"Ma'am, does your father had any kind of advanced directives?" The voice of the ICU doctor cut through the phone like a hot knife through butter. But let's back up about eighteen hours. My father's health had been declining for months, yet he refused to go to any kind of doctor. But this afternoon, my father called out of the blue and said he was going to leave work early and drive himself to the emergency room as he was not feeling too good. The following eighteen hours were radio silence, until the ICU doctor called. My father made it to the ER and collapsed at the receptionist's desk. He had a massive widow-maker heart attack, was severely septic, in both heart and kidney failure, and couldn't breathe properly without heavy oxygen. As the doctor rattled all of these diagnoses off, it felt nearly paralyzing. My father battled back though, week after week, defying all odds. After about two months, he finally came home, but life for all of us was drastically different. My mother and I had to manage his car repair business, which we knew little to nothing about. I had to help organize his many doctors appointments and the always fluctuating list of medications. My mother had to help him with even the most basic tasks like bathing. We even had to build a wheelchair ramp in our garage because he could no longer walk on his own. Those first months were long and frustrating. We were thankful to still have my father alive, but the new hurdles were difficult to adjust to. My family persevered though. It's now been just over a year since dad came home, and while life certainly isn't the same as before, we are all stronger and better people because of it.

My mentoring experience was trial-by-fire. I was a high school sophomore thrust into a room of middle school girls that no one else was willing to step up and mentor. These girls were certainly rough around the edges, but they needed a mentor just as much as any other young girl. So, there I was as a high school kid, clueless as to how to lead or mentor, but I showed up every week offering my own authenticity and love. Those first few years were incredibly difficult. Every ounce of earned trust was back-pedaled by their distrust of authority. It was a fine-lined, back and forth dance. We had hard yet beneficial conversations. We laughed and sang at the top of our lungs when I would occasionally pick them up from school. We cried together when they told me about their heartaches and pain, and even the few times when I was required to make the dreaded call and report abuse. In a way, we all grew up together. I grew as a leader while they grew into grace-filled young adults. We walked through a total of seven years of mentorship together. Now, they are sophomores in college, and I think of them more like fond friends rather than mentees. While the texts for advice are less common now, they still occasionally come through, and to me, that tells me I did my job right. The greatest impact I could hope to have on those girls, or any other kid I might mentor in the future, is to let them know that they have a safe landing pad. No matter what is going on, they have a safe landing pad where they'll be cared for, and I hope that they will also be that safe place for someone else too.

Do it scared. Don't wait until the fear subsides, do it scared. I'm currently reading Justin Baldoni's book, Man Enough, and he talks about how bravery and brave acts don't exist without fear. Without fear in the background, they would be simply ordinary feats like brushing one's teeth or emptying the dishwasher. Fear provides the shadowy contrast needed for bravery to stand front and center, bold and bright. Applying for grad school is scary, far scarier than just applying to college for an undergrad. I've doubted myself as to if I can actually do it. I've doubted if I will truly be successful. I fear that I won't live up to my high-brow essays. I fear that the finances won't be there and I'll have to stop halfway. Applying to grad school takes a lot of guts, but I'm doing it scared. I'm choosing to believe in myself, and that is the bravest thing of all.

My most valuable studying is done in the shower. Yes, you read that right, the shower. I once heard someone say, "you're only knowledgeable on a topic if you can teach it, otherwise you've only memorized it." So, my shower is not just a shower, it's a lecture hall. Now, I take notes in class like any other student, and I read over my notes after class. But every student knows, reading your notes only gets you so far. Sometimes it feels like reading the dictionary, you're reading the words on the page, but at some point they lose all their meaning, and it just becomes a bit robotic. In the shower, I take what I've learned from my notes and practice teaching it out loud to an audience of shampoo bottles and face-wash. This way of studying, though a bit unconventional, has made me feel far more competent and capable in my own knowledge.

My grandfather was a social giant in our community; a former Sheriff, member at the same church for over forty years, and son in a large faming family. Rudolph, or for those that knew him more closely, Wiley, was a man of great character, which earned him quite the circle of friends. Now, he is almost 91 years old, and many of those friends have long since passed away. At family gatherings, him and his brothers used to always be huddled up in the living room playing Carrom, a game that's similar to pool, but all together different. Though he hasn't been able to play with them in years, we still play weekly. On my Wednesday phone call, the conversation always ends with, "you ready for our Carrom tournament tomorrow?" We have a standing Thursday afternoon Carrom date, and every time I walk through the door, he already has the stand, board, and pieces all in place, and his face lights up with a kind of tender brightness that words can't quite capture. We always play for several hours until his nurse has to break up the game to take him to dinner. Our Carrom date isn't some kind of earth shattering act, but I know it means the world to him. It is a small sense of normalcy and friendship, and everyone deserves a friend they can count on.

