By Jennifer Gentile

Daily Times Leader 

In lieu of a vacation, members of the Hebron Christian School graduating class are doing a good deed.
According to Hebron English teacher Michael Shelton, the class had raised approximately $1,900 to apply toward a trip.
“They looked into several things,” Shelton said. “They looked into going on a cruise, going to the coast of Florida or Alabama. They just didn't find anything that appealed to them.”
Instead, the senior class will use a large chunk of the money to help send 23-year-old Jonathon Little and his wife, Kate, to Israel. Little's brother, Benjamin, is a new Hebron graduate and will be going on his own ministry trip to Eastern Asia.
According to Shelton,“These young people didn't have enough money to go to Israel, so the senior class donated it to them.”
“The main idea of Benjamin and Jonathon's trips is incorporating basketball as a way to reach people,” said their mother, Dulcy Little.
Jonathon is a Mississippi State University graduate and will be beginning his master's degree program in environmental economics there in the fall, she said.
“Jonathon played some college ball,” Little added, “and (Benjamin) played at Hebron for the three seasons he was here.”
According to Jonathon, his trip is composed of three parts.
“We're going to run an upward basketball league all summer long,” he said, explaining that “upward” refers to a Christian youth athletic league.
The second part of the trip involves Bible study and trips to historical sites, and the third involves Little playing basketball on an Israeli league.
“There are five tournaments were going to be playing in,” he said.
Little explained that the mission is affiliated with Athletes in Action, the athletic offshoot of Campus Crusade for Christ. Approximately 18 Americans will be going on the trip, he said, including 14 basketball players.
They will be leaving on June 15 to return Aug. 24.
“We were coming close to our support-raising goal, but were lacking about $1,000,” Little said. “(The donation) definitely made it possible; without it, it would have been a tight squeeze.”
Shelton said after contributing $1,000 for the Israel trip, the class is planning to use the rest to install a flagpole “as a legacy to the school.”
JoJo Pearson, a member of the class of 2009, said, "I think it's a good cause."
"I'm just glad we were able to put it toward something good," Pearson said.