LHS students travel abroad to help less fortunate
By: T.J. Furman
When I sat down to interview six people at one time Tuesday afternoon, it was a little intimidating.
I had never interviewed so many people at once before and I knew there were going to be problems keeping names straight while scribbling in my notebook.
Thankfully, I was surprised.
Over the course of the 1999-2000 school year, five Lawrence High School students, all seniors, either have or will travel to foreign countries to participate in missions for Operation Smile. I met them all this week as well as their advisor, LHS art teacher Christine Stockton.
Maybe it was because they all had such interesting stories to tell, but I had no problem remembering the names and faces.
There was Mike Deni, 17, who returned from Morocco just last week; Rebecca Rosner, 18, who traveled to Vietnam in November; Julian DeVoe, 17, who leaves for Lima, Peru, next month; Nancy Lee, 18, ventured to Nicaragua at the end of January and beginning of February; and Elizabeth Weinstein, 18, who was the first in the group to go overseas this school year, traveling to Kenya in October.
Their initials easily flowed from my pen onto the paper without having to stop and think while I talked with them about their missions. The fact that their actions on these missions are so helpful to so many probably helped the names stick in my brain.
Operation Smile raises money to provide cosmetic surgery to underprivileged people. The patients are mostly children inflicted with bad burns or cleft palates that leave them terribly disfigured and prevent them from living normal lives. Operation Smile sends several missions overseas each year to assist children in third world nations.
Here is what the LHS students had to say about their missions:
Mike DeniŽ
Mike returned on April 3 from Morocco.
"We got there and we played with the kids, but we really didn’t know exactly what to do," Mike explained. "But you settle into your role pretty quickly. You give them stickers. You make it easier to face the surgery."
The role of the high school students on the missions is to relieve the tension children might face before surgery and to help them cope after it. They also give presentations on health and hygiene to local children and parents.
Mike said one of the most enlightening things he saw on his trip was an actual surgery being performed.
"There you really see the whole process," Mike said. "Before that you see the kids with cleft lips and burns and then you see them afterward and it kind of looks like magic. When you see it, it’s really amazing. I got a little squeamish."
The pace of the mission can make life fly past in a blur, according to Mike. After a while, however, he was able to find time to put everything in perspective.
"The first couple of days, you’re moving really fast. You don’t have any time to stop and think," Mike said. "Then, come like the third or fourth day, you just kind of stop and sit down and think about what you’re doing and it really hits you. These kids have nothing and it kind of hurts. You can only do so much."
He’d do it again. When Ms. Stockton mentioned that Operation Smile may soon be seeking college volunteers to aid in recording computer records on missions, Mike said he would "have to bone-up on computers."
Rebecca RosnerŽ
Rebecca said she was not prepared for how difficult her trip would be. Asked about her flight to Vietnam by Ms. Stockton, Rebecca’s facial expression gave the only answer needed: It was long.
"It’s just the heat, and all the traveling and the medicine you’re on," Rebecca said. "It’s hard."
Aside from the hardships, Rebecca particularly remembers one girl, about 11 or 12 years old, named Chieu. Since she was older, Chieu was one of the last to be operated on the day she was at the hospital, so she and Rebecca saw a lot of each other.
"When she woke up and she was in post-op, she reached out to hold my hand," Rebecca said. "I just melted. I never got an ‘after’ picture and never got to say good-bye to her."
Ms. Stockton pointed out one of the ironies of Operation Smile missions: The volunteers hardly ever see the children smile after their operations.
"One of the hardest things is that whenever they leave, the children are many times leaving stitched and swollen after surgery," Ms. Stockton said. "It’s a rare thing you ever get to see the final result."
"In the ‘before’ pictures the kids are really happy," Rebecca said. "In the ‘after’ pictures they’re not."
All of the students had stories of one or two children that stuck in their minds like that one.
Nancy LeeŽ
Nancy had a special child during her stay in Nicaragua earlier this year. There were problems, however, concerning a common barrier language faced on Operation Smile missions. Nancy described a scene near the end of the mission with a girl she spent a lot of time with.
"She hugged me and she was saying all this stuff and all these words came out of her mouth," Nancy said. "I got so frustrated because I wanted to have a whole conversation with her about how she was feeling, but it just wasn’t getting out."
Eventually, a translator was found, but they are not always available because they are busy explaining procedures to parents and patients.
The ability to be a part of something that would make a difference is what drew Nancy into a mission.
"When I first joined (as a freshman) I didn’t want to go on a mission because I was sheltered and I wasn’t very good with kids," she explained. "Then I went to the (Operation Smile Youth Conference in Utah last year) and said, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t turn my back on these kids. I’m going to go and I’m going to try my best, and if my best isn’t good enough, then I want to know I tried my best.’"
Elizabeth WeinsteinŽ
Elizabeth’s most enduring memory of Kenya was children trying to deceive her while she was visiting an orphanage and talking to the children about health.
"When we were giving out stickers, kids would just keep coming up," Elizabeth said. "We would say, ‘Didn’t you get one?’ You would turn their hands over and they’d have this whole wad of stickers they were trying to hide. They just wanted more and more."
While helping bring some enjoyment to children that don’t get it in regular doses can make you feel good, Elizabeth said there is a flip side to helping.
"We brought a lot of stuff, but in the end we didn’t have any more," she explained. "But you want to keep giving because they don’t have anything. You feel helpless because you can’t do anything to change it. You can’t get depressed about it because you have to feel happy about what you have done. It leaves you with a feeling that you want to do more."
Elizabeth says the experience of helping is something that will not end with high school.
"There’s just not a point where you say, ‘OK, I want to close that chapter in my life,’" Elizabeth said. "You really don’t want to. You want to keep going with it. It shouldn’t end after high school and they’re trying to get colleges involved."
Julian DeVoeŽ
Julian will leave for Peru in the beginning of May. As the last one of the group to leave on an Operation Smile mission, he’s been able to gather information from the others about what to expect.
He said the stories from the others have him looking forward to "getting in the room and playing with the kids and making them feel better," Julian said. "One of the reasons I joined the club is that I like seeing people smile. I like happy people. That’s what Operation Smile is all about, trying to relieve some of the pressure of the aesthetic world and bring back some of that inner happiness."
Julian joined Operation Smile after his older sister, Kryssa, told him about it. He expects his mission to give him a sense of how lucky he is.
"We’re worried about driving tests at 17 instead of having to take care of your little brothers and sisters," Julian said.
Ž
So, like the students on their missions, I made it through the interview fine. And like the students, I learned a few things, too. Actually, I guess I already knew them, but just had them reinforced.
This is the third time I’ve interviewed students that had been on Operation Smile missions. Each time it amazes me that a teen-ager is able to fly to a foreign country with a group of people they don’t know and work tirelessly, giving of themselves, for 12 to 16 hours a day in sometimes squalid conditions.
All of the students I’ve interviewed come back with a new perspective on life in this country, and the LHS students are no different. Julian hasn’t been on his mission yet, but he sees the difference already.
"There’s such a cultural enlightenment among the kids that have been on missions that I’ve talked to. It’s incredible," Julian said. "It seems to be a wake-up call that lasts a lifetime. I don’t’ know, but I doubt that I’ll forget it when I go."
Mike recalled the perfect image to capture that sentiment.
"The strangest thing for me was coming back and standing on my front porch and looking out and thinking ‘What the heck is all this?’" Mike said. "You see your lawns and your paved roads. It seems so foreign and alien that I didn’t like it anymore."