I had always wanted to do service. I was at a point in my live where although I had my own business and well established life in the U.S. things were still flexible enough to pack up and do service. I realized that this may not always be possible so I decided to look into doing service before I was tied down. I researched various different service projects and found Farm of the Child. I was very intrigued with the structure Farm of the Child and decided to apply. I can not pin point any one thing that has been my high point here because there have been sooooo many. I can say that some of my most memorable moments are my time spent with the neighbors of Farm of the child. I am always amazed at how hospitable they are how and they always open their homes and lives to me. Of course we are making a difference. It would be impossible to serve 49 children and say that we are not making a difference. We have changed the lives of every one of our children just by bringing them to the Finca. We also change the lives of the people in the local communities with services like the bodega and the clinic.

I had dreamed of volunteering outside of the U.S. since high school, hoping to live some of the inspirational stories that high school teachers had shared with me of their time in programs such as the Peace Corps. While at Creighton, those dreams were amplified, especially after a semester of studying in the Dominican Republic. In the Dominican Republic, I weekly went to an orphange for children with disabilities and visited other orphanges as well. It was at these orphanages that I experienced my most authentic self. With this came the desire for more. When I heard about Farm of the Child, I was very excited. I was taken by the prospect of dedicating two years of my life to children that had been hurt or abandoned in a place that provided for them fully. It really was not a hard decision in the end. It has been a true gift watching our children grow. I have been granted an opportunity to see painfully shy children turn into the class clown and children that were once bullies become leaders in our community. The example that is most dear to me was when once of the houses called me into an important meeeting. At this meeting, our adolescent boys between the ages of 13 and 15 told that they had been seeing a problem that needed to change and that they felt that they had a plan to fix it with my approval. The boys in the age group just below them had been struggling, especially while their house parents were away. The boys in St. Joseph House told me that the volunteers did not really know what was going on and that we were not doing enough. They presented to me a plan in which each boy in St. Joseph House would become a mentor for one of the boys in House Virgin of Guadalupe, working with them each afternoon. The first hours would be spent in Service to the Farm community and after work if the boys had been well behaved they would spend time having fun together. This meeting had me in tears. Before my eyes I was watching young men who had just months earlier had been leading the younger boys in breaking rules were now stepping up and asking to be mentors. As a social work team and volunteer community we had been talking about ways to develop leadership in our kids, and now here they were leading not only the younger kids, but also the adults. It was a true moment of grace, that continued to grow as I saw the boys actually follow through on their plan and saw the fruits of thier leadership in the eyes of the younger boys as they proudly told me of the work they were doing and of the improvements in their behavior. It is impossible to deny that the Farm is making a difference in the lives of the 49 children that we serve. We are a place where hurt and scared children come and find new life. It is a place of resurrection for many. I was blessed to watch such a resurrection with the arrival of Oscar. Oscar came to us scared, malnourished, covered in sores, and very sick. He spent his first days in the hospital. Upon our arrival there, Oscar recieved an I.V. and did not even have the nutrition in him to produce tears to go along with his cries. It was heartbreaking. However, weeks later, Oscar was quickly gaining weight, laughing, and dancing whenever his papi played the guitar. The Farm has definately made a difference in the life of Oscar and all of our children.