Backstory: The School of Nations

In December 2009, following the trip to Fiji, I enrolled in a newly developed program sponsored by the same group (The Mission, Vacaville, CA). The School of Nations evening program had ten students, and each week from January through April, we studied a different region of the world. Each student would prepare and present a five-minute presentation on a country within the given region for that week. The weekly research, done mostly online and through multiple media sources, was eye opening and humbling.  It again reminded me that there is no excuse for inaction, no excuse for ignorance, no ability to say “I didn’t know”.  Each week we also hosted indigenous people or missionaries from a country within the studied region and learned from first hand experience what was happening in that country – areas of success and areas of need.  I heard chilling first hand accounts of ethnic cleansing in Croatia, starvation in Malawi, oppression in Romania, and devastation in South Africa caused by Aids and lack of clean water.  The reports were real-time, not historical recounts from 50 – 100 years ago.  Right now.  This course and community provided an amazing heart broadening experience that helped solidify my call to serve and informed my decision in  May 2010 to leave my executive post with Kaiser Permanente to create more flexibility to pursue my passion to serve those in need throughout the nations.