Many students think about taking a gap year, whether to work, travel, or simply take a break. But what about service? I had the ability to sit down with Emily, a Wheaton student, whose family moved to Amman, Jordan, after her senior year of high school.
The first part of her gap year Emily lived with her family, adjusting to the culture and learning the language while her parents were working and her sisters were in school. She said the first month was lonely, enrolled in Arabic classes four hours a day, five days a week. In the afternoons, she taught English, which she had never done before. The experience helped to build her confidence in teaching. She had a classroom with eight Palestinian girls, from low-income, refugee areas. She taught them that Americans were more than the pop culture shipped to the world, and they “taught her so much about Islam and Arab culture.” Since the girls were able to speak English well, they had deep, intense conversations, even discussing faith. They became fast friends, going shopping and out to eat and even to weddings. Emily said she fell in love with the country of Jordan and that the people there felt like family.
Near the end of the calendar year, Emily felt like she wanted to do something separate from her parents, outside of her comfort zone. She went to Switzerland and lived in a Christian missions community with other young adults to get trained to communicate Christ’s love across cultures and cross boundaries while volunteering. Even though she had lived in a very different culture for a few months, the official training was to better equip her as she went back to the Middle East in a smaller team for a practical outreach portion. The center was like a boarding school, with lectures in the morning and chores in the afternoon. The three months she spent there were with volunteers of many diverse cultural backgrounds, celebrating different holidays and having challenging conversations.
At the end of her training, Emily was sent back to the Middle East with a team of people from the training school to an area of eastern Lebanon that was home to hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees. She said it was “one of the craziest adventures ever”, with ten people in a small apartment with no central heating or Wi-Fi, and one shower whose water source ran out at least once a week. Each day the group would go to a different refugee camp, a conglomeration of tents with twenty families or so, and give out food, run programs for kids, and teach English. Most of the time, however, was spent visiting tents, as hospitality is the “core of interactions”. Although she felt like she “didn’t do enough”, sitting on mats and drinking copious amounts of tea, in the Arab culture, building those relationships was what mattered. Emily said she learned a lot about listening, hearing hard stories about the wars and loss and pain and resilience. Even though the people had endured so much suffering, and been away from their home for a long time, they were able to continue life and find beauty and joy in the simplest things. It was a two month experience, the hardest two months of her life. She learned a lot about how different cultures interact, how to work together as a team, and how others deal with suffering.
When Emily finished her volunteer work, she went back to Jordan to be with her family. She realized how much she loves the Middle East, and how precious her new friendships were, especially because she wouldn’t have met these people otherwise. It was hard to leave them because she had no way to contact them— they could be anywhere in the world and she may never be able to see them again. It was hard for her to make the choice to go to college because so many of her team members decided to volunteer another year. Now she speaks Arabic with a family in the area, glad to keep up the language, but hard to see the sadness on their faces when they remember their family, their home, and their country. Their whole life is half the globe away, and she’s happy can help them retain some of their home through speaking.
As far as taking a gap year goes, Emily thinks everyone should try it. “Who I am after is so different than who I was before,” she said. “It introduced me to more things to be focused and passionate about.” Not only did she make friends with people wildly different than her, she learned how to use her experiences to relate to people and broaden her world.
Emily is pursuing her degree while looking outside the college bubble. If any of this sounds interesting, consider a gap year, whether you’ve just started or just finished college. As long as it works out, you can come back to school and study, but with an unforgettable experience, new friends, and a stamp in your passport. For more information, try asking around or Googling programs and places to visit. Take a chance and seek out an adventure while helping others and joining a community. The world’s waiting.
