One teacher is bringing smiles to kids all over the world.

Band director Chris Yancey traveled to Ethiopia this month to help a specific set of orphans. In a small village within higher elevations, were orphans waiting to see a handful of people ready to give them dozens of new things.

He attended with a group called Acts of Wisdom where they travel every few years to help kids who aren’t as fortunate. Hundreds of kids gathered around their vehicle chanting ‘Welcome!’ over and over. Some of the kids couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

“[The kids] swarm you,” Yancey said, “they just want to shake your hand. Some kids, on the other hand, would just stand there wondering who you were […] I even remember this one kid pinching me, thinking I was just a dream.”

Principal’s of the school would schedule meetings and give the group a lengthy list of all the things that their school needed.

“We were taking a walk-through of the school and there was just this huge hole in the wall,” Yancey said, “The kids were on the other side of the wall just laughing at these white men standing on the other side.”

Yancey is the school’s head band director. By day he’s teaching over 150 kids how to improve their instruments and by night he plans his trip in order to help students with something out of the ordinary.

Teachers are normally heroes just within the school, but Mr. Yancey traveled all the way to the horn of Africa. In Ethiopia, he helped students by supplying them with school supplies, the range being as simple as a couple of boxes of wooden pencils to anything as big as new desks.

“The kids absolutely loved such simple things like pens,” Yancey said, “They would just chase you yelling ‘pen pen pen pen!’”

The government gives students an empty building labeling it a “school” and Yancey is one of the people who supply students who aren’t as fortunate as us.

One of the group members thought it would be interesting to bring some of America’s technology for the kids in Ethiopia: a drone.

“When we started flying the drone, the kids absolutely loved it! Majority of them were just chasing it down while the other half ran straight in the opposite direction,” Yancey said.

By staying for a week in Ethiopia, students can only wonder what new perspectives Yancey has gained from this amazing experience. From things as simple as ballpoint pens to as elaborate as drones, these children constantly had a smile on their face and this will always be an unforgettable moment for Chris Yancey.