Europe GO Week

By Samantha DePriest

We continue on this journey of learning about the stories and memories from our GO Week teams who traveled around the world to serve others and be immersed in God’s creation. This week we sat down with GO Week leader Mrs. Quincy Forde to hear about her teams journey across the pond to visit London, Normandy, and Paris on a trip known as the “World War II trip”. Mrs. Forde has been teaching at Trinity for 14 years and teaches AP US Government and Politics, both AP and Honors US History, and AP Psychology. She also serves as our National Honor Society Advisor for the High School. There is no one better than her to lead this group.

Mrs. Forde shared, “On January 1st, 35 Trinity students, teachers, parents, grandparents, and even 3 Trinity Alumni embarked on a life-changing World War 2 trip to London, Normandy, and Paris with Education First (EF) Tours.

Highlights in London included our exploration of the Churchill Warrooms, the Imperial War museum, the Royal Air Force museum, the US Belfast, and Bletchley Park where the German encoding machine, Enigma, was decoded. We also took an evening adventure into the West End for "dinner and a show": fish and chips, and the Lion King. In Paris, we were awed by the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Les Invalides, the Palace of Versailles, and a Paris-by-night boat cruise along the Seine.

The most meaningful part of our trip, however, was visiting the beaches of Normandy. Here students read letters or poetry they had composed, and contemplated the enormous sacrifice made by the Allies on D-Day.

Cameron Todhunter - a TCS senior who is on course to join the US Air Force - represented Trinity at the American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer. Together with his grandfather, combat veteran Col. Marcel Fauk, USA, (Ret.) he laid a wreath of remembrance before a three volley salute and the playing of taps. The Star Spangled Banner never sounded more moving as we stood and surveyed the field of white crosses lying quietly beneath our fluttering flag.

The travelers agreed that our nine days in Europe were profoundly rich in learning and relationship, and well worth the investment.”   

Mrs. Forde shared that the forecast called for rain but thanks be to God, they wound up having just a couple cloudy days and mostly beautiful weather. She also spoke of what a blessing it was that they were able to make visits to several places that weren’t on the original itinerary. The addition of such supportive parents and grandparents on the trip added to the richness of the experience.

Over the course of their trip, the students developed relationships with their tour director and bus driver. Students studied and learned about World War II Christians and each shared a story about their lives in devotions with the group and the EF guides. Mrs. Forde encouraged the students, “Do what God puts in front of you now and do it well.” On the steps of their hotel, the group prayed over the tour director. What a beautiful example of walking in the Faith!