Life Changing Experience through Community
Service
It was about 6 years ago; when I was only 11 a giant
earthquake and Tsunami devastated Aceh and killed thousands people. Not long
after the tremendous hazard, I remembered thousand volunteers from different
organizations around the world came to Aceh and helped our people. They did it
voluntarily, sacrificed their own time to help people which they had never
known before. They taught me that it doesn’t matter where do you come from and
what language do you speak, if you can use your ability to help others, so do
it! It motivated me to do the same thing when I grew up; I want to be a useful
person.
Then the time goes by so quickly, suddenly
I am in the United States of
America, country which contributed so much
in re-building Aceh after the Tsunami. I feel honored that I had a chance to do
what I always expected when I was 11, through the great opportunity as an
exchange students, I could do volunteering activity and helped my community
with my ability. What I like the most from my volunteer experience is I grow as
a person every time I do community service. I don’t need awards or compliment
for what I did, but when I saw the smile and appreciation from people I helped,
I felt complete as a person, that this tiny power can touch other people’s
heart and raised their happiness. Even though sometimes I had to deal with
people who weren’t so satisfied with my work, I always thought that I couldn’t
please every people’s expectation; all I could do was doing my best.
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I did a lot of stuffs during my exchange
year: such as peer tutoring after school, worked in the district library every
Saturday, organized blood donation in my host city, Qur’an Tutoring during
Ramadhan, worked with Student Council to raise the fund for earthquake victims
in Haiti, spend my winter to campaign about animal shelter, and volunteered by
selling Christmas stuff for Relay for Life (American Cancer Society).
My favorite was when I volunteered in the
library; I got a new experience that really involved my creative side: I did
scrap book and told story for little kids. Well, pretty much I used that
brilliant opportunity to have a presentation about Indonesia and taught those little
kids some Indonesian traditional dances. I was really surprised when one of
them wanted to host me. “Come to my house, I’ll host you!”. Haha… That was so
funny how a 5 year old girl acted like she wanted to kidnap you.
Through
volunteering I started to gain more confidence. Instead of being nervous or
scared, I saw this as an experience to meet new
people and learn new things. Many people said, "How can you
enjoy it so much if you receive no money at the end of the week? Where is the
gratification". But the truth of the matter is the feeling of helping
someone do what needs to be accomplished is gratification in itself. I can’t
find a lot of community service in Indonesia, so I want to gain
volunteering experience as much as I can.
United States of America becomes a great nation because of
community service; because every people in that country have willingness to
help others. When I get back to Indonesia,
I want to tell my family and friends that community service was so much fun and
I’ve learned a lot from it. Even more significant is the value and importance
of community service in our society. Without community service in our society
many people would not know the meaning, usefulness, or importance of charity.
Serving in our community takes away from the problems that exist in our society
and in the world as a whole. I will encourage my family and friends to do
community service and make a big change.
As I helped some people in the past and I sit back
and think about them occasionally, I begin to feel that because of my concern
and caring personality I helped these people to have one less burden resting on
their shoulders. Although I did not receive any material objects in return, I
gained the wonderful feeling of knowing someone's day would be brighter and
better because of me.
Shima Trisna
Chapter Malang
Hosted in Colorado
June.10th.2010
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