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03/04/2007
Third World Living, Third World GivingTeens postpone college for greater cause
Ben Amon packs for a service trip to Uganda, taking along gifts for orphans whose parents have died of AIDS. TRAVERSE CITY — When her son announced he wanted to go to India to work with the nation's poor instead of going to college, Renee Cook cried. "Other moms worry about college and drinking or drugs,” said Cook, an office manager at a local law firm. "I worry about AIDS, I worry about disease, I worry about food, I worry about electricity, I worry about hygiene.” While their parents were expected to go directly to college after high school, today's teenagers are considering all their options before committing to higher education. And volunteering in Third World countries is becoming an increasingly appealing choice. "I think it's become more popular to do that,” said Linda Deneen, coordinator for counseling and social work at Traverse City Central High School. "We've become more a global society and I think it's very commendable of our young people to do that before they buckle down to college. "Certainly I wouldn't discourage them. Life after high school is something kids need to sit with their families and talk about. There's no 'one size fits all.'” While the expense of education is one of the mitigating factors for students who postpone college, the chance to travel, learn more about themselves and other cultures, and give back in small ways to others less fortunate all play a part. To that end, hundreds of mission and "service-learning” travel programs combine cultural immersion with community service projects at places like child care centers and schools, health clinics and hospitals, homes for the elderly and centers for people with disabilities. Most require participants to pay a fee to cover their in-country needs and to ensure that local communities are not financially burdened by volunteers. For Tyler Cook, 18, the opportunity to work with AIM, or Adventures in Missions, was a chance to put his faith to the test. "It's not that college didn't appeal to me, it was more like God was leading me to this,” said Cook, a 2006 Traverse City Central graduate who spent three months working at an orphanage and leper colonies near New Delhi, India, with his friend and classmate, Ben Amon, and a dozen other 18- to 24-year-olds from all over the U.S. "My physical strength and mental strength couldn't have gone into a leper colony and held someone's hand without [God].” Kristina Adair declined at least one college scholarship to volunteer in Tanzania with Cross-Cultural Solutions, which offers short-term international volunteer programs in 12 countries. While participating in the program means postponing college indefinitely, it doesn't mean postponing an education, she said. "I'm learning and maturing here in ways I expected but never could have predicted,” said Adair, also a 2006 graduate of Traverse City Central who became involved in global humanitarian work in her senior year. "Actually, one of the most surprising things I've learned is that while I came expecting to gain skills and knowledge, being here makes me realize that I've been blessed with so many teachable skills already.” Now in the second month of her three-month stay in Africa, Adair lives in a small village compound with a group of about 30 volunteers from the U.S., Scotland, Ireland, Australia and Canada. She divides her time between teaching at the Women Fighting AIDS in Tanzania nursery school for HIV/AIDS orphans and others, and running a support group for women also affected by the diseases. In her "spare” time, she teaches English to the women, checks on the chickens they raise and sell to local supermarkets and restaurants, and helps out with other projects, like turning used food containers into percussion instruments for area schoolchildren. "It's about putting yourself in a foreign environment and squeezing into the action,” said Adair, who prepared for the trip by learning Swahili from tapes she borrowed at a public library. "Whether or not I realize it, I have a role in this community's youth development, economics, education and health, among other things.” Adair said she takes to heart the advice of an older volunteer: Continue to challenge yourself; it's the only way to grow. So while every day presents its challenges, she said, "you find a way to keep going. And at the end of that day, well, it just makes sense.” While they're proud of their daughter's accomplishments and helped out with her air fare, Rick and Zita Adair said their initial feelings were ones of concern. "As one who loves to travel, I'm excited for her to have this opportunity,” said Zita Adair, a teacher's consultant-assistant with the Traverse Bay Area Intermediate School District. "As a mom, I'm worried about her safety and how this trip will affect her in the future, seeing all the poverty and struggling. She's only 18, off to another continent on her own for 12 weeks, a Third World country with a lot of AIDS patients, HIV-positive (people), big bugs — who knows what's in Africa? We were kind of hoping she couldn't pull it together, save up the money, but she managed. She worked three jobs to raise $5,000.” Cook, too, worries about her son, especially now that he's on his way to Uganda with Amon for a second — and longer — mission trip in a more dangerous part of the world. "I love Tyler very, very much and I respect his decision,” she said. "But as a mom you want him at the end of your driveway and married with kids. I don't want him halfway around the world where you can't talk with him whenever you want.” Judy Amon was all for son Ben's field work, especially because he has talked about becoming a missionary or a pastor since returning from a trip to Guatemala two years ago with his church youth group. But her worst fears were realized when he became seriously ill in India and landed in the hospital four times in one month. "Everybody came out of the woodwork telling me how wonderful the hospitals are in India,” said Amon, co-owner of Amon Orchards in Acme. "There may be a couple of hospitals that are that way, but he was not in one of those.” Over the course of the month, the family racked up $800 in emergency phone calls, including one to a Munson Medical Center urologist for a crash course in kidney stone procedures. At one point, they considered evacuating Ben to the U.S., but he was too sick to move. Compounding the situation was a language barrier that neither they nor his Indian doctors could seem to break. "If it wasn't for our faith, I probably would have been a basket case,” Amon said. "But you've got to trust.” Although he lost about 40 pounds through the ordeal, Ben Amon, 19, considers the experience a blessing in disguise. While talking about his work at the orphanage to hospital staff, many became interested in helping, he said. Now he hopes to drum up support at home for his mission trip to Uganda. His goal is to raise $10,000 for children in a remote orphanage there. "I know the need out there,” he said. "I can't live life like I used to, knowing what I know now.”
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