College Admissions Essay: My Love For Traveling In Liberia

A passion has erupted and is spurting forth in all areas of my life. I believe that every person deserves the opportunity to prove themselves, they deserve to be given a chance and when it comes to children I feel even more strongly about this. A passion of mine is working with children. Bright grinning faces, and the sparkle in small innocent eyes can bring a smile to my face every time. Some children can be good, bad, and some are just tolerable to be around. Being around children brightens up my day. Fourth graders are just as sweet as the young kindergartners, I soon learned. Thanks mom, for the opportunity that made a difference in my life so I could be an impact to the kids at Union Elementary. I do miss everybody at Union already. I can't wait to come back and see everyone again.

From an early age, I had the desire to give back to my community. This desire was likely instilled in me by my mother, who as a school teacher, went to great lengths to help her students achieve academically. To better do this, she created at Tupelo Middle School in Mississippi, the Mermaids and Argonauts Program, which allowed students to travel on extended school trips to locations where they were able to have hands-on experiences at zoos, science labs, colleges, museums, and more across the country. As her child, I was able to tag along on many of these trips, which fueled my desire to learn about and interact with my environment. It left me with the great hope that someday I would be able to have such experiences abroad, in order to better learn about the people and cultures with which I interact. For this reason, I hope to study abroad this summer in Pachuca, Mexico.

I want to start of by thanking you for supporting my trip to Gulu, Uganda. This trip allowed me to bless so many people, and I learned so much during my 11 days. This trip stretched me in my faith in a lot of ways. Since I was traveling alone and meeting a team at the airport, I had to be completely reliant on God to get me across the world safely. It was a little scary, but God was at work from the very beginning of this trip. While in the Amsterdam airport I even met a whole missions team that were also going to serve in Gulu, which was a huge comfort to me after not speaking to anyone for such a long time. I had no troubles traveling in various airports that I had never set foot in. Once we got to Gulu after eight hours of travel by car, we got a tour of the children’s home that we would be spending the majority of our time in. After getting a tour of the building, I was taken to the preschool that I would be teaching in for the rest of the week. After we visited it, we walked the few minutes it took to get back to the orphanage.

Unfortunately I see this conversation ending with Celeste and Jim both very upset and no solutions to the conflict being discussed. It seems that at the end of this scenario the conflict was beginning to spiral out of control, and communication was shutting down. It will end with Celeste and Jim blowing up at each other and not being willing to understand the others perspective about the situation. They will not talk for a while after this happens and Jim will hire Nikki as he intended to from the beginning. As a negative end to this conflict I see Jim and Celeste looking back over the conflict still trying to defend their position (retrospective goals).

When I was little, I heard stories of Third World countries where people lived in complete poverty. I would hear of how they had dilapidated domiciles, contaminated water, deadly diseases, and shortages of food. I was always told how blessed I was to live in a country where I was free of these situations, but I always took this truth for granted. I would go along every day, not worrying about where I was going to sleep or what I was going to eat, when people all over the world were facing these situations as problems. It wasn't until I was sixteen that I realized how blessed I was, when I was given the opportunity to visit San Jose, Costa Rica.

This summer I will be going to latin America through a non-profit organization called Amigos de las Americas.

Every person deserves both medical attention and acknowledgement of his or her own humanity. The dream of returning to El Salvador in order to change the lives of the place I once called home motivates me every day. My goal is to also travel to other third world countries such as Nepal, Syria, Afghanistan, Philippines, and many more all around the world in order to give the people of these countries the medical attention, food, shelter, security, and education every person deserves regardless of race, wealth, sexual orientation, or religion.

Last summer, I flew to Nicaragua for ten days with a team of sixteen girls and boys. I knew a couple people who have gone to mission and service trips like this and they said it was a really good experience, so I thought about and eventually made the decision to go. It was both one of the most terrifying and amazing experiences I have ever had. When we landed and arrived in Managua, I saw people living in extreme poverty left and right. People lived in houses with large rusty metal sheets for walls and roofs. Kids played outside

Two goals I hope to achieve by going on this trip are exposing myself to different ways of life and learning how I can help others in need. It is evident we are not all the same. Some of us have had to overcome greater obsticals than others, yet we are all living for a better something. I want to learn about the social issues I am unaware of that people have to deal with on a daily basis.

This trip broadened my horizon in every respect, from learning about cultures outside of the United States to how those in rural communities have to live and support themselves to the lack of health care availability in so many countries around the world. The communities we visited were extremely under-privileged; no running water, four poles and plastic bags as homes, and the clothes on their backs. They really had nothing, but I have never seen anyone more happy than

As I was reading chapter 8, all I could think of was: why am I here? What could I possibly did to deserve what I have right now? The fact that I found, as many of the former JBU Walton students, is that I don’t deserve the scholarship. I know that there are many other Nicaraguan applicants who had mine or even a better GPA than mine, who could easily take my spot without being so overwhelmed by chemistry. I know there are many other Nicaraguan applicants who had greater expectations than mine, who had surely planned their lives more carefully, assuring themselves a future of success and changing for the country. I know there are many other Nicaraguan applicants with a stronger faith than mine, with lower incomes, with better ideas, with more ability and experience… so, why me?

Growing up as a young Girl Scout kindled my personal passion for adventure, travel, and service to others. As an adult traveller I feel enriched and sometimes humbled in experiencing the myriad of human cultures around the earth. It is by my traveling to other countries and meeting and talking to people of different cultures that, not only do I gain a richer perspective on the fascinating differences in how we live our daily lives. But also, I feel it is important to experience firsthand and therefore understand better the bitter personal struggles many people bravely face. The common desire I recognize in all people, be they American, Canadian, Polish, Filipino, or African, is a deeply felt desire to leave this Earth a better place. I hope to help The Whole Planet Foundation continue their good work with the Togolese people as a respectful

I have a ticket in my hand. I can go anywhere in the world, see anything or meet anyone. The world has an abundance of cities and beautiful views. For what? A temporary ease to reality? Magical places filled with superficial smiles materialistically caused to cover up the evil within the country. So where would I go?

On February 2016, I embarked on a journey that I will never forget. “You are going to Africa.” I stood in disbelief as it was revealed to me that the application I had submitted to Trek for Knowledge, a program that gives urban students the opportunity to travel to developing countries with low literacy rates to build a school, was accepted. Being one of only two students from my school that would be able to go during the spring of 2016, I was ecstatic. My parents were fearful at first, but they soon eased into the idea and helped me put together what I needed. With my bags packed, I met up with the 18 other students who were also going and we all boarded our plane. Anxious, emotional, and excited all at once, I prepared for the adventure of a lifetime.

An intense burning sensation came over me as my mom scanned closely over my report card. There were thoughts bouncing off each other in my mind convincing me that my mom would be disappointed from seeing the overall B I received in physics class. As she started to glance up at me I held my breathe and just hoped desperately that she would agree to let me go on a senior trip if she approved of my grades. She looked up at me and smiled. She asked, “So, where would you like to go for your senior trip?” I became overwhelmed with joy and excitment and immediately thought of Italy.