Deciding to Go

Making the decision to move myself thousands of miles across the Atlantic ocean to a country that I know limited information about is intimidating. I spent months researching different organizations and different destinations I could go to. Many places had language requirements. Some required letters from church leaders before one could apply for the volunteer position. 

I went through a series of emails and video calls with CMMB before I was selected for the role of volunteer psychiatric nurse. I had to meet with people from South Sudan before I was able to really make a decision about where I wanted to go. There were many late night moments of panic, lots of internet searches, and thankfully several friends that could talk me down from my moments of panic.

Deciding to go to South Sudan was both one of the easiest and hardest decisions to make. Once I had been accepted into the program as a volunteer saying “yes” was easy. I didn’t have to think it through really. I knew that this was what I wanted to do and if I didn’t do it I would regret it. But in other ways it was hard. Before I officially made the decision, the months leading up to this, were filled with lots of different thoughts floating through my head. 

Googling travel to South Sudan is intimidating and can be scary. There is so much negative information on the internet. Many times when you google something about South Sudan the information was all negative in nature. However, since I have plenty of people in my life from South Sudan and because I have done more in-depth research I realize that not all the news and information is current or correct. 

Now this does not mean that I am ignoring the safety concerns but I am trying to go in with an open mind and a reminder that the news and even the state department paint the county in one broad way while not discerning that different areas are safer to go to than others. Still I will be taking caution. I have learned over the years, living in various cities, working at different hospitals, being a female, and traveling a lot, about being safe. I am doing many things to ensure my safety and prepare myself for this journey. 

I don’t really have the words right now to adequately talk about my decision to go to South Sudan. I hope in a follow up blog I can talk more about why I chose here and about some of the other influences on my decision to work as a medical volunteer abroad but right now there just isn’t an adequate way for me to talk about it so I will leave this as is. I will try and write soon with a little more about how preparing to leave is going.