I have been following Shannon Kelley's Blog (a Knoxville photographer) that moved to Haiti at the beginning of January for a year commitment. I decided to contact the organization what she is working with, World Wide Village. On Christmas Eve I visited their website and sent them this email ...
Hello! My name is Samantha Gross. I am a 23 year old student studying nursing. I went on my first mission trip to Haiti in May 2010 and completely feel in love. I feel in love with a country. I feel in love with the people. With the culture. Just everything about it.
I always knew that I wanted to help people, hence the reason I decided on nursing. And I knew I wanted to do mission work, but honestly never thought much about third world missions, nor did I ever think about it being my career. After coming back home May 2010 and reflecting on my trip to Haiti, I realized exactly that ... God was calling me to be a nurse, and do missions, all in Haiti. Wow! Talk about alot to take in and digest.
So, I accepted that calling, but knew it would be several years away since I wasn't even in nursing school yet. In the mean time, I got an opportunity to go to Haiti again. I was able to go December 9-13, 2011 and work in the same orphanage as I worked in before. Being able to see the same precious kids' faces again and to spend another week with them ... priceless! We took Christmas to 74 orphans who have never had a Christmas before. They had never seen Santa Claus. And they never had individual presents bought specifically for them, their age, and their interests. Such a humbling experience seeing a child's face light up over a pair of pants, or a shirt, or a McDonald's Happy Meal size My Little Pony. It made it alot harder coming home this time. I want to spend every day with these kids. I want to get mud all over my shorts from picking them up and their shoes being dirty. I want to see their sweet smiling faces every time I take a picture of them and they get to look at it. I want to sit on the ground and have 4 or 5 children climb all over me like I'm a jungle gym. I want to live in Haiti!
I have only had a short time to meditate and re-think about this past trip, but God made is even clearer that His calling on my life is to be a medical missionary in Haiti. I'm to the point where that isn't as intimidating anymore. It's exciting and a little nerve wrecking at the same time. I know that God is not calling me to live in Haiti permanently just yet (I still have a couple years of school), but I do know that I want to spend as much time there as I can until the day arrives that I can say that I no longer live in the United States of America and that I live in Haiti!!
So, I write to you to tell you a little bit about myself and my story to ask you to send me any information you can about maybe interning during the Summer 2012. Since I do have school during the main semesters of the year, the summer is my biggest opportunity to serve for longer than a week.
Thank you in advance for everything! And I look forward to hearing from you!
So, I accepted that calling, but knew it would be several years away since I wasn't even in nursing school yet. In the mean time, I got an opportunity to go to Haiti again. I was able to go December 9-13, 2011 and work in the same orphanage as I worked in before. Being able to see the same precious kids' faces again and to spend another week with them ... priceless! We took Christmas to 74 orphans who have never had a Christmas before. They had never seen Santa Claus. And they never had individual presents bought specifically for them, their age, and their interests. Such a humbling experience seeing a child's face light up over a pair of pants, or a shirt, or a McDonald's Happy Meal size My Little Pony. It made it alot harder coming home this time. I want to spend every day with these kids. I want to get mud all over my shorts from picking them up and their shoes being dirty. I want to see their sweet smiling faces every time I take a picture of them and they get to look at it. I want to sit on the ground and have 4 or 5 children climb all over me like I'm a jungle gym. I want to live in Haiti!
I have only had a short time to meditate and re-think about this past trip, but God made is even clearer that His calling on my life is to be a medical missionary in Haiti. I'm to the point where that isn't as intimidating anymore. It's exciting and a little nerve wrecking at the same time. I know that God is not calling me to live in Haiti permanently just yet (I still have a couple years of school), but I do know that I want to spend as much time there as I can until the day arrives that I can say that I no longer live in the United States of America and that I live in Haiti!!
So, I write to you to tell you a little bit about myself and my story to ask you to send me any information you can about maybe interning during the Summer 2012. Since I do have school during the main semesters of the year, the summer is my biggest opportunity to serve for longer than a week.
Thank you in advance for everything! And I look forward to hearing from you!
It took just a couple days, and the President of the company sent me an email in response. We emailed back and forth a couple of times and then today I received a phone call. The person in charge of all the internships with World Wide Village, Sara, called me and we had a phone interview. She wanted to ask me some questions about me and about what I was interested in doing in Haiti. She also told me about the projects that World Wide Village is involved with in Haiti.
I left the phone call very excited. She's going to email me an application and we'll see what's to come ...
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