Starting in September I will be embarking on a year long medical mission trip in Central America or South America as a Young Adult Service Corps Volunteer. The Young Adult Service Corps (YASC) was brought together by a diversity of Episcopal voices concerned with peace, youth, and mission and it is specifically administered by the Missions Office at the Episcopal Church Center. YASC is a program focused on bringing young adults into the life of the Anglican Communion, through work with an Episcopal church abroad. The program was first conceived by the Standing Commission on Anglican and International Peace with Justice Concerns.
YASC offers one year assignments, from health care to youth ministry, to Episcopalians looking to explore their faith and grow through cultural engagement, vocational reflection, and serving others. Nurses are educated to be caring health care providers and in order to uphold the Declaration of Alma-Ata, which declared health a fundamental right nearly thirty years ago, it is my opinion that nurses and nurse practitioners should volunteer their work and offer their professional expertise to the neediest people. The Declaration of Alma-Ata, established a goal that “all people would reach a level of health that would permit them to lead socially and economically productive lives” and by including health care within their mission, YASC is participating in reaching this goal.
The YASC program will give me an opportunity to participate in God's mission outside the United States in a culture amongst a people that is different from my own. For many years now, I have had the aspiration to serve medically-underserved populations. In the past year, I have had the opportunity to do this locally through participating in a nurse practitioner residency program in a community health center in Worcester. Currently, I serve a low income population from diverse cultures, a high percentage of whom are Spanish-speaking immigrants. I hope that volunteering abroad will improve my clinical cultural awareness by working with the same population within the context of their native communities. I believe that this will also enrich my medical practice in the future as it will allow me to bring increased knowledge and empathy to my work with a growing population of Spanish speakers in the United Sates.
As a YASC missionary I am a representative of my home worshiping community, specifically the Church of the Epiphany and the Episcopal Church as a whole. Although there are a handful of YASC volunteers each year, we are all called to serve in different countries and therefore are on our own as we venture to apply our skills and talents into whatever projects we are asked to start, lead or help out with. Since I will be on my own, in a foreign land far away from family and friends, the support and prayers of my home worshiping community will be essential. Therefore I invite you all to participate in my ministry abroad, so spiritually we will be together in doing this important work to make a more healthy and spiritually just world.