Most people don't learn about Niccolò Machiavelli until they have to take some required ethics class in college, and even then, it's normally only within the context of harsh and cynical world leaders. Or you might get the psychology class version when learning about The Dark Triad in personality theory, which still sets Machiavelli next to Narcissism and Psychopathy. So, the light there still is not the most flattering. Despite Niccolò Machiavelli's pessimistic reputation, I find him to be quite interesting. He was a 15th century Italian politician, diplomat, and writer who was bold enough to critique the system that he was a part of. I see much of that critique happening now in regard to the American government. People are growing more and more critical of laws proposed in Congress and critical of the justice system and it's potential biases, but most of those expressing critique are on the outside. However, I don't think any kind of valuable change will come until a Machiavelli of the American variety arises; a political insider who has the boldness, gall, and humility to analyze and critique the leaders and systems they respect. An audit is never taken to fondly, and Machiavelli knew that well. He had quite the list of adversaries, and when the Medici family came back into power in Italy, he was exiled. In his own words, "it is safer to be feared than loved," and Machiavelli stood true to his own ideals even unto exile. He did not manipulate his critiques to maintain political good graces, and I think that level of fidelity is an admirable quality.

The door to the clinic swings open and there in the opening are two young girls with their backpacks still on. They are coming to get a refill of their antiretroviral medication. While I don't speak Ndebele fluently, I don't have to when I see the girls' faces drop in disappointment. You see the clinic is bare bones on nearly everything, there isn't even Tylenol in the medicine cabinet. These little girls need this antiretroviral medication to keep their HIV infections from turning into AIDS. Their disappointment is all too real because in our African bush community nearly everyone has watched a loved one die from AIDS, and these girls know that without medication, they will meet the same fate. HIV and AIDS is a pandemic that has been pushed to the back-burner. It was first disregarded as a "disease of the gays" in the 1980's when there was nearly no research happening on it and homophobia was still the norm. Now, we have developed drugs like PrEP and Dovato that have significantly helped to delay death after infection, allowing people to live for decades after infection. While these might sound like miracle drugs, and in some regards they are, they are extremely expensive. WebMD estimates that HIV/AIDS treatment for an American in 2020 runs between $21,600 and $54,000 annually. I would like to make medication more affordable in the Western world, and more readily available in the less developed parts of the world. Little girls should never have to be turned away. Friends like Easy Nkala should still be alive, and her daughters should still have their mother. More readily available and affordable antiretrovirals will help prevent this kind of tragedy for other families.

"Vickie-Bick, the plan is, there is no plan." I can still hear those gentle, Afrikaans-accented words ringing in my ears. When I lived in rural Zimbabwe back in 2019, I lived with an elderly couple, Chris and Norma. Norma was a fiery, direct woman; a woman with a certain kind of zest to her. Chris was gentle and soothing, like a salve to a fresh wound. He was the kind of person that inspires you simply by being ordinary and authentic. Chris and Norma together immediately feel like home. Stories shared around the living room by candlelight, coffee and sadza in the morning, it all feels nostalgic with Chris and Norma, despite all of it being new. The motto of Chris' life was, "the plan is, there is no plan." He would say it to me almost every morning. In some ways it might seem a little irresponsible to say that there is no plan, but Chris saw it as beautiful. It highlighted flexibility and adaptability, two things necessary for life out in the bush. It also relaxes the pace of life. Rather than trying to force things into a rigid schedule, you can just accept and enjoy life as it comes. Chris' words have echoed in my head throughout the pandemic as plans have continuously been cancelled or postponed. "Vickie-Bick, the plan is, there is no plan, " and peace would wash over me. On January 4th, I got the call that Chris had passed away. The grief of losing him is still immense, but if there's one person I could hope to embody in life, it is Chris. So for now, I hold onto his words a little bit tighter and repeat them as often as possible, like little notes of wisdom from dropped Chris up in heaven.

