It had been raining since the night before and I was a little nervous that our 38 volunteers wouldn’t show up because of the rain. But even if no one came, we decided that we would persevere and go into the community—rain or sine. Well, it definitely turned out to be the “rain” of the “rain or shine”. Everyone was a little late, but we all gathered, got in the bus and headed out. On our way there we ran into some flooding…but undeterred we continued on.

Thankfully the flooding didn’t last that long and before we knew it, we were back on dry land. However, when we got off the bus, we realized that the only street to the community center, where we were doing the free medical clinic, was completely blocked by a pool of water. I was ecstatic that I would get to wade through water to get to the center…it seemed like an extra dose of “hard core” community development. The other volunteers were not quite so thrilled, but all of us made it through and we were ready to start our work.

The flooding blocking the street to the community center was only a few meters wide, so we didn’t have to spend the whole day trudging through water (though personally I think that might have been fun). The best part about the flooding was that it put everyone in the right mindset for going into the community. We weren’t there for our own comfort, we were there to serve the people in that community.

The volunteers were amazing. We had 20 people working the medical clinic—they did registration of patients and worked at assembling prescriptions and distributing the medicine. Though this was the first time many of them had ever done something like this, they jumped right in and ran like a well oiled machine.

The other 18 volunteers got to participate in the games for the kids and their mothers. The little kids went upstairs for a drawing competition and the older ones stayed outside for a line dance competition, karaoke, sack racing, and krupuk eating competition. The moms even participated in doing their own line dance competition. It was a blast!

I think my favorite part of the day was meeting new people—both volunteers and members of the community. There is something special about setting aside time to serve together in a community that really needs to see that kind of love.

I can’t wait until the next time!