Marshall Ardrey

Professor Shuping
English 120
09 September 2011
My Life Changing Experience
I was expecting a trip to Africa to be an uplifting spiritual experience. What I
expected and what I received were totally different. The experience of working with
children while in Kenya was not only eye opening, but life changing. It gave me a
wonderful opportunity to gain a greater understanding about different beliefs and
culture. I believe the little things I did each day made a real difference and I enjoyed
the new friendships I made in the short time I volunteered. While working and living
in the orphanage, I developed a better understanding and respect of their way of
life within the fifteen acre compound of the Jubilee Children's Center. This significant
experience gave me a new perspective to complete my associate degree in nursing,
which will change my life forever.
Before my Africa mission trip I was working three jobs, as an esthetician three
days a week, part-time in the emergency department as a Na II and managing my
twelve rental properties. I constantly had some type of project ongoing with one of
properties, not counting the aggravation of collecting rent and monthly paper work.
I have never made a significant profit working as an esthetician; therefore I
supplemented my income working part-time as a technician in the emergency
department. The never ending seven day work weeks to gain success, survival and
financial achievement had taken its toll on my life, physically and mentally. I was

burned out in search of a flame to relight my inner soul. This caused me to feel
exhausted with little interest in personal satisfaction. I never felt like I had time for
self-enjoyment. The simple pleasures of reading a book, watching television became
non-existent in my daily routine. The around the clock schedule left me without any
personal time to relax. After traveling to Kenya I found the missing link of my life
that now has given me a drive to succeed more than ever. This required me to be
uncomfortable at times and trying different skills without much leadership with
people from a different culture.
If events in my life were not scheduled and mapped out, I found myself with
enormous anxiety and struggled to stay focused on the task. The night before the
departure of my trip I was overwhelmed with anxiety about venturing into the
country side of Kenya where no hospitals, minute clinics, police or ambulance
service exist. At that time, I was trying to make a decision about a career change,
which would involve additional education to receive a degree in Science or Nursing.
I want to not only make a positive difference in my life, but to also make a life
changing positive difference in someone elses. I have worn several hats throughout
my life, some of which I still wear on occasion. I havent experienced a feeling of
complete satisfaction in any position I have held in all of the twenty years of
employment. I wanted to simplify my life without causing much disruption in my
family life, but still be able to satisfy my financial obligations and make a positive
difference in someones life. Throughout my life I have longed to be more relaxed
and find one career that I could focus on, instead of three different jobs. Up to this
point, I had not found the missing link that guided me in the right direction. While
reading the weekly church newsletter one month prior to leaving on the trip to
Africa, I read: Kenya Orphanage Mission Trip. The next day I called and started the
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process to go on the mission trip to build bunk beds and school desks for 100 boys
and girls ranging from kindergarten age to twelfth grade.
While working at the orphanage I became very close to the children. I
witnessed a lot of confusion and disorganization in preparation to begin the bunk
bed building project. The children stepped up and showed us how to read the
blueprints and demonstrated the correct way to setup the assembly line of bunk
beds. There was one boy that worked beside me every day, his name was Stephen.
Stephen at the time was 11 years old and acted much older than his age. He
enjoyed talking about America and wanted to see pictures of my daughter and was
curious to learn the customs by which we lived. He never complained about eating
beans and rice twice a day,every day and only receiving milk twice a week. Later in
the week, I found Stephen was HIV positive. I was amazed how he remained happy
with a positive attitude despite the living arrangements and the fact he did not have
a living family to care for him. I was asked to help make an assessment of a very
small malnourished 10 year old girl named Mary. She had been very sick and was
diagnosed with Aids. After a quick examination of the girl, I found she had an
elevated fever and heart rate, but was still smiling and wanted to play a game with
me. By day five of our trip we were able to finish the bunk beds and desk building
project in a recorded breaking time. This enabled us to spend more one-one time
with the children. We played soccer, had a Christmas party and presented them
with gifts from the United States. I will never forget the look on their faces when
they opened a small lunch size bag with ten to fifteen pieces of candy and a box
with shoes and socks, along with a ball or hat for the boys or scarf for the girls. With
all these instances of the children letting me be part of their lives for this short time,
helped me realized how happy a very small gift, a caring conversation with words of
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encouragement or playing a game of soccer can make in a childs life. My emotions

were all out of sorts; I lost my appetite and experienced an enormous amount of
guilt and shame for being an American. I called home that night explaining I wanted
to sell the large house we lived in and all the property we owned. The fact that I
have everything I desire or could buy online, obtain in a department store, be seen
by doctor within a five minute drive, was making me physically and mentally
distraught. It wasnt the mosquitoes, upset stomach from eating beans with every
meal or sinus pain from the dry, hot dusty environment, but the fact I had so many
more benefits which enabled me to live a more fulfilling and substantial life than
that of the orphans, especially more than Stephen and Mary.
The trip to Africa changed my life in so many aspects. One of the main things
that I have gained from this life changing experience is to have the courage and
commitment to succeed in life, no matter how stressful it may seem. There is
always someone that is in a worse situation that doesnt have the accessibility like I
have to get help. I strive to have less anxiety and stress about the unexpected and
concentrate only on the task I am currently working to achieve. I found the missing
link that week in Kenya; it is working in some type of mission field full time after
completion of my nursing degree. I came home that week with great sadness for the
children, but gratitude for the message they gave me. I changed my hours to two
days a week working as an s esthetician, resigned from the ER and went back to
school taking three classes a semester to prepare for RN school. It doesnt matter
how much money I make throughout life or how organized and planned for events I
can be, its knowing I showed the children of Jubilee that they are loved and require
happiness no matter what. By allowing myself to be uncomfortable for short periods
of time, enabled me to see things from a different perspective. Before I ever
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thought of traveling to Kenya, I did believe one group of fifteen people could make a
positive difference in someones life.
This life changing experience was one I did not expect to acquire. Many
people asked me, Why would you go to Africa to help children, when we have
children here in need? I now can reply to this question with first-hand knowledge
and truth that there are many children in the U.S that are orphans, but one great
difference is American children have resources within the United States that helps
them receive healthcare. Children of poverty stricken countries do not have this.
Since the trip to Kenya, I have missioned in Haiti working to build a school in a small
village outside of the city Cap-Haitien. I currently have a trip scheduled for the
summer of 2012. The ideal job for me after completing nursing school is to work for
a non-profit organization, taking medical teams monthly to Haiti and help a country
that is in great need, which is only 680 miles away, a two hour plane ride from
America.