Errol Norbury might not be a household name, or even a name that makes it into most art history books, but his paintings are beautiful and realistically soft. His images of South Africa feel like home to me as they share a lot of similarities with the scenes of home in Zimbabwe. Just looking at his paintings, I can feel the dirt on my feet and taste the sour baobab tree's fruit on my tongue. It is almost as if you listen hard enough, you can hear the baboon troop shuffling off in the distant grasses. These are the sights and sounds that make my soul feel alive. The past two years, coronavirus has kept me from hopping on a flight back to Zimbabwe, but artwork, like this painting by Norbury, helps to quinch my homesickness, and it inspires my heart to still dream of the day I can return safely.

I was a notorious slacker in English class. Literature was not my forté, and I had no plans of befriending it either. That was until Mrs. Ortman's freshman English class. Mrs. Ortman loved books, more than just the classics that all English teachers are obliged to love, and for our first semester's final project, she assigned every student a different book from her personal collection to read and write an essay on. My first thought was "oh great! Sparknotes can't save me now!" So I picked up my book, The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls (this was years before it ever became a movie), and I begrudingly started reading. All the books I had read in school to this point were about old dead people that I thought were irrelivant or realities that didn't exist, but within the walls of The Glass Castle, I saw myself. I saw my relationship with my father. I saw the dysfunction and splendor that I knew as my own, and I devoured a book for the first time in my life. My favorite quote is from when Jeanette wants to bring the young Joshua tree inside so it doesn't get warped by the wind, like all the others, but her mother tells her, "it's the Joshua tree's sruggle that gives it its beauty." That was profound to 15 year-old me, and it still has the same impact on 24 year-old me. I'm still far from an English buff, but I've discovered that I do in fact like books afterall, mainly of the memoir variety. I now try to make it through twelve books a year, outside of school, and even after all those books, The Glass Castle still tops my list as a beloved favorite.

My grandparents were working class people. They weren't the typical folks to appreciate art; in fact, the majority of the hung frames in their home contained the original store display sheet, rather than replacing it for true art or family photos. Among their walls of store displays though, there was a copy of Monet's Banks of the Seine, Vétheuil, 1880 from the National Gallery of Art. It sat remarkably out of place, and in a handmade wooden frame at that. However, it was a thing of beauty, like wading through the river thicket of display sheets and then, finally, a clearing of beautiful water and trees. That Monet in the handmade wooden frame now hangs on my walls as an ode to my grandparents. Both of their lives were simple beauty that emerged from the thicket, and the same warmth and simple goodness that I felt from them, I feel when I look at those banks of the Seine.

Photo1: Little Bear in her natural habitat, or so she thinks! All buckled up for a ride in the convertible to let her ears flap in the wind! Photo 2: Stranger? Petey, our pet donkey, has certainly never met one! He loves snacks, ear rubs, and isn't afraid to let out a HEE-HAW if he wants a partner to kick around the soccer ball.

Imagine that summer camp feeling of being around a campfire with your friends, playing games, telling stories. Those are the kind of nights that we never forget. Those are the kind of nights where inside jokes and lifelong friends are made. My artistic ambition, though it may take may forms, is centered around storytelling. I mean what is art without a story? Where is the connection? I grew up singing, which was my first outlet for artistic expression. As a teenager I started painting and writing poetry. In university, I taught myself to play piano. Somewhere within the words and chords and brush strokes my true expression is able to pour out. I am able to tell stories that I would otherwise stammer and stutter over in conversation. In my undergraduate, I did not pursue the arts. Rather, I pursued the social sciences, in essence, how we form and understand the stories around us. My goal is to not leave my education and my art as two separate chapters of my life though. My goal is to merge the two, bringing art and impactful storytelling together. I want to write songs and paint paintings based on people's stories from around the world. I want to give a platform to the stories that would otherwise go untold. I would love to use this scholarship for travel, art supplies, and entry fees. I want to travel and listen, gathering people's stories. I would also love to invest in quality painting supplies for the first time in my life. Ultimately, I hope to showcase this collection of stories in a gallery or exhibit somewhere, so I would also put the scholarship money towards the entry fees to be considered for gallery openings. These stories will transform white gallery walls into campfire circles with people gathered around, hearing stories and making lifelong friends.

