Missions and Outreach

Missions and outreach is a core component of the UC Academy education. It is our goal to produce students who are committed to a life of serving and giving to others. Throughout the year, students participate in local and global mission projects.

Guatemala Mission Trip

The Guatemala team consists of a small group of high school students ranging from grades 10 to grade 12. As a service-learning trip, our team ministers to and supports the needs of abandoned and displaced children at Ahicam, a home for Guatemalan children. We also partner with As Green As It Gets to learn and work alongside coffee farmers and their families with a focus on studying economic injustice and the realities of extreme poverty.

In preparation for this trip, team members attend group meetings throughout the year to focus on the importance of taking on the posture of a learner and the heart of a servant. Students are prepared on how to approach cultural integration with the compassion of Jesus.

The overarching desire of the Guatemala team is to model leadership and to help shape the culture of our school as we align ourselves more with the Antioch church as Luke describes it in the book of Acts. In the same way, our goal is to become a generous community that participates actively and cheerfully on both sides of the mission of God—going and sending.

Mexicali Mission Trip

High school students have the opportunity to build cross-cultural relationships and partner in ministry with the members of Siete Olivos, our partner church in Mexicali, Mexico. The purpose of this mission is to introduce our students to more opportunities to serve in the Lord’s Kingdom. For the week-long spring break trip, students develop their own Vacation Bible School curriculum and activities for the children of the neighborhood surrounding Siete Olivos called Colonia Carbajal. While teaching dynamic lessons, playing soccer, and helping with crafts, the youth from the Mexican congregation and from United Christian share the blessing of spreading the Kingdom of God.

The students are required to be 100% committed to the planning, fundraising, and pouring out of God’s love through His Word to those who may not know about Jesus. They are exposed to stepping outside their comfort zone and working alongside other students while they experience the language and culture of Mexico through the love of Christ.

LA World View Mission Trip

The LA Worldview Trip is part of a suite of apologetics trips that UCA’s High School students have been doing for almost a decade. On these trips, students intentionally engage in conversations with people with different worldviews. They do this with strong apologetics, conversational, and scriptural training in months leading up to their trip. In the past, students have adventured to Berkeley, CA and Salt Lake City, Utah to talk to atheists and members of the LDS community.

In 2020, we are doing an inaugural trip to interact with the many different worldviews here in our own Los Angeles, California! Students will initiate conversations with students at UCLA and people at Venice Beach. We will also invite atheist and other world religion speakers to present their worldview to our students and evaluate the truth of their claims. Overall, this particular ministry will prepare students to be intellectually, relationally, and spiritually equipped for the world they will be a part of as a future university student or member of the workforce. Also, it benefits the people our students will be contacting, and give them an opportunity to consider their own worldview, and potentially receive seeds that lead them to the gospel.

Homeless Ministries

Junior High and High School both have ministries that support the homeless and other low socioeconomic status populations. Our Junior High students build blessing bags for the homeless, which are given out to those who seem in need. For High School, we have partnered with Laundry Love, a national organization. Once a month, between 8-10 students go to a laundromat in Pomona with a few other ministries. At the laundromat, the students minister to the homeless, provide a warm meal, and help them to get their clothes washed.

For both of these ministries, our core mission is to provide necessities for and help bring dignity to the homeless in our community. Clean clothes help people feel renewed and dignified, and the chance to interact meaningfully with our students also hopefully provides a moment of joy and human connection. As a school, the mission for our students is that they view these vulnerable populations with the love and compassion of Christ. It’s easy to vilify or dismiss those society has deemed “failures” and “vagrant” and “a nuisance.” By serving with this population, our students and staff see more of the humanity behind a population we may not meaningfully interact with on a daily basis. It also builds gratitude for what we have been given and, more importantly, a chance to share the Gospel.

Community Outreach

Camp Fire Book Drive (2019)

In just two weeks, the Camp Fire in Northern California destroyed more structures than the state’s other seven worst wildfires combined. Everything was destroyed and lost for so many families and businesses.

After four days of United Christian Academy’s Camp Fire Book Drive, a total of 15,937 books were donated to help replenish the countless books and classroom supplies the Paradise City schools and libraries lost in November of 2018. With an original goal to collect 1,000 books over the course of the week, the UCA community was thrilled at the response the book drive had in just one day when the count came in at over 5,500 books on Monday alone. All books collected will be used to help replace classroom libraries, school libraries, and family libraries.

Even the local business community jumped on board with the school’s efforts. When they heard about the cause, the local Lowe’s Home Improvement and Home Depot stores donated 150 boxes for UC Academy students to pack and transport the books. Meanwhile, Penske Truck Rental offered a 20% discount for UCA teachers to rent two 16-foot trucks to haul the books to the Paradise area on Friday, January 18.