In addition to the incredible staff team, I've been surrounded these past few days by a large group of dedicated young adults and young adults-at-heart who will all be abroad by the end of the summer. I've linked to their blogs on my sidebar, but I really want you to know every single member of our team in the way that I know them. I'm going to try to go alphabetically, but these are the wonderful YASC volunteers that are providing incredible examples to my own journey.
Alan is a brilliant recent graduate of Clemson University and will be in
Haiti working as a development assistant in Cange.
Alan happened to be one of the first people from the group
that I met in Grand Central Station before taking the train up to Tarrytown.
Ashley is a world traveler! She'll be traveling from Virginia to
the Northern Philippines and will be working as the Development
Assistant of the Episcopal Development Foundation
of St. Mark. She only arrived here at Stonypoint with us
yesterday, but she's been just as friendly and welcoming
as the rest of the group!
Becky is a strong soul from San Diego who will be
heading to Honduras to teach in a classroom there!
She also happens to be an incredible piano player
and giver of new Youtube obsessions. Look up
KidSnippets for some great entertainment!
Carlin is a graduate from St. John's (Mom, turns out
this really would have been a great school for me! I will be
suggesting it to my kids, for sure!) who will be leaving
Northwest Texas to serve in North Korea! She'll be
an intern with Towards Peace in Seoul and will hopefully
be able to put her mad discussion skills to good use there!
Charlotte is the most incredible Mama-Char! She's providing
me with the computer to write this blog and has been the purveyor
of every little thing I might need that I forgot to bring with me.
She'll be leaving her childhood home in Indianapolis to travel
to Japan where she'll be the Education and International Exchange
Program Assistant at the Kiyosato Educational Experiment
Project. I'm excited to see her maternal instincts translate cross-culturally.
Claire has consistently been an encouraging presence here at Stonypoint
and she happens to be another YASCer who missed Discernment
Weekend in February. She seems to have acclimated just as
well to life in this community as I have even though she's in the
midst of MCAT studying. She'll be joining Becky in Honduras
after leaving her home in the Diocese in Mississippi and will be
a college counselor at a bilingual school there! She and Becky
will be able to host some lovely piano soirees with their joint talents.
Dan is one of our Young Adult-At-Heart Service Corps volunteers.
He has had lots of past experience being abroad, specifically in Haiti,
and it's there that he'll return shortly after these two weeks are up.
Dan has been such a valuable resource as one with experience and
advice to bestow upon us less-worldly cultured folk.
Dianne is another YAHSC volunteer. She and her husband will actually
be in El Salvador for three years and started their trip in March.
They're teaching English to the locals while they strengthen their
own Spanish language. Dianne has been added a lot to individual
conversations with her advice and sarcasm keeping things light.
I'm so grateful that she and her husband took the time to come back
here even though their service has already started.
Hannah has quickly become one of the most interesting people I've ever met.
Her YASC trip represents a greater transition in her life from one of
badges and accomplishments to one of putting more emphasis on process,
growth, and change. She'll be leaving Olympia and traveling to El Salvador
to work at Fundacion Cristosal. She taught me the very beautiful combat
dance called Capoeira. I encourage you to research the art yourself,
it's an incredibly humbling experience that I think we all might benefit from!
Heidi has my dream job here in the states with her kindergarten and first
grade students. But she has packed up her classroom in Wyoming and
will be in Tanzania this upcoming year in a brand new classroom where
they'll speak Swahili! I can't imagine what it must be like to learn an
entire new language, but it seems like she's up for the challenge!
Joseph has the most amazing laugh I've ever heard. Once he's started,
it is absolutely impossible for anyone to stop their own fits of
laughter. Hopefully his humor and spirit will translate when he leaves
West Texas for Panama City where he'll be mission assistant for the diocese.
Julie, another YASCer who missed Discernment Weekend with Claire
and myself, is located just west of my favorite New York diocese,
but will soon be leaving sunny Pennsylvania and heading out to Haiti,
where she'll be teaching at the School of Nursing Science! She's been
such a great asset and I'm glad that she came in as late as I did and has
still managed to totally make her place in the group!
Keri is the only married YASCer! She'll be leaving behind her lovely
husband Jacob in Virginia and traveling about an hour and a half
away from me! In Hawston, South Africa, she'll be the Home-Based
Care and Support Group Facilitator at the Overstrand Care Centre.
Plans for she and I to visit places like Robben Island and Stellenbosch
are already in the works!