"You’ll need coffee shops and sunsets and road trips. Airplanes and passports and new songs and old songs, but people more than anything else. You will need other people and you will need to be that other person to someone else, a living breathing screaming invitation to believe better things." - Jamie Tworkowski I always come back to this quote. It has been my favorite since the beginning of high school. I even have a shirt with this quote on it! These words embody both the heavy and light of life; spontaneity and accountability, giving hope and needing hope. My soul longs for that serendipitous, feels-like-you're-in-a-coming-of-age-movie, adventure that is painted in the first half of the quote. The second half echoes my longing for community. The last phrase though is what strikes me to the core because it is both what I want to be, as well as the kind of people I want to surround myself with; living breathing screaming invitations to believe better things.

I watch the news almost every evening, but it can feel paralyzing to read all of the flashing headlines. Four more deadly weekend shootings in Atlanta. COVID-19 numbers are on the rise again. A massive pile-up on I-285, closing all north bound lanes. Sometimes these stories feel so big, and I feel so small. How can I create change? I'm not a lawmaker writing gun reform laws, or a medical professional on the pandemic's front lines, or even a 911 dispatcher. I am merely ​one student, but in this obscurity is my strength. I dream of a world where people of different backgrounds seek to learn from one another, a world where no one fears or hates their neighbor, a world where people are empathetic to the struggles of others. Now those might seem like some lofty ideals, and in a way they are, but I know that with local starts, it is possible. Most of the world's government structures are built on a top-down principle. The laws are made at the top and trickle down to the middle layers of enforcement, like cops and courts, and then, finally, the laws reach you and me, the everyday people, and we are expected to mirror the laws that were handed down by the top powers. But clearly something in the system is not working, just look at crime rates. While we cannot deny the failures of our current systems, I think it is time to look for bottom-up solutions. This past summer we saw some of the most unprecedented rallies around the need for social justice. Communities, local communities, rallied together, first in Minnesota following the death of George Floyd, then in Louisville for Breonna Taylor. These local rallies for change then became national rallies all across America, and then globally, with protests reaching all seven continents. We have since seen upward impacts, like the Derek Chauvin murder trial, and we are continuing to see the impacts reach the highest levels with lawmakers revisiting the issues of policing, de-escalation tactics, and mental health training. What if change is best served up by the people rather than the oligarchic few? I hope to build my career in the realm of international advocacy, which by nature tends to be a highly top-down structure. I mean whole countries meet at the United Nations, not just communities or specific ethnic groups. However, I want to bring change to how international advocacy is used. At the root of advocacy is the individual. If you are not best serving an individual, you cannot best serve their community, or their country, or their global interests. I want to bring international advocacy back to the individual. While I was living and volunteering in Zimbabwe, I was working with a minority community. Their interests were not upheld by their government, it was not uncommon to have their land seized, and they were often denied proper medical access. So, while little ole' me could not impact their situation with governmental injustice, I could help them to better their communities by teaching job skills like sewing and jewelry making, and by helping with a goat herding program, promoting sustainable food and income sourcing. While this does not solve all problems, it does restore dignity and empowerment to people, and empowered people know their worth and can stand up for their own interests better than the downtrodden. When we can empower individuals, we all rise. We rise from the bottom, bringing our hope with us, and if we band together locally, we will see change reach all the way to the top.

Life can have so many different layers, but the one that continually grounds me is my faith, my relationship with God. It effects how I speak, think, treat people with love. This is a paining that I did on an old burlap sack while I was living out in rural southern Zimbabwe. It shows the obvious duality of God as the lion and the lamb, as justice and righteousness with humility and gentleness, together. The middle is my personal favorite though. It has the throne of Revelation 4 at the bottom, and then transitions into the night sky with one large star, the morning star. Morning star was actually the name of the ranch that I was living on, so that had a bit of a dual meaning, but when I look up to the stars, I feel extremely connected to God, to his infiniteness. The stars in the bush are my favorite thing in the world. No light pollution to dull their brilliance. On the coldest nights they shine the brightest. They shoot across the sky, and it is glorious. They make me feel small, but infinitely connected to the same God that made them too.

Every single December, when my family sets up the Christmas Tree, we watch War of the Worlds. Festive, right? What says Christmas more than aliens invading Earth? I'm not entirely sure how this became a family tradition, but a decade and a half later, we still pop in the DVD when we bring the tree down from the attic. War of the Worlds was one of those films like A Day After Tomorrow, or James Cameron's Avatar, that were light-years ahead of the special effects and CGI curve, and Dad always makes sure to bring that up. I thrive off of the film's suspense. Mom hides from the "scary" parts, but she sticks it out because she likes the ending. My sister loves tradition, so I'm pretty sure she would watch the Chucky movies if it were part of some tradition. In a season that can feel chaotic with all the hustle and bustle, War of the Worlds is one little bit of peace for all of us, one thing we can all count on being the same, and that is why War of the Worlds is my favorite movie.

