach. Smiles were on everyone’s faces, though they all stood in disbelief: an asking, which had been fantasized for years, had finally come true; somebody actually went to great lengths to perform such an extravagant asking. When he finally came down from the parasail, he met En Min with a huge hug, and it was time to take photos. You could see the joy on both of their faces. On the other side of campus, there was another asking going on: Min Guk Kong (12) recreated a scene from How I Met Your Mother by making the “perfect date,” all in just two minutes! “It was one of the most intimate asking’s I’ve seen!” exclaimed ...

Ryna Mayekar A mix of emotions led up to this meaningful week for the varsity football girls. Many were excited for all their hard work and painful diets to pay off. As their last practice on Monday came to an end, the reality of how soon the end was coming hit the departing players. With around eight weeks left till the seniors graduate, this was going to be one of the many lasts coming their way. Two of the seven seniors had put the ball in the back of the net by the end of their first game with a final score of 4-0 against Morrison Academy-Kaohsiung. The win made the entire team’s morale even stronger than it initially was. With a sense of belonging on the field, as coach would tell them, they took on every game with the best possible mindset. The girls lost their next game 1-0 against Grace International School, but didn’t allow their teammates to feel low since they had more games to play. The next day consisted of two games. They put up a tough battle against the c...

Mandy Lim                                                               The week after the treasured spring break, the varsity soccer girls went on the long-awaited ACSC trip to Morrison Acadmey in Taiwan. They arrived at the campus on Tuesday, April 9 th and rested up before the big day- game against MAK. Lethal: it’s a word that encapsulates what the girls will be as they approach the first game of the tournament. It’s a word that Coach Frohlich first mentioned during a practice, and it stuck with the girls ever since. Their lethality shone through as each goal served as a stepping stone for the next. In celebration of their 4-0 win, the girls gathered at an open spot on campus and played some hilarious games. The soccer girls finished off the tournament with three wins and two losses, coming in fifth place ...

Alex Shing Touchdown in the Philippines! Impact Team Manila left on the 23rd of March, early in the morning. Gathering together in a huddle, with parents standing on the outskirts to send their last minute well wishes, Mr. Ronzheimer and Mr. McClary blessed the group with their prayers before they jumped on the bus to the airport. The plane was bound for Singapore, and after having lunch at the lounge, the team was treated to another transfer flight, this time with onboard movies! It was 1 in the morning when the team left the Manila Airport; after the whole day of traveling, they were exhausted. It was there that they met up with their guides for the trip, Jake and Norman, who transported them to Yunjin Lyso Ministry Center (YMC) headquarters. Their journey had just begun. No time for a long restful slumber, the team was woken up again to go to church the very next day. Made up of a very diverse congregation, the Impact team was able to meet up with many of the students who ...

Kristiana Phillips   Silently taking in the darkness hanging heavily about them, the Southwest Thailand Impact trip team followed Mr. McClary into a cave-like area, looping around a large cluster of bars. Even in the late morning, the aftermath of an evil night haunted the now-abandoned bars. A menacing tiger statue, an entrance shaped like a grotesquely leering mouth, and a red shop with a sign reading “The Devil’s Playground” all screamed silently of the rampant depravity so glorified in Patong Beach, Thailand. Reflecting on the experience, senior Nicholas Khor observed that “the literal emptiness of the bars showed the gravity of the sex industry and...represented that emptiness of sin.” Another senior, Seth Kelley, remarked, “It was one of the heaviest things I’ve ever had to witness, but it gave me a more realistic sense of how depraved the world can be. It also showed me how imperative it is that Christians go out and reflect Christ’s light in these places.” In...

By Natasha Palanivel Over spring break, twelve students made an adventurous and exciting journey to Phuket, Thailand for their Impact trip. On Friday morning (March 29 th ), twelve students, along with Mr. McClary and Ms. Keas, enthusiastically boarded the flight to Phuket. None of them knew what the following week would bring. In the evening, Mr. Dan—a missionary in Phuket who was in charge of bringing the group around—came over to brief the team on the culture of Thailand, after which the motley crew headed to their rooms to rest. The next day, Mr. Dan took the team to Patong Beach to see the depravity of the sex industry in Phuket. As the students walked down Patong Beach, it opened their eyes to the underlying sin that was going on. After that dark and heavy walk, the rest of the day was spent resting and bonding as a team. Sunday finally rolled around, and the team got a chance to visit a Thai church. The students enjoyed the time of worship and sat through an ent...

En Min Saw “HUAHUAHUAHUAHUA…” Matthew Strong’s (12) contagious laughter echoed through the atmosphere. At 5:30a.m. on Sunday morning, the Northern Thailand Impact Team led by Ms. Munson, Aunt Jan, and Mr. Pagee embarked on their technology-free journey to discover more about agriculture. About ten tiring hours later, they arrived at the Chiang Mai International Airport, at which they were greeted with three vibrant red songthaews. Surprisingly, the ride from the airport to the outskirt of Chiang Mai only lasted half an hour. The songthaew entered an enclosed area—the ECHO Research Center. At this center, the staff works hard to experiment with different methods of seed storage, which enables local farmers to grow consistent crops and prevent wipeouts of certain species. While gazing at a sheet of green rice paddies bathed under the sinking sun, the students couldn’t help but gasp at the beautiful view. “If I type ‘meadow’ into Google, this is actually what comes up,” exclaimed...

Trevor Ronning Eighteen anxious students stood around outside the Dalat front office on the 23 of March. These students were about to embark on an impact trip to Manila, the purpose of which is to learn through service. The group had been preparing to go on Impact for months through weekly 7am meetings and several lunch meetings. They left Dalat at noon to head off to Manila and the unknown. The team wasn’t quite sure what to expect; all they knew was that God would use the trip for his glory. When the group arrived in Manila at 11pm at night, every student was excited to enter a new culture and leave an impact on people in the area. The team arrived at the guesthouse and crashed in their rooms quickly that night. The next morning, the team went to church next to the guesthouse. After church, the team got together outside of the church building and began playing with the kids in their church clothes. The kids had loads of fun playing basketball with students like Alix Stuart (...