Christina Yurchak is a junior at Vanderbilt; she coordinated this year's hugely successful Mannafit
dinner and silent auction. Read what Christina has to say about Manna:
My story of Manna is one of growth
as I think is everyone's. I think anyone who has been
involved with this organization has felt the amazing impetus of
change that Manna Project instills in its members. I am blessed
by the things I have done through Manna and have grown tremendously
through my time in the organization serving both locally and globally.
When I decided to travel to Nicaragua in the summer of '06, I was
the most unlikely candidate for international service in Latin America:
I had never been out of the country and I didn't speak Spanish.
But, I got to Nicaragua and fell in love. I fell in love with
children who befriended me and called me by name even though we didn't
speak the same language. I fell in love with the families who
opened their homes to us and treated me like family. I fell in
love with all my fellow volunteers who I couldn't help but feel a
kindred spirit with because we were a community working together with
another community, one so different from our home. When
I had to leave Nicaragua after my three weeks there, I bawled my eyes
out. The experience I had in Nicaragua was so profound that I
couldn't imagine leaving this world of love, friendship, hard work,
and dedication to each other and to the Nicaraguan people.
During Mannafit 2007, we played the song "Blessed to be
a Witness" by Ben Harper, because it most accurately
portrayed how I felt about my time in Nicaragua. I heard the song
the first day we left the dump as we were riding away in the microbus,
all of us speechless. I had just spent the past hours touring
the dump, seeing things I only thought could be in the pages of National
Geographic. I had just fallen for a little boy named Jhapo whose
dirty face never ceased to hold a smile and whose infectious laugh tricked
you into giving him piggyback rides even after your back ached.
At that moment, I couldn't have asked to experience anything more
in this life. My heart was changed forever because I had experienced
something outside myself. I had been in another part of the world
and participated in it. I had witnessed what it means to be twenty
years old in a developing country and truly feel like I had made a difference
not only on others, but in myself.
|