Mr. Moyo's bus rolled to a stop at the gate, with a large cloud of dust right behind. Then, out came Tanya. She was a short woman, with wide eyes and bubbling energy. Tanya is one of those people that can walk in and instantly control a room. She was hugging everyone and saying hello and organizing the mass chaos of unloading what felt like a billion suitcases with ease. All the while, I had no idea who this woman was. I was living on a ranch down in southern Zimbabwe at the time, and all I knew was that a humanitarian aid team was coming to stay with us for a week, not Super Woman. Over the course of the week, I got to know Tanya and her two kids Aiden and Juju, and the more I got to know her, the more she was like some kind of superhero. I watched her heard goats and knit, talk finance and tell stories that made you laugh till you had to pee. Simply being around Tanya makes me want to me a better person, to enjoy life more. Through what became our nightly post-dinner kitting and storytelling, I learned that she grew up in Colombia to American parents. I learned that she's lived in more countries than I can even remember while working for Habitat for Humanity. I learned that she speaks enough languages to be a polyglot, but through all of her accomplishments and experiences, she is still wildly humble. Always asking questions, always willing to learn. Tanya is now the Executive Director of the non-profit, American Foundation for Children with AIDS. Her group helped to start and fund the goat project on the ranch in Zimbabwe. The program educates individuals in rural communities affected by AIDS on how to tend for and herd goats, so that they and their family can have sustainable income. This program has literally changed people's lives and offered tangible hope to so many. She also helps to organize similar programs of economic development and empowerment in other countries across Africa, not just Zimbabwe. Though I have only known Tanya for two years, she has inspired me immensely. She has modeled authentic joy for me. Sometimes joy can feel slightly sugar coated, or inauthentic, but Tanya has shown me how to exude joy and be real at the same time. Tanya has taught me to embrace spontaneity and be willing to try anything. Tanya has taught me how to love people and instill them with dignity. I hope to work in the international non-profit sector, like Tanya. So, I feel like just by watching her do everyday life, I am preparing for my career, like observing how she treats those around her, how she handles finances, and so much more. I think the biggest lesson that I will take from Tanya into my career is how to love people with empowerment. Tanya will be your biggest cheerleader, but she is not going to do the job for you. She is able to love people without enabling them which is so important for the sustainability of any non-profit or humanitarian work. You can give someone a handout of bread, which works in the short-term, but long-term, they become both dependent on that help, and they are no better off in the end. By teaching someone how to grow and mill wheat instead, they now have a sustainable food source, an occupation, and a possible source of income. They are uplifted from helplessness and hopelessness to a place of dignity and hope. I hope that in my career I am also able to share the kind of dignity and hope that I learned from Tanya.

When I first hear the word 'legacy', I think back to that Nichole Nordeman song from the early 2000's. The one that goes, "I want to leave a legacy. How will they remember me?" And to me, that is exactly what a legacy is, how I'm remembered when my days are done. Now, it can be easy to make 'legacy' a very far-off, in the future kind of thing, but legacies that endure once the people are gone were never built in one day or even by happenstance. I really like the term legacy-building because it highlights the intentional nature that is required in creating one. While 'legacy' can have a golden-brick-road, happy trails type of connotation, I certainly think that legacies can be not as rose colored as well. History classes are filled with them. Napoleon Bonaparte is certainly a legendary figure, but the leader of the French Revolution would not exactly be the legacy of my choice. The one thing I have always desired to be is genuine, with people, in my work, with my finances. To me, it did not matter so much if I was a doctor or a garbage woman, as long as I was able to be genuine and authentic in what I was doing. That is the kind of legacy I want to be known for. Career-wise, my goals have become a little more narrow over the years. I am planning to graduate Summa Cum Laude in May from the University of North Georgia, with my B.S. in Sociology with a Psychology minor. My next goal is to attend graduate school at Tel Aviv University in Israel and earn my M.A. in Security and International Diplomacy. In the end, I hope to work in international advocacy, fighting for human rights and sustainable economic development in regions of the world that have been decimated by war and political corruption. I want my legacy to be one of genuine care and compassion for the least fortunate. I'm sure the words 'international advocacy' can sound like a big, almost unattainable goal, and honestly, some days it does feel that way, especially when you read the headlines and see all of the massive injustices in the world today. There is an old proverb though that keeps me centered in the day-in, day-out work of pursuing my goals, of building my legacy, and if I had to summarize what I want my own legacy to be, it would be this. "It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."

