Personal Narrative: Volunteering In Paraguay, South America

Last May, I traveled with Alternative Breaks to New York for community service. During this service, I worked with Meals on Wheels who dedicate their time to provide food for the elderly of Manhattan. As I delivered the food to the seniors, I got a sense of fulfillment because I made them smile by providing them with food. Thus, I chose MDC’s Single Stop because I wanted to make a difference in my home campus by providing and assuring nourishment to those that do not have it just like I did in New York. As my first two years of college comes to an end, I wanted to leave a mark of my own here at home at Miami Dade College North Campus. During the month of September, I decided to partner up with a few of my peers to serve at MDC’s Single Stop.

As I stepped out of the airport, followed by my family, I was unprepared for the snowfall and icy pavement that is so commonplace in January in Michigan. If I had thought enough about it, I would have worn winter boots on the plane and maybe brought my puffy white coat to block the wind. Instead, I stood shivering in brand new, pink ballet-flat shoes, while snowflakes filled my eyelashes.

The classic saying, “There’s always someone who has it worse than you” (Shaggy- Keepin’ it Real), didn’t come true to me until I had first-hand experience. As a child, I grew up in the lower middle class. So I wasn’t rich nor super poor. My mother came to the United States from El Salvador in the 1980’s. She has never taken my brother and me to her home country.

Imagine a time where you were at your lowest, a time in your life that nothing seemed to make

Narrative Essay 1 It was a Monday in the summer of 2015. I was riding in an old 11 passenger van with 30 other people, on our way back from playing soccer. Most of the people were Guatemalan children screaming at the top of their lungs as the van rocked side to side as we drove up a narrow, winding, mountain road without guide rails. In the summer of 2015, I went to Guatemala for ten days, on a mission trip. My team (18 youth and pastors of East Side Church of God) and I visited four different Indian vilages: Chupol, Paquisis, Sacbichol, and Agua Escondita. We spent two days in each village and slept in each village’s church.

Moving to a new country is very difficult for every person, even more, if it does not have anything in common with your origin country. Crossing borders, taking airplanes, and risking your life can become part of the immigration process. In this essay, I am going to explain the history of how I get out of Cuba. Also, I will be explaining how I reached this country. It was hard, but not impossible, and it was paid off already.

They say home is where the heart is and I’ve found out to be very true last year. I stayed in Palacagüina, Nicaragua for three months with an absolutely wonderful family with four of my friends. The five hour bus ride up to the dry dusty Nicaraguan mountains made me think this was quite an uneventful place. Don’t get me wrong.. Palacagüina is quite a boring place but the people there are so real and so truly amazing and it brings so much light to that city. Nicaragua has a way of making everything brighter. As soon as we met our family we were staying with they made us feel right at home and apart of their family. They started loving on us like my parents or any of my family would, which was so comforting.

world we need each one another. However, sometime it’s better to make your decision alone. If you make your own decision you will be responsibility for your own mistake.

I have been praying for God to give me an opportunity to go on a mission trip this summer. Many opportunities have gone by but I did not feel God calling me to those places except for Africa but I talked to you guys and you said no, you would rather keep me alive lol. But anyways, about a week ago I was scrolling through Instagram and one of the summer mentors at First Baptist Woodstock, Natalie Priest, had posted a picture with a caption saying that her church Zion Hill Baptist Church is going on a mission trip this summer to Guatemala. When I first read this I thought to myself, oh my goodness that is so exciting!! Well, that entire night I could not stop thinking about this trip. So I started pouring myself out to God asking Him over and

Life in El Salvador is complicated. With one murder per hour, living in a country with the reputation of the most dangerous place in the world took a toll on my childhood. At an early age I, did not like to talk to people or be around them, because I did not trust them and felt uncomfortable. When I was in class and the teacher ask a question, I did not raise my hand even if I knew the answer because such shy behavior became my most noticeable characteristic. At the age of 13, I came to the United States to live with my mom. Besides my excluding behavior, now I needed to go to a new school and learn to speak a new language in order to be successful. It was difficult for me to change my personality and adapt to this new environment. I had nutrition

Is it possible for someone to impact your life if you don’t even speak the same language? This was a major question I had to answer this summer. I found myself on a mission trip in Nicaragua with around thirty people I had met less than a month earlier. We were doing a vacation bible school at an after school/feeding program for kids from preschool age through high school. Of course I loved all of the children at Los Brasiles but I naturally picked favorites and those favorites taught me more than I could have ever imagined possible.

I recently made a trip to Colombia about a few weeks ago. The day I stepped back onto American soil, I never looked at my life the same. The one aspect that has changed me and has impressed me more than anything, is how different people are treated in one country verse another. My experience in Colombia was an amazing one that I will never forget. There I was treated like an actual person, I was not judged by the way I looked, nor the way I dressed. Every corner I turned, everywhere I went some one was there to greet me. I had a conversation with a lady that owned a restaurant in the same house she lived it. It wasn’t much that she had, but she was the most charismatic, optimistic person I have ever met. She explained to me how her family has

The past two semesters have been difficult for me. Around the end of October my mother travelled to her native country, El Salvador, to be there supporting my aunt through her eye surgery. It had been 20 years since my mother had visited her country and seen my older brother she left back in El Salvador. Three days into her trip my mother got really bad of health, she had fainted in shock and would not eat nor drink anything. Later on she was hospitalized in a hospital; the doctor stated that she could not come back by herself. I, as her daughter, was the designated person to go pick her up. Before leaving I indicated to my professors that I had a family emergency and that I would be traveling out of the country. So I traveled to El Salvador

“Mom this light is making me look up at it,” I said calmly. From a distance she saw my eyes rolling up, and started to approached me slowly. She simultaneously ran towards me and yelled for my father’s help. “Her eyes, her eyes!” she yelled repeatedly. “Carry her down the stairs while I start the car.” It all started on the summer of 2013, we were on vacation at Guatemala. I felt like I was starting to catch a cold. After I realized I was getting sick I went to see what I had. I got to doctors and I remember him asking me a lot of questions. Once we were done, the doctor gave me a prescription for medicine. Little did I know he had given me adult medicine, which basically means he had given me a drug overdose.

I have not started my volunteering with Merrimack yet, but I have volunteered in the past. Like Courtney, I volunteered while I was in high school at Cor Unum and at my church’s food pantry. I remember the first time I volunteered at Cor Unum, how depressing yet fulfilling it