The turkey is cold and the mashed potatoes are gone; Thanksgiving is over, and Christmas is on its way. For some, that means snow. For many, it means reading the Christmas story in front of a fireplace or decorating an evergreen with lights and tinsel. But for us all, Christmas is a time we share with our friends and family, the people we hold dear.

But what if you couldn’t spend the holiday season with the people you cherish? Sophomore Kennedy Chongo was among those people planning to spend Christmas away from home, until some of his floor mates decided to step up and help him out.

Chongo is a foreign exchange student from the Republic of Zambia, a landlocked country in the southern half of Africa. He plays on the soccer team and he’s a math major. He spent a year at Trinity College before coming to Biola, but ever since he began college in the United States, Chongo has not been able to return home and visit his family.

Chongo has grown close to the people on his floor in Hope, and upon hearing that Chongo would spend the holidays away from his family, two friends decided to try and change that. Junior Christian Young, a film major, and sophomore Atila Lotfi, who is studying business, had only just met Chongo, but together they formed a plan to send him home.

Knocking on doors, Young and Lofti trekked across Biola gathering money for Chongo’s trip.

“The first night, we went over and started in Alpha,” Young explained. “We pretty much just knocked on doors, and people would just give change, a cent, a nickel, a penny. Some people gave a little bit more, if they knew him or wanted to see him go home. The first night we did all of Alpha, and we went back and counted it, and it was $600, and we thought, ‘This is plausible, we can actually do this.’”

For the next two nights, Young and Lofti visited halls all over campus, asking for money to pay for Chongo’s plane ticket home. Students gave whatever they had: nickels, pennies, quarters, and spare dollars. Some gave more, but by the time the duo were done raising the $1,800 they needed, a full half of the amount had been donated in change.

A few days later, when an RA called Chongo away from a ping-pong game, he hadn’t the slightest idea what it was about. Then, when his friend Young walked up and gave him the plane ticket that would fly him home, Chongo was speechless.

“It was overwhelming,” he remembers. “I didn’t know how to react.” Looking at his early Christmas gift, he almost broke into tears.

A few weeks after receiving the gift, Chongo is still excited.

“My granny is the first one I really have to see when I get there,” he said. “I spoke to her when I found out that I got to go home, and she was really excited.”

His friends and family in Zambia are all thrilled to have Chongo back for a few weeks, and he plans on doing a lot of traveling.

Looking back on this event, those two friends who were moved to help out a friend in need would gladly do it again.

“It was just such a good experience for us,” said Lofti. “It was amazing to see people’s reactions.”

What hit them the hardest was that this sort of gift almost gave itself.

“We spent 10 hours on three nights doing it,” said Young, smiling. “It wasn’t that big of a burden, and we got to send someone home.”