I have been incredibly fortunate to have travelled to eleven countries thus far (Belize, Botswana, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Germany, Italy, Panama, Slovenia, South Africa, Romania, and Zimbabwe). Through my travels, I have been able to learn about other languages, cultures, customs, foods, and so much more. It has expanded my worldview more than any classroom ever has. It is one thing to learn about World War II. It is another thing to travel through the Romanian countryside and meet a man who was forced in to serve in the SS when Germany invaded the country. Being invited into his home for tea and listening to his stories, the horrors of what he experienced and was forced to do, is something that will never fade from my memory that way that textbook pages do. The line between the foreign and the familiar can be very thin, and cultural immersion allows for the foreign to become the familiar. I think that as people experience the cultures of others, we all grow in compassion and understanding for one another. I am passionate about cultural immersion because it not only betters our world, but it makes me a better part of our world. I am set to graduate Summa Cum Laude from the University of North Georgia in May. In my five years there, I have earned my A.A with Distinction in Social Work, a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) Certification, and a B.S. in Sociology with a Psychology minor. Next year, I am hoping to pursue my M.A. in Security and International Diplomacy at Tel Aviv University in Israel. With the Middle East being one of the oldest regions in the world with an established history, there is so much richness to explore. I think that learning abroad in this kind of context would be an incredible experience, especially regarding security and diplomacy. The majority of the United States' security and diplomacy issues in my lifetime have been in regard to regions of the Middle East. I am excited and intrigued by the opportunity to learn from their point of view, rather than only taking in and learning from one side of the story. I think learning in this dualistic way will better my education and the foundation for my future career in international advocacy. Continuing my education in Israel would truly be a dream come true. I would be able to learn in a nation where security and diplomacy issues are not only textbook and theory, but where they are real, alive, and evolving issues. This kind of first-hand experience would be invaluable to my career. Also, while I am there, I hope to indulge in all the country has to offer outside of the classroom, from the Dead Sea, the Wailing Wall, the Dome of the Rock, the Hebrew and Arabic languages, of course falafel and hummus, and so much more!

Higher education is like an ID needed to get into the club. What I mean by that is, having a degree and background in higher education allows you access to opportunities you might not get otherwise. Hard work is incredibly important, but unfortunately some people or employers will over look your hard work if you do not have the right credentials. For me, I hope to work in the world of international advocacy and non-profits. In this sector, it rarely matters how diplomatic you are or how well traveled you are. Your education serves as your pass to even get in the door. I wish hard work was merited more, but unfortunately, at the current state, it just is not. Now, I hope to make the world a more hopeful place; a place that fights for human rights, equality, and dignity. So, if I am truly going to do those things, I have to beat the system, playing by their rules, and so for me, that means pursuing higher education. I am currently an undergraduate student at the University of North Georgia, and I will be graduating Summa Cum Laude in May with my B.S. in Sociology and minor in Psychology. Next year, I am hoping to continue pursuing higher education at Tel Aviv University in Israel. My goal is to earn a M.A. in Security and International Diplomacy. I think learning in Israel and the Middle East, in a place that is entrenched in such rich history, would be an invaluable experience and an asset to my education and career. The pandemic has drastically changed my extracurricular schedule, but prior to the pandemic, I was a part of a weekly non-competitive volleyball team. I have interned for four summers with a local church, as well as taking an international summer internship in Zimbabwe. Also, prior to the pandemic, I was a mentor for high school and middle school girls for six years. Roughly the only extracurricular that has remained the intact for me is working part-time. Prior to the pandemic I was a nanny, but I was laid off from that position. Since then, I took the time to become a certified TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) Instructor, and now I am working part-time as a Remote English Tutor to adults and children all around the world. Currently, one of my biggest passions is economic development in third-world and developing nations. A large part of my internship in Zimbabwe focused on creating self-sustaining jobs in rural and impoverished communities. These jobs were lifelines to these individuals and helped to empower them. I am really passionate about this kind of self-sustaining development because it treats beneficiaries with the utmost dignity, rather than making them dependent on outside humanitarian help.

