I absolutely love Christmas–it is by far my favorite holiday of the year. This year as I’ve been reflecting on what I love about the Christmas season and the day itself, I am realizing that the traditional aspects of a “magical Christmas” (snow, lights, music playing everywhere, shoppers bustling about, etc) aren’t what really make Christmas magical to me–which is good, because celebrating Christmas in a city where Christmas is not a huge holiday would leave one feeling a bit disappointed. But even though this year has not included some of the traditional aspects of Christmas as we celebrate in the US and Spain, I have found this Christmas to be absolutely incredible!

Christmas is incredible not because of the festive atmosphere out and about–it’s about the people, relationships, sharing meals together, and remembering the true reason for why we celebrate the holiday to begin with. I challenge you this year to focus on the people in your life, spend time with them, really talk and enjoying being together…because that is the part of Christmas that really lasts.

Merry Christmas from Jakarta!!!

When you hear about malnutrition, it’s easy to tune it out. Reading that there are over 9.5 million children in Indonesia under five years of age who are malnourished is an abstract concept, and is easy to put in a box of issues to deal with later. But when you see the effects of malnutrition in the lives of children that you personally know—it hits home in a whole new way. It’s no longer just statistics on a page—it’s your reality.

Over the last year and a half I have been working in two slum communities in the Greater Jakarta area. Reduced cognitive development isn’t a scientific term to me anymore—it’s the inability of the children in my kindergartens to progress to the next school level at a normal rate. It’s seeing the kids stay half the size of other children that you see in the mall. It’s seeing them not be able to develop like other children because they aren’t receiving the proper nutrition.

But once you see the problem, what do you do about it? As a first attempt to address malnutrition, with the help of very generous donors, I started a healthy food supplement program at each of our three kindergartens. We made sure that each child had protein, a vegetable, and a piece of fruit at least three times per week. I found that families were willing to participate, but as I got to know the mothers, I learned that they needed much more than simply food donations. I came to understand that the moms needed to learn what they should be feeding their children, why it is important for them to get a variety of food types, and how to cook healthy foods they had never prepared.

Not only was the problem deeper than simply not having enough food, but it was also targeting the wrong age group. The window to prevent stunting is in the first 1,000 days of a child’s life (conception to two years of age). That’s when I decided that I wanted to start a health education seminar series for women in the community—because by working with the moms, we can have a deeper impact on the health of the community.

My vision was to take 20 mothers through a four part series on nutrition, immunizations, sanitation, and family planning at each of our kindergarten locations. At the end of the series I want to hold a special award ceremony for those mothers who make it all the way through the four sessions.

Last week the beginning of my dream became a reality. I arrived at our kindergarten in Muara Baru, where we were going to hold the seminar, and instead of the 20 women I expected to come, there were over 40—there physically was no more space in the building for more women. And not only did they just come and sit through the session—but they engaged with our volunteer doctor and asked questions because they want to learn more and help their children succeed.

I realize that we still have a long road ahead, but I think it’s important to celebrate the first step!

When I first agreed to be the game master for the 2015 IES teens camp, I had no idea what I was getting myself into…I just knew that they needed help, and that it would probably be fun.

As I was meeting with Isabel Kenney, the teen coordinator of the camp, she shared with me her motto for games, “team work makes the dream work.” It sounded super catchy, so I decided that that phrase would be our motto for the camp games. I wanted all the games at camp to build the teens together as a team—that they would be more unified and cohesive afterwards.

Through much planning and writing a slightly over the top 26 page game guide, the camp games were ready to go!

The first activity we had the teens do was “tribe time.” We broke them into their tribes (teams) for the week and had them design a flag, create a tribe cheer, and create a short skit about one of the code of conduct rules that they had been assigned. This helped them start to build unity amongst themselves, and start to find their place within their tribe.

Day two was full of fun outside games. The first was fear factor, which had three phases of challenges—smelling, feeling, and then eating. The tribes had to work as a team to listen to each other so that when the first part was done, they could work together to get the second part, and so on until the end.

After fear factor, though, I realized that my voice was not loud enough to be able to accurately communicate with the teens and leaders what I needed them all to do. I was getting frustrated because I couldn’t be heard, and the participants were getting restless waiting for the next activity to be explained. That’s where teamwork comes in. One of the members of the team, Pastor Mike, agreed to be my voice of the instructions. So I explained to him what needed to happen, and then once everyone was corralled to where they needed to be, he would explain everything that needed to happen. Needless to say, tug of war and capture the flag (with adjusted rules) went so much better than if I had tried to do it on my own.

The next exercise in teamwork (for both the leaders and participants) was the amazing race competition on day three. I had ten different challenges set up all around the campground that each tribe had to complete. Since I obviously could not run everything by myself (since tribes would be at different stations at different times), I had to really rely on my team to know their challenge and be able to run in without me. Being a little bit of a control freak, I was so worried that it would be a disaster. But on the contrary, it ended up being amazing! All of us adult leaders worked together and the challenges were seamlessly set up and run. It was so much better than if I had tried to do it on my own!

Not only did the adult leaders really have to function as a team, but each tribe did too. Whenever they were not actually completing a challenge, they had to all walk or run hand-in-hand or arm-in-arm. If an adult leader saw them break contact, they had a 30-second freeze penalty where they couldn’t move at all—which would obviously set them back in the race. I added this rule last minute as a way to make sure there were no stragglers, but it ended up being the thing that really made teamwork a central part of the amazing race. The teams that figured out how to work as a team did much better, and ended up being leaders in the race, and the teams that couldn’t, ended up towards the end.

So my main takeaway from camp was that no matter how much I organized and planed, I couldn’t do it by myself—I needed to use my team. And teamwork really does make the dream work—and with good teamwork you can exceed your plans and even your dreams.