My dental hygiene journey started about three years ago in Kansas City.  At that time, I was a student at Kansas State University, planning on attending UMKC for Dental Hygiene upon graduation.  That year, my sister decided to move to Chicago for college, and it prompted me to think, “If she’s doing it [moving away for school], why don’t I?”  I decided I was going to see and experience the world.  So, I got on my computer and looked up the location of EVERY SINGLE dental hygiene school.  Once I had that list, I filtered out all of the schools that were further than 25 miles from the beach.  Smart plan, I know 🙂  At that point, I had narrowed the list to four schools, SPC being one.  Next, I visited each school.  While touring SPC, someone mentioned the Study Abroad opportunity to Jamaica.  I reminded myself, “You wanted to see the world . . .  right?”  So, it was decided right then.  I was going to attend SPC.

When applying to SPC, I thought anyone that wanted to participate in the Study Abroad program had the opportunity to do so, but, during my first semester, I found out that you had to be selected; I became worried.  I told myself, that day, and every day the trip was mentioned after, “Everything happens for a reason.  What is meant to be, will be” . . . Basically, I was preparing myself for the rejection letter I hadn’t even received yet!  Fast forward a year, and there I was, reading an email that said I got a spot; I still remember exactly where I was when I opened that email. Then, so quickly, it was October 1st.  We were supposed to be heading out that morning, but, due to hurricane Matthew, our trip was postponed.  After our second canceled flight, I had given up hope that we were going to make it there.  But, through the grace of God and Mrs. Krueger, on October 5th, our group of 11 landed safely in Montego Bay, Jamaica.

Through-out our six day trip,  the entire course of my life changed.  The “future” plans I once had mapped out . . . left on the roadside of Fern Gully. . .  and what has replaced them, something immensely better. In Jamaica, in one short week, I found out what God had put me on this Earth to do.  I have never felt that before.  It is such an amazing and overwhelming feeling.  Never before have I felt like I knew my purpose, but in Jamaica, I did.  So, what was it exactly that helped me figure out that my future is in Jamaica?  It wasn’t just one thing or one person . . . it was everything and everyone.  It was the patient who brought me to tears as she sang for the first time in so long because I had found her a tube of denture paste.  It was the child who slipped his tiny fingers in my hand as I walked down the clinic hallway and asked for a book that he could, “share it with the boys in [his] community.”  It was the local woman who invited 15 volunteers over for a home-cooked meal.  It was the  four-year-old that sat perfectly still as a stranger with a mask asked him to open his mouth. . . and that same four-year-old that assured me I was doing a good job because his teeth were, “already feeling much stronger” after I applied the “tooth vitamins” (fluoride).  It was a patient who thanked me twenty times over while giving me the most sincere hug I had ever received, simply because I held his hand through a scary moment . . .   a three hour extraction. 

I was humbled by and through this experience.  To say that I was blessed with this opportunity is an understatement.    I am a different person now than when I left.    I went there to “change lives”, but it was mine that was truly changed.  I went on this mission trip to help to “rescue” the people of Jamaica, but I was the one who was saved.