As a sophomore, I walked into the first day of my Social Theory course expecting nothing more than a syllabus walk--through. A few minutes later, our professor walked in the room and shut the door. He was a black man sporting a suit and tie, which felt far too formal for nine in the morning, and it did not take him long to tell us that the course would be mainly peer-taught. There was certainly an internal grumbling happening in my head. So, it would be fair to say that Dr. George K. Danns was not my favorite professor by first impressions standards. Throughout that first Social Theory course, we taught our peers, with Dr. Danns steering us as needed, but he did one thing at the end of every class. He asked the presenter their thoughts. He would ask strings of deep, elaborative questions, the kind of questions where your words feel like they are getting twisted into a verbal pretzel. If the presenter would coward to giving the answers that they thought he wanted to hear, the harder he would question them, but if the presenter was willing to really take a stand for their own thoughts, he seemed to show an appreciation and respect for their confidence. Now I can be a opinionated and pretty stubborn, so I learned to put my personality to work for me. When I would present, I made the most of my end-of-class questions. I would argue my point with unwavering persistence, and through that, Dr. Danns and myself came to a kind of academic respect for one another. Following that first semester, I was reassigned academic advisors to none other than Dr. Danns. After reviewing my academic transcripts, he was nothing but encouraging, praising my high GPA and motivating me in my academic studies. Now, part of being opinionated, I tend to be a naturally stellar critic; critical of modernity, of bureaucracy, and especially of bureaucracy in education. I tend to not be a fan of commodified education, so I originally had no plans to continue my education beyond my Bachelor's degree, and even a Bachelor's degree was a stretch for me. At the end of my Junior year, Dr. Danns started pushing me to think about graduate school. Internally I was thinking, "yeah right! That's never going to happen!" but he kept pushing the idea. He continually told me that graduate school is not something he recommends for everyone, but that he thought I would be a good prospect. I spent several months brushing him off, but finally at the start of my senior year I began considering the idea. I researched the Fulbright Student Program and found the M.A. grant in Israel. The Fulbright grant in Israel seemed to incorporate so much cultural history and immersion with the educational experience, which is one thing that I am passionate about. At my most recent advisement meeting with Dr. Danns, I told him about my research, and he was incredibly excited. As a Guyanese-American, Dr. Danns was particularly excited that I would be able to experience higher education outside of America. Without Dr. Danns pushing me to be a confident and thoughtful student in the classroom and encouraging me to pursue graduate school, I would not be currently in the Fulbright application process. He spent the time to pull out my potential that I could not even see myself. I hope that after I obtain my graduate degree, I can teach at the university level and pull out the potential in students like Dr. Danns did for me.

I grew up in a house where Jesus was more like a good luck charm than a Savior. Going to church on Easter, praying before meals, you know, keeping up the stereotypical front of faith that is almost expected in the American South. But growing up, I never really knew who Jesus was. As a kid, I dealt with a lot of bullying, and rather than reaching out for help, I took it all on internally. The problem with that though is that once you hear a message for so long, you start to believe it, and listening to the bullies was eroding any ounce of hope within me. I became depressed, and just like a snowball rolling down a steep hill, I started turning to drugs and alcohol, to which I actually got addicted to when I was still in elementary school, and I also turned to self-harm. Eventually, I considered suicide. I thought dying would be better than living in a seemingly purposeless and hopeless world, and so I tried to kill myself twice. These few years of my life were incredibly dark, but on the outside, you would have never known. I was still an honor roll student and a star athlete on the softball field. Eventually, in 8th grade, two friends literally begged me to come to their church camp. I was a very outspoken atheist at the time. I wanted nothing to do with a god. I didn't want to sing songs, or read the Bible, or hear about His love, because to me, it all felt like a lie. Despite this, somehow they talked me into going. I shuffled my feet through the motions all week, until finally I got to talk one-on-one with my camp counselor. She was cool and hip, someone that you wanted to get to know, and most importantly, I felt like I could trust her. Our conversation turned into a two hour session of me pouring out my heart and my hurt all over the hotel room floor. She just listened. She didn't reject me, and she didn't force Jesus on me. Her listening to me made me feel so loved. Her response made me curious about whoever Jesus was, so I started coming with my friends to church. Eventually, one leader shared his testimony rather than just another sermon. He had dealt with struggles, and addiction, and hopelessness, and I related so much to what he was saying. As he spoke, I felt God boxing me in to my seat, and He spoke to me, saying, "Look, you've tried everything else. You know it doesn't work. Come to me." So, that night I decided to come to Jesus. Since that night in 2011, I have been completely clean and sober. Jesus completely and totally rescued me from my own desires and addictions. My journey with Jesus has been slow and curvy. I mean, being in a relationship with Jesus isn't just learning religious customs, many of which still confuse me, but it is getting to know a bonafide, real, still-alive person. When I speak, He listens, and when I'm quite enough to listen, He speaks too. As I've been learning and falling in love with Jesus, He has been teaching me, healing me, and radically changed my heart towards people. He has given me opportunities all over the country, and the world, to share our story, to be a messenger of hope and redemption. In the summer of 2019, I was able to go work with a church in Zimbabwe for several months. During my time there, two pastors and I travelled deep into the bush, to a community with little to no outside connection and who had never heard the Gospel or the name of Jesus. We started relationships with the people and were invited to share the Gospel. Many of the people in the community accepted Jesus, and now, there is a church among people who previously had never heard of Jesus. Reaching these Frontier people is now my biggest passion. I hope I see the day where every Frontier people get to hear the Gospel and hope of Jesus. Jesus truly brought my life from hopelessness to hope, and now I just want to go wherever He opens the door, to freely and boldly share the hope that He has given to me.

