introduction

My name is Alison. Call me Ali. (That felt so Moby Dick for a moment there.) I'm 24 years old and I've been a nurse in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) for the last two years and change. I live at home with my parents and my sister in a quiet New Jersey town not far from New York City. I teach Sunday School and lead youth group. I am a photographer.

I am comfortable.

Perhaps that last is the reason for all of this. The reason that God tapped me on the shoulder, dropped me to my knees and told me I'm headed to Africa for ten months. The reason that I'm no longer able to stay here, quietly living out my life in the confines of suburban America. The reason that, despite the two years of seniority (and being that much closer to Christmases at home), I'm quitting my dream job in less than two months.

I'll be getting on a plane and heading for Freetown, Sierra Leone. I'm going to be serving as a volunteer nurse on board the world's largest non-governmental hospital ship, the Africa Mercy. I'll be part of a team, made up of volunteers from around the world, that provides free surgeries to the world's most desperate poor. I will be paying to live in cramped quarters, work long hours and be away from my family for the better part of a year. I have never been so excited in all my life.

.....

I met a man who hails from just outside Freetown at a church I visited this summer. Joseph shook my hand about seven times in the space of our short conversation, a wide smile cracking his face from ear to ear. We stood in the quiet sanctuary after the service, and I asked him what I should know before I went. The smile faltered for a moment as his brow furrowed. "Have you seen poverty before?"

I thought I had that one covered. You see, I was in Africa before. Nine weeks is hardly long enough even to get settled, but I was changed by my time in the Zambian bush. I saw, for the first time (American child that I am), poverty. I saw children die from malaria, malnutrition and gastroenteritis. I sat in my room at night and cried because these deaths could have been prevented.

I explained this to Joseph. He took my hand again. "Sister," he said softly, "that is Zambian poverty. That is bush poverty. In Sierra Leone, you will see war poverty. It is very different."

.....

I don't know how I'm going to do this. I find myself overwhelmed by the magnitude of it. But I know God has plans for me. Hope and future. That much He has promised. So off I go. I'll keep a chronicle here. And I'll come back at the end of next year changed in ways I can't even begin to anticipate.

I can't wait.