{"id":7850,"date":"2017-06-25T20:14:52","date_gmt":"2017-06-26T02:14:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/internationalmedicalrelief.org\/?p=7850"},"modified":"2021-12-01T14:06:23","modified_gmt":"2021-12-01T21:06:23","slug":"from-the-eyes-of-a-volunteer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/internationalmedicalrelief.org\/blog\/from-the-eyes-of-a-volunteer\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Eyes of a Volunteer"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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You\u2019ve never really lived until you\u2019ve done something for someone who can never repay you.Sometimes it can be something as small as paying ahead for someone\u2019s coffee, when they could be having a bad morning. Or it could be something as far out in left field as a medical service trip to a place that is so poverty-ridden, that this may be the only healthcare they receive for who knows how long. Until next year? Until the next clinic comes into town? On June 3rd, 2017, myself along with 50 other people (who didn\u2019t know each other) set out to do just that.<\/p>

This is the story about my first ever medical mission trip, to Haiti.<\/p>

I, myself, am someone who is very comfortable in a routine. Waking up at home, getting showered and dressed & ready for the day (work, school or volunteering), getting some Dunkin\u2019 on the way (in all honesty, the destination doesn\u2019t REALLY matter, as long as I have my Dunkin\u2019), then coming home, eating dinner & getting ready for the next day. I\u2019m very much a homebody, so needless to say, this was nowhere close to my comfort zone. I got a lot of \u201cYOU are going WHERE?\u201d and a lot of people (even family members) trying to \u201cscare\u201d me out of going by showing me pictures and videos of what life is like there. Yeah, go ahead and show someone in healthcare, how poor their healthcare is at the destination they are going to. That\u2019ll 100% add fuel to their already burning fire\/desire to help.<\/p>

So why did I do it?<\/p>

Many people can vouch for this, that there comes a time in everyone\u2019s life (a day, an hour, a minute), where they decide that enough is enough, and it\u2019s time to make some changes. That day for me was Thursday, November 17th, 2016. Long story short, I felt lost. So I decided, out of the blue, that I\u2019m going to do something out of my comfort zone. A few of my friends can agree, that when I texted them, saying I\u2019m going on a Medical Mission Trip, they had doubts, but also lots of excitement and encouragement. My mom on the other hand, tried to hide her worries behind her excitement for me. And it worked, for the first hour. But what isn\u2019t there to be worried about? I go to school 30 minutes from home, I work in my hometown, I\u2019ve never flown, I\u2019ve never traveled alone. What could possibly go wrong?<\/p>

Day 1:<\/strong><\/p>

On June 3rd, around 3:30 am…<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJoin Us in Making a Difference.<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Bring much-needed acute medical and dental care to a beautiful, culture-rich destination. You can join an IMR medical mission team today!<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t<\/i>Prev<\/span><\/span>Previous<\/span>Himalayan Trip – Oh! The Places You’ll Go!<\/span><\/span><\/a>\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\tNext<\/span>Helping Pregnant Women & Mothers<\/span><\/span><\/i>Next<\/span><\/span><\/a>\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You\u2019ve never really lived until you\u2019ve done something for someone who can never repay you.Sometimes it can be something as small as paying ahead for someone\u2019s coffee, when they could be having a bad morning. Or it could be something as far out in left field as a medical service trip to a place that is so poverty-ridden, that this may be the only healthcare they receive for who knows how long. Until next year? Until the next clinic comes into town? On June 3rd, 2017, myself along with 50 other people (who didn\u2019t know each other) set out to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7851,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_header_footer","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"page-builder","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,124,132],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-medical-clinics","category-testimonial"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/internationalmedicalrelief.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/internationalmedicalrelief.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/internationalmedicalrelief.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/internationalmedicalrelief.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/internationalmedicalrelief.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/internationalmedicalrelief.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/internationalmedicalrelief.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/internationalmedicalrelief.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/internationalmedicalrelief.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/internationalmedicalrelief.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}