When quarantine hit, memes helped to hold my friend group together. We were used to literally being together every night, either playing volleyball, watching movies, or going to church. So, shelter-in-place orders rapidly changed the whole dynamic of our friendships. We started a group chat for memes, and it was honestly a beacon of sanity for all of us. We got on a kick of photoshopping and meme-ing funny pictures of one another, and when one of my friends got Rat while using the “Genetic Heritage” Instagram story filter, it was too perfect of an opportunity. It begged of meme material, and thus he became the new and improved Remi from Ratatouille. This meme just reminds me of that time, of all of us coming together to make one another laugh, together, and at each other. Making it through quarantine, one meme at a time.

So many amazing people have influenced my life, but possibly none more than Chris and Norma Ferguson. I first met them when I was 20 years old. They were briefly in America, visiting friends, and from the moment I met them, I knew the path of our lives were supposed to cross. I had never felt more at peace upon meeting anyone. The following summer, I led a team of 18 people down to do some humanitarian work at their ranch in the southern bush of Zimbabwe. Life is simple on the ranch, no electricity, no running water, no shortage of laughing, and lots of hard work. Nights eating dinner around the fire, listening to Chris tell stories of growing up in Zimbabwe with his enchanting accent and soft storytellers’ voice. Life with Chris and Norma was a depiction of purity that I had never been able to find back home in America, and two weeks was not nearly long enough. In the summer of 2019, I flew back to the country that was quickly becoming like home because the people that felt like home were there. I spent three months with Chris and Norma, and if the government would have let me, I probably would have just stayed. I learned that Chris loved the old hymn, “The Old Rugged Cross”, and that Norma and I will both drink coffee, no matter the hour of the day. Chris taught me that if you get into the local stinging plant, you can slap an open cape aloe leaf on it, and you are cured! Norma taught me how to navigate tele-currency when we would go into town, since the country was in economic crisis while I was there. Most importantly, Chris and Norma taught me about their motto, which has since become my motto too. Chris tells the story like this, “Often times, when American folks come down, they want a full agenda. What they are doing, when they are doing it, and how they will get there, but this is Zimbabwe. We simply don’t function like that. So, I’ll say to you what I say to them, ‘The plan is, there is no plan.’” There is a splendid freedom in that. The plan is, there is no plan. It sparks my wanderlust, my hope for what is to come. I find it so easy in our American hustle-and-bustle to almost put out heads down and blinders on, like, ‘I just need to get where I’m going.’ But that is no way to truly, fully, live, and I do not know about you, but I want to fully embrace life and not just have life happen to me. Chris and Norma taught me how to take off the blinders, that I did not even know I was wearing, off, and I truly will never be the same.

Alone in a foreign country. Sounds like a start of a scary movie, right? I was terrified and sad in this picture, crying on my brother, Steven's shoulder. He, along with some friends, were about to fly home to America, leaving me in alone, in Zimbabwe, for three months. I was excited for the opportunity, but scared to travel alone. Seeking discomfort though, was one of the best things I've ever done. I made friends that became like family, learned to shepherd goats, escaped baboons, and so much more! Step out in boldness; adventure is waiting!