ON A MISSION ---- Our Journey

Alanna Connell and Sarah Wangai winners in the On A Mission Contest

This was truly a journey that none of us will ever forget. Here are my thoughts and impressions of the whole trip. There were so many expectations and many things to remember as we headed to Indonesia. However, what was most important was that we expected to learn a lot, see God work through MAP international and grow individually throughout the entire trip. We arrived in Indonesia and were greeted with open arms by program director Elvi, board member Chok Pin and the Tello team. The whole time before coming to Indonesia I was really thinking about what this trip would mean to me and my dreams. Earlier this year I had made a hard decision to not be in the Pre-med program anymore and pursue a career in public health. This trip to me was going to be a life changing experience. I am going to break this report down into three parts, the before, the during and the after. These three parts of the trip will show how I have grown and how I have been inspired by the whole journey.

The Before
Before the trip, I had to really think back on my life and contemplate on what this would mean to me, my career and my aspirations. I really had to think back on why I wanted to pursue public health as a career and what international development and public health meant to me. I wanted to feel empowered by my choices to pursue this career and also learn exactly what it meant to be working in the field. To me this was going to be the beginning of a new chapter in life. I really had to dig back in all the classes I had taken for my intercultural studies classes, think back to human ecology and really think about how I was going to learn from the Indonesian team but also from their culture. It was a time for me to compare and contrast between the American, Kenyan and Indonesian culture and perspective. To say the least, I was ready for a new experience and a learning opportunity.

The during:
We arrived in Indonesia and headed to Tello immediately and it wasn t long after that that we headed out to our first village Hiligeho. The time was finally here to see what it meant to put your life down and serve the people. It was such a great opportunity to interact with the village people who were all eager and expectant of our arrival. We were greeted with smiles and everyone was eager to learn from the community health classes being taught. It was great to see that no matter their situation or economic status, they all seemed to understand that the health care being offered to them and the education being provided was vital. From that first village I learned that people in need will appreciate everything you do for them no matter how big or small. So whenever I am serving a community or even my peers, I should always remember to put my soul and heart into it, because you never know what someone might take from it that will change and enhance their lives. I thought about how being there only two days must really encourage the villagers to keep striving for better health in the village and also in their families. I realized so many times when doing development work and also doing the work that MAP international does, one does not see the results immediately. It might take years to see any results from the hard work you put into a project or community. But it is the hope that one has knowing that in the end, children and even adults are benefitting from the health care and education being offered that gives workers the motivation to keep doing what they are doing. These thoughts are what make me passionate about the career I am getting into. The second village, Aehawese was a little different from the first. This village we tackled the issue of holistic health. One thing that stood out from this village was that they were more educated, hence healthier and cleaner. When I say we tackled holistic health I mean that we saw issues in physical health, community health and even spiritual health that we had to address. From talking with the Tello team and even the

experiences that we had at that village it is quite evident that the different projects that MAP international does is all due to God and His mighty hand. It is quite evident that spiritual warfare is a key issue when it comes to different health problems in the villages that we visited. Many times the team members are required to pray for villagers and put everything else aside for that moment. This village taught me that with God everything is possible and in everything we do we should do it for Christ and with Christ before us. We should also not only address the physical health of individuals, but as Christians we are called to tackle their spiritual growth as well as their physical, being able to empower and bring them up in all areas of life. I thank God for the work he is doing in the hearts of the people that we visited and the villages we were in. I thank Him for the Tello team because without Him and His provision, their work would not be as meaningful as it has proven to be on our trip.

The after:
This trip mostly opened my eyes to incorporate everything I learned in theory in school but also taught me life lessons and urged me to draw from my life experiences as a pre-med student and international student. This job requires prayer, aptitude and flexibility. Not only are you obligated to fit into the culture but also required to be fully in God s word, seeking Him each and every day as He works through you. I know now why it is so important to have staff from the country office working in the offices. So many times Dr Kiiti talked about what an asset it is, but seeing it firsthand made it all click in. They know the culture already and know how to interact with the villagers already. They were able to respond to situations quickly and knew exactly what to do. Not only did I learn how to incorporate my studies into my field, we realized that there were some thing I would love to follow up on with the Indonesian team and MAP international. As a group we discussed the idea of starting a toilet project in the islands. This project would take a lot of work and years to implement. There are different levels to this project that would require first of all educating the villagers on why a toilet would be beneficial to their health. We talked about also empowering the community through a project like this by first having a communal latrine that they would have to build and keep clean as a community. It felt good to give to a community that really needed the medication but it felt better to think of ideas of how we could empower them more by thinking of different projects that would improve their health care in the long run. Not only was I interested in the latrine project but we talked a lot about culture and the topic of AIDS. We discussed AIDS and TB and how they co-relate as epidemics in so many parts of the world such as Africa. I asked the Tello team if this was a topic that was discussed in the villages and also in health educated classes. They told me that it wasn t really something that was talked about a lot due to the culture. I was interested in seeing how the topic of AIDS would evolve in the coming years in Indonesia as the culture changes or if it stays the same. Above all the good conversations, learning about the Indonesian culture, all the wonderful project ideas that we discussed, this trip was a time for me to really reinforce my dreams and aspirations. I had fallen in love with the culture and the people of Indonesia and I had already started thinking about coming back. I knew I had a passion to pursue public health but I didn t know I was going to love it as much as I did. I learned what development work and public health meant to me. I can say that this trip has totally changed my life and really awoken the fire in my heart for public health and inspired me to pursue it with everything I have. To me, pursuing a career in public health would not be about the money and how it would benefit me, but it would be about the people I would be serving. Not only so but a two-way process where I can learn from them and they can learn from me. MAP international has truly inspired me to take my dreams to another level. For that I am eternally grateful.

Through this whole trip the quote that has been with me and encouraged me as we worked and learned from the Tello team was: Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe. Gail Devers

MAP international thank you for reinforcing my dreams and causing me to learn and work towards my dreams.