Really Quick Background:
My sister Serena co-runs the charity with my brother-in-law (aka her husband). I've actually gone to volunteer with them once before, from August '11-May '12 (I'll go into more detail about how that went in a future post). They asked me to come back to help out just this Christmas... no really, literally on Christmas Day, I opened my e-mail to see a message from them. I won't lie, I kind of jumped out of my chair with excitement!
A Week (and a few days) Later...
They've now sent me all the paperwork I need to send in to apply for a visa. I'll be busy today working on sorting out things to pack and other things to get rid of so they're not clogging up my parents' house while I'm away. I might not be able to get to the post office today, so sending that stuff out might have to wait until Monday. Fun fact about me? I hate waiting.
Goals for the Year
Hey, it's the New Year, so I should be setting goals anyway, right? So, here are a couple of goals I'll be setting for myself during my time volunteering.
- Learn Chinese! I want to be able to carry out a conversation and be able to make it on my own around the city.
- Visit more places around Beijing. Like restaurants, and events such as plays. Mmm, food and entertainment. I can dig that.
This list may or may not change in the future, who knows?
Stay Tuned...
This was just meant to be a quick introductory post of sorts. I'll be making more posts later on about my previous volunteer experience, preparations for the flight over there, and of course be documenting my time there in general, volunteering and otherwise. I'll be putting up a page soon about what you can expect to see on this blog on a regular basis once I get over there.
Have you ever volunteered, abroad or otherwise? Where did you volunteer and what was it like? Share in the comments!
2 replies:
Nice blog, Leah! :)
I've only really volunteered once. It was with my church's youth group, and we helped with bringing in donations to a local charity's Christmas Free Store (basically, they take donations of gifts and set up a free store for families in need to "shop" from). I mostly stood outside in the cold and asked the people donating which churches they were from, probably so that the churches could get a tax receipt or something. But I also helped organize the donations, too.
Thanks Merry! :D Oh, I've heard of churches doing things like that before. I hope you could get something hot to drink (such as cocoa or tea or coffee) after standing outside in the cold!
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