Big Brother Shares Missionary Experience With Sister's Middle School Class

When Zach Acito arrived in Sitarampuram, India, he and his youth group members were showered with strings of colorful flowers.

Their hosts stayed in small huts while the youth group stayed in an elaborate, beautiful guest house.

They were treated, as Acito said, "like kings."

"It was just really different for me," he said. "I had never experienced being placed in so much honor like that. In our culture, we take each other for granted. Not that we don't care about each other. But this really changed my perspective."

The Hoover High senior spoke inside North Canton Middle School Thursday about his youth group's trip to the India village. Students in three sixth-grade classes listened as Acito shared his story of the December 2011-January 2012 trip he took with other young members of Canton's High Mill Church.

The middle school students are learning about India in their social studies class, so when Paige Acito mentioned her older brother had traveled there, teacher Annie Montgomery decided to bring him in to share his first-hand experiences.

Acito said he was alarmed at first by some things those in India did differently than Americans. Driving, for instance, had him praying for his life. Forget street signs and stoplights, he said. 

"Their stop light is their horn," he said.

Acito, admittedly a non-adventurous eater, had to step outside his comfort zone to eat the custom flat bread, rice and chicken curry dishes. Encouraged by his pastor to eat the food, Acito did and recognized it was a sign of respect to embrace their ways.

But, that embracing got him into a little bit of trouble when his pastor urged him to try a piece of chicken, with neither of them knowing it was fire curry, one of their spiciest dishes.

"I put one piece in my mouth and it felt like I just had the atomic wings at Quaker Steak & Lube," he said to a room full of laughing students.

Acito and his youth group aimed to make the lives of orphans better when they traveled to Sitarampuram. One big accomplishment, he said, was raising $2,000 before the trip and then building bunk beds for the children who had previously slept on the floor.

So, is another India trip in the young man's future?

"It was an experience I'll never forget, and I would love to go back," he said.