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Ask any one of the 700-plus seniors at Benton or Bryant’s high schools what their biggest concern is right now, and the answer will probably have something to do with choosing a college or a career.  LUCAS NOSSAMAN, a 2007 graduate of Bryant High School, plays soccer with students in Zambia, Africa, where he is spending the semester as part of Harding University’s International Program. He is participating in missions there as well as helping teach an English class and volunteering at a medical clinic in an area where AIDS is rampant and deaths occur on a regular basis. (Photo special to the Courier)
Not only are these teenagers feeling the pressures of everyday life, but their minds are undoubtedly filled with future possibilities of success or failure. As their lives lie before them like an open book, full of promise and hope, the biggest fear they may have is to fall short in life — or fail to make a difference.
But one recent Bryant High School graduate is showing that young people can make a difference, even before finishing college.
Lucas Nossaman, a 2007 graduate of Bryant High School, grew up enjoying the Arkansas way of life. He enjoys kayaking, running, playing tennis, and reading, and spending time outdoors with his close-knit family that includes two younger brothers. But he’s not doing much of those things now, primarily because he doesn’t have much spare time.
Nossaman, 19, is spending the semester in Zambia, Africa, as part of a study program at his college, Harding University in Searcy. It’s not that big a jump for Nossaman, who has had a “love for people” his whole life, his mother, Sherry Nossaman, said.
Although he was involved with many typical teenage activities at school and church, the young Nossaman could often be found doing things that were out of the ordinary, his mother explained. On days when he felt that he wasn’t doing enough for others, Nossaman would drive through McDonald’s and give his food to the homeless people who were gathered under bridges and overpasses.
When he began his freshman year at Harding — when most teenagers are busy getting involved in school activities and learning how to handle a full load of college classes — Nossaman’s love of people persisted, and he decided to go on a mission trip to Haiti. And he loved it.
“A lot of people don’t feel comfortable around people who are poor or sick or underprivileged, but he really did feel at home around them,” Sherry Nossaman said.
Since various family members had participated in missionary projects throughout Italy, it was no surprise to Nossaman’s family that he felt a call to missions. But when he started making plans to study abroad through Harding’s International Program, Nossaman decided to go to Zambia, Africa, instead of Italy.
But first, if he wanted to go to Africa, he had to be selected after a series of interviews. Ultimately, Nossaman was one of the few students chosen to study and live at the Namwianga Mission in Zambia, which is a compound that holds the George Benson Teachers College as well as an elementary and high school, medical clinic, an orphanage, and a home for infants and toddlers who have lost their mothers to AIDS.
On Sept. 3, Lucas and his classmates made it to Zambia, where they are taking classes and participating in field work at the university’s campus there.
Nossaman’s family misses him terribly, but they all feel that he has made the right choice.
“I think that him going to Africa fits his personality,” Sherry Nossaman said. “It’s more hands-on [than Italy would have been]. All of the field work options and the missionary work available there really make a difference.”
But just because Lucas Nossaman is excited and enthusiastic about helping people doesn’t mean that it’s been easy there. Many adjustments have been necessary. For example, he hasn’t been able to watch TV, play video games, or stay connected to the Internet, except for short periods of time. In addition, the dry air and 4,000-foot altitude make it hard to run or do any kind of strenuous activity.
As it may be expected, going to another country isn’t always a walk in the park. Nossaman is kept busy with classes, which range from Missionary Anthropology to African Literature and History.
“The sessions are interesting not only because of the material but also because of the teachers’ charismatic teaching style,” Nossaman wrote in a letter to his family. One teacher “told the Zulu history of South Africa in African story form, slow and detailed and characterized.”
When he isn’t preoccupied with classes, he is involved in one of the many field work activities. He works in the clinic, where he is able to give injections and take patients’ histories and chief complaints, and that includes taking blood pressures and temperatures. Throughout the four weeks that he has been there, Nossaman said in a recent e-mail to his family that he has seen several interesting cases, including third-degree burns, tuberculosis and malaria. In fact, Nossaman himself has malaria, and he is now being treated for it.
Though Sherry Nossaman was worried, she wasn’t too much so. “It should be nothing that will last long because of the medical care he is receiving,” she explained.
There also are many HIV patients. Nossaman says nothing could have prepared him for how the disease is handled there. It is very secret; no one ever dies of HIV or AIDS because they say they die of a headache or something else. There is a separate section of the clinic for counseling, where students have the opportunity to go on HIV outreach, testing and treating patients in the local bush villages. Some local towns have all kinds of signs educating the the pubic about the disease; but, even with all this, HIV remains under the table.
Nossaman had the opportunity to visit the HIV-positive infants in the home, which they call the “haven.” These babies are not expected to survive for very long, and Nossaman says that it is sometimes hard to see them. “They barely smile,” he wrote in a letter to his parents. “But they need the most love.”
Sherry Nossaman also agrees that spending quality time with these children is important, and she thinks her son is making a difference in their lives. “He’s making their final days a blessing,” she said. “Instead of them looking up at the ceiling all day, they’ve got him to look forward to play with.”
Nossaman has many other opportunities to be a positive influence on the kids in Africa. He has been able to help teach a 12th grade composition class, take care of orphans and play soccer with the college students.
“I play soccer whenever I can, and we like to play volleyball too,” Nossaman wrote in his letter. But his favorite thing is helping teach the English class, his mom said.
It’s obvious that Nossaman devotes much of his time to helping others, and his parents are extremely proud of him, his brothers admire him, and he truly is making a difference in the world.
Sherry Nossaman stressed that her son would want high school students back home to realize how fortunate they are in America.
“... The food, health, and hospitals that are available,” she said. “The kids there in Africa have to walk a long time to get to school, and most of them are separated from their families in order to go there. ... They go to great lengths to get to school, and a lot of kids here don’t even think about that.”
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