Margaret is my favorite masseuse in the entire world! Upon meeting her,
I immediately lost tons of tension in my back as she worked out my
anxieties. She'll be leaving lovely Dayton, Ohio and heading to the
Philippines to an assignment yet to be determined! Her incredible
spirit, faith, and adaptability will make sure she'll be an asset wherever she is!
Maurice is another member of Team South Africa! He is an extremely
faithful soul and will be bringing his faith to Holy Cross School
in Grahamstown, where he'll be an assistant teacher. He has one of
the sweetest off-kilter smiles I've ever seen and I can't wait
to see him charm his way through any situation.
Paul will also be following Maurice, Keri, and I to South Africa!
In actuality, we'll be following him, as he leaves in a few weeks!
He leaves North Carolina to join Maurice in Grahamstown where
he'll be the Student Minister at the Cathedral Church of St. Michael
and St. George. I'm so excited to watch Paul continue to discern his
own spiritual path and instill the same faith he has in the youth at his parish.
Pierre is a YAHSCer and is actually Father Pierre of Southeast Florida.
He'll be heading back home to Haiti and serving as the Dean of
the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Port-au-Prince. He has
been an exceptionally faithful example and has provided some
great theological knowledge that one can only learn
in seminary in history courses!
Rachel is my beautiful roommate here at Stonypoint. She is one
fiery North Carolinan that will be bringing her spirit to Panama City
with Joseph. She'll be a teaching assistant in a history classroom
as well as the Social Outreach Assistant at St. Christopher's Episcopal
School. I cannot wait to follow her journey after getting to know her here in NY!
Sara, from Alabama, will be headed to Hong Kong where she'll be
the Mission Intern at the Mission for Migrant Workers. With her
passion laying in women's rights and social justice, she's excited to
work especially with the female migrant workers and really be able
to contribute her passion to the work in her placement. She's so
lucky to find her passion there and I can't wait to find mine as well!
Sean is our one non-mainlander and is from Maui, Hawaii! He'll be
taking his easygoing and joyful spirit to Japan where he'll be a
volunteer at the Asian Rural Institute in Nasushiobara. He seems so
content with watching the people and the world around him and I
can't wait to hear what he learns in Japan watching a
culture so different from ours.
Tom is another of our YAHSC volunteers. He and his wife Dianne are
spending the next three years in El Salvador teaching English! I'm so
excited to hear any English these two teach in order to see if their
thick Massachusetts accents will translate in teaching! It's been such a
joy to work with Tom and he has some great insights about adapting
in cultures and taking it one day at a time.
Will B. will be taking his spirit from North Carolina and taking it
right on over to Hong Kong with Sara. He'll be the Chaplaincy
Assistant with the Mission to Seafarers. Now, I have absolutely
no idea what that means, but I can tell you about Will's disposition.
I've never seen a person with such joy on their face at the smallest
things. His sarcasm and enjoyment has made me feel better about
many long and draining trainings. His humor has continued to brighten
my day and I'm so jealous of Hong Kong for getting that spirit this next year!
Will P. is our one underage volunteer. He is taking a break after his
junior year of college and traveling to Cuba and serving as the
Mission Assistant for the diocese there. As a fellow PK, he's
had his fair share of church and communion wafers, but he
seems to have discovered a passion for communion wafers as much
as a passion for finding joy in all situations. I would wish Cuba on
no one else, but I'm excited to learn more about the culture and I
know he is prepared for whatever challenges he might face!
And last, but certainly not least, Zach! Now I'd like to send a huge
shout-out to Zach because he was the first person to notice that I
was missing from the established Facebook group and to add me in
and welcome me as one of their own! He and I quickly bonded over
our love for Ke$ha and Nicki Minaj and created an impromptu
sing-along on a bus trip to NYC two days ago. He will be leaving his
home in Detroit and traveling down to Haiti where he'll be teaching
and providing administration support at the Bishop Tharp Institute in Les Cayes.
So, click on their names and read their blogs! Learn more about them and donate to their trips if you can! Although a few of them are fully funded, every little bit will help the others and I'd love for my community to branch out and support not just my trip, but the others as well!
In case you haven't donated to my journey yet, you can do so online at http://www.gofundme.com/32d2c8 or shoot me an email (emilyjenningsbarker@gmail.com) or find me on Facebook to find out other ways to donate! I thank you for reading such a long email and I hope you enjoyed learning about the other YASC and YAHSCers this year!
