“Embrace your passion. Jump into your passion with both feet and bring others along with you.”
– Vince Lombardi

This is the seventh post I’m sharing about the LifeTouch Memory Mission Trip in which I participated in January 2016 as a representative of the American Association of School Administrators (AASA).

Thanks to LifeTouch, AASA, and all of the amazing leaders with whom I worked, learned, shared, laughed, thought, reflected, and lived while in La Republica Dominicana! In my first blog post leading up to the actual trip I shared some questions and answers about what I hoped to learn and experience while on the trip.

Excerpts from that post:

Question: What do you hope to learn from the experience of building this school, interacting with the residents of Constanza and working as a team with your fellow Memory Mission volunteers?

Response: I expect a truly life changing experience in terms of culture, language, building, caring, and doing. I am hoping to see the world through the lens of the people of Constanza and through that lens better clarify my own lