Professor of Spanish Sonja Bontrager came to Newman hoping to create a study abroad program inspired by the impact her own international studies had on her – and she did.
Born in Ohio to Amish Mennonite parents, Bontrager moved to Hesston, Kansas at the age of seven. She took French in middle school and three years of Spanish in high school, which she, self-admittedly, didn’t see the full importance of yet. Now, she’s still connected with her high school Spanish teacher, and was even introduced by her at a conference with the fond, but teasing title of “not her best student.”
After high school, she went to Goshen College in Indiana as an English major with a minor in ESOL and TESOL. Goshen College required all students to take a semester-long study service trip, and because of her high school Spanish classes, she was placed in a group to go to Costa Rica. There, she lived with a Catholic host family, who she connected deeply with and has remained in contact with to this day.
“This family changed my life so much,” Bontrager said. “They took me in and called me their daughter.”
The first activity she did with her host family was a tradition known as “El Rezo del Niño,” or “King’s Day,” a Catholic celebration of the three wise men visiting baby Jesus. She said they prayed the rosary and played music. One song, a folky, spanish tune, she recognized from a record her parents had at home. She said it was a mix of all these new things, plus something familiar and deeply resonating for her.
“It was Costa Rica that was heart-opening for me. It changed my values and it changed what I wanted to study. I was like, ‘This is what I want,’” she said.
Bontrager returned from Costa Rica eager to continue her studies abroad. She found out that Goshen offered two other service trips.
“I picked Barcelona because I liked the name, and it looked close to the water too. That’s how studied I was,” she laughed. The decision would extend her time in her undergraduate studies, much to her parent’s concern, but Bontrager did it anyway.
Despite feeling over her head with the type of schooling in Barcelona, she made friends and started teaching night classes at “Shakespeare’s School of English.” What started as an effort to make money, left her with a surprising new calling: teaching.
“I always said I never wanted to be a teacher because my parents are teachers, but after this and liking teaching so much, I was like, ‘ok, I’ll do this.’”
After finishing her undergraduate degree, she continued to help teach English to non-english speakers, first in Puerto Rico for a month and a half, then at Agua Fria Union High School in Arizona for four years. It was around this time she went for her Master’s, and her journey of studying abroad continued. This time, through a WSU summer program in Puebla, Mexico.
After finishing her Master’s in Spanish Language and Literature, she then got hired full-time at WSU, where she worked for 11 years, teaching and helping English learners. She worked directly with the International Student Exchange Program and got the opportunity to continue traveling internationally.
“That was exciting. I loved supporting the students, but I wanted to create study abroad programs because they had influenced me so much,” she said.
That was when a Spanish position opened up at Newman, and a former dean encouraged her to apply. Once hired, Bontrager finally got her opportunity to form her own study abroad program. She wanted to begin with what she knew most, so the first trip was to Barcelona. After Barcelona, she knew she had to do something more closely connected to Newman.
In 2007, she started Newman’s Guatemala Study and Serve trip, inspired by Father Stanley Rother, a Catholic priest from Oklahoma who did missionary work in Guatemala. Father Rother is the sibling of Sister Marita Rother, one of Newman’s beloved ASC sisters. That felt like the connection she needed.
“This is something unique to Newman. This is who we are. This is the sisters,” she said.
The Guatemala Study and Serve continues today as a two month program, available to students every other year. Students are placed with a host family, involved in one week of service for charity, and take a six-week intensive language study at Proyecto Lingüístico Quetzalteco de Español. For one weekend out of the trip, students even visit the community Father Rother did his missionary work in, Santiago Atitlán.
Now an every-other-year trip, the next Guatemala service trip will be in the summer of 2027, giving students time to enroll in the Fall semester beforehand. The course involves learning about the history of Guatemala and Father Rother prior to the trip.
Bontrager said that knowing a little Spanish is helpful to get started, but not a requirement, and she encouraged fluent Spanish speakers just as much. The program builds confidence in reading and writing in Spanish, she said, and bringing that into both studies and professions. Students who are interested in finding out about the trip can email Bontrager directly.
During the in-between years of the service trip, Bontrager works with the Wichita Diocese to help teach Spanish to seminarians. To Newman students and faculty alike, Bontrager sets an example.
Associate English Professor Marguerite Regan has worked alongside Bontrager for nearly 19 years, and considers her both a colleague and a friend. She reminisces fondly about a language and literacy conference in Chicago they attended together, where they walked around the city, ate at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant on State Street, and foraged through health food stores together.
“Not many besides Sonja would indulge my desire for a hometown Chicago Red Hot, vegan style,” she said.
But it’s Bontrager’s involvement at Newman that she appreciates about her colleague most. At faculty meetings and committees, she brings a consciousness to the room, Regan said.
“She sees our collective blind spot regarding the consequences of our decisions and reminds us of who is not at the table,” she said. “She has such a huge heart for the most marginalized among us. I admire that.”
