make it happen

So why are you doing this?

Here are as many of the reasons why as i can think of. Some big, some small, but all of them reasons: * I was VERY bored at work one day late in May of 2005. Frustrated about career paths or lack there of. I wasn't using my degree to teach. I was't getting any fulfillment from my current position. I had hit another praverbial and inevitable career wall. I was standing there with a blank sheet of paper in front of me and on it I wrote 2 questions: "What am I supposed to do with my life?" followed soon after by "What about the Peace Corps?" That's where it really started. That's all it took. Those questions haunted me deeply and sent me into an inner search for meaning. Prior to that i had been job searching. Looking for work and not a path. An income and not a life's work. I had an application w/ the Fishers Fire Department but 6 months ago i had no ambition to be a fireman, it was a job. A means to fit an income. * My beloved teacher Mr Doyle and I were talking after choir this spring and he had remarked how Jacob Froman took a life path that he really admired. After high school, Jacob joined the Navy and traveled around the world. It gave him a chance to shake the dust off of Rushville and Indiana and to find himself in the somewhere out there. He left high school a squirly, aloof and mildy naive student and he came back a well rounded and assertive young man. In his travels he found a greater sense of what he had to offer to the world, what the world needed, and what he needed to do to achieve that. * Roger Williams, youth minister at Trinity Park UMC has enlightened me to a more global picture of the world outside. He continuly teaches his kids to just get out there and see it. You don't have to make big changes necessarly, just open your eyes and see what's there. Thanks for the talks at Starbucks, Rog! And i'll still swear that when you mentioned the Peace Corps I totally dismissed it as an non plausable option that i completely wasn't interested in, but it totally planted a seed. (They should seriously think about paying you for recruiting) * Ever seen the movie "The Motorcycle Diaries"? Need I say more? This movie more than anything else gave me a desire finally to drop everything, sell my house and go. As the story goes, two men from Argentina (one of them being Che Guavara) take a motorcycle trip through Latin America. It was supposed to be just a trip, covering 6000 km, but in the midst of their travels they saw a world that before had only been known through still pictures. The landscape came to life. Indigineous people, poverty, social injustice, oppression, hardships. It created a stir in them that not enough was being done to help. The rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer and by seeing it first hand they were able to sense on a deeper level their need to uncover the cause and contribute in their own way to the solution. * I am VERY single. It's not uncommon for me to go years between dating. You've got your whole life to be married, and i'm definately looking forward to that, but there are very different things you can do and experience while you're single, so take advantage of it. * At 26, I am young (the average age of a peace corps volunteer is 28) * After praying about the decison i just felt a great sense of peace about having a direction and a goal in life. It gave me new sense of life and a greater sense of purpose. One that wasn't driven by the corporate ladder or by an income level. It's about breaking free, experiencing life in a way few others have. By losing everything, I'm gaining. *I believe that I have a call to serve. Just as mother Theresa served the poorest of the poor. Just as Jesus lived, taught, served, healed, and died for His people. * The thought of the Peace Corps was a speck in my mind when i graduated from Purdue in December of 2001, but i had other things i wanted to do. I wanted to move to Boston. To find a job. Work. Live. Experience a big city and to have a big city experience me. To see what the world (at least a portion in New England) had to offer. On January 15, 2002 i had my car packed, ready to leave when something happened that altered my path. My grandmother had a massive stroke and i decided to move in w/ my grandfather and go ahead and use my degree and teach. Taught for 2 years, bought a house. Those were 2 things on my 'list'. Teaching shop wasn't for me and owning a home is a more expensive hobby than i had first realized. So check those off the list and the next thing was Peace Corps. *Jennifer MeGee just served a 2 year stint in Haiti and the Dominican Republic with the PC and after speaking to her at length it only solidified my desire to join. She spoke of life in her village and how different it was than she could have anticipated. She made friendships she never thought were possible. Close, intimate friendships. She wasn't just doing soemthing for people, she worked side by side with the Hatians and people of the Dominican Rebublic teaching them how to provide for themselves on a small scale a better way of life. But mostly it was relational work. Relating with people. Communing with people. Sharing life with people, despite the difference in skin color, religion, race and creed.

posted by Brian R Dunn @ 2:53 PM