A trip back to a simpler place helped teach the Zander sisters to be more present.

Reese and Braelyn Zander were part of Waterway Church's 18-person mission trip to Santa Marta, Cuba, from June 21 to 28.

Waterway youth group leader Kevin Martin said that while Santa Marta is an impoverished town, there is infrastructure to have electricity. However, there are rolling blackouts throughout the country that limit the use of electricity to two to three hours a day in certain places.

"We are definitely blessed to be living here (in Pennsylvania)," said Braelyn, who is a rising junior at Solanco High School. "They live such a different life than we live, and I feel like most people here don't realize how much we have and how different it is from how little that they have there."

The lack of electricity forced the missionaries to hold direct interpersonal communications, sometimes with the assistance of interpreters. "I just really enjoyed getting to connect with people," said Reese, a recent Solanco High graduate. "It was very different than home because everybody spoke Spanish, so it was hard to have conversations with them, but we also didn't have a lot of electricity and very much Wi-Fi or cell service. So here at home, if you're bored, you can scroll on Instagram, you can go on your phone and do whatever, but there that wasn't really an option."

That forced the youths to interact face-to-face with each other and the Santa Marta residents. "We couldn't just fall back on our phones," Reese said. "We had to be completely present and talking with the people that were there. So that was definitely one of my favorite things."

The desire to be in the moment carried over after they returned from Cuba. "I feel like I don't want to be on my phone as much," Braelyn said. "I feel like it's more about, like, 'Oh, I'm not doing anything right now. I wish I had a youth group to sit around and talk to or sing songs with or something like that.'"

During the mission trip, the 14 youth group members and four adult leaders from the Oxford church attended numerous church worship services, helped work on farms, painted, handed out rice and beans, and interacted with youths and disabled members of the Santa Marta community.

"I think my favorite part was just meeting everyone down there," said youth group member Johnny Smoker, who recently graduated from Oxford Area High School. "It was hard to really have conversations with them because they spoke Spanish, but the energy they had and how much they love and praise the Lord was just really awesome."

The mission also boosted the camaraderie among youth group members. "I think it brought us a lot closer," Reese said. "I know all of them, but I feel like before the mission trips, we were all friends, but none of us were super close. Some people are closer with others, but we aren't all close at one time to each other. So going away and just being able to sit and talk with each other, I think we got closer as a group, so everybody's more connected than we were before we left."

The Waterway Church high school youth group takes an international mission trip once every four years so that everyone in the organization will have the opportunity. In the other years, the group completes two missions within Pennsylvania and makes one trip to a place in the continental United States.

The group worked with Experience Mission, and Martin said it was easier than expected to take a group on a humanitarian trip to Cuba. "I think it gives us all, not just (the youth group), everybody that's on the trip a reality check on what's happening in the rest of the world," Martin said. "When we get to go to a place like Cuba, you realize just how a significant portion of the world lives so much differently than we do."

Martin came away impressed with the Cuban people. "The people in Cuba themselves have no choice on where they were born, where they are living, what conditions they have to live in. It's certainly opened my eyes to a lot," he said, noting that he was impressed by the Cubans' faith. "They are forced to rely on God to provide for them, because they don't have the infrastructure, they don't have the government services that we have. That was part of the experience for me, just kind of coming of that realization that the people are no different than we are. They're serving God. They worship the same God there. Yes, you knew that going in, but this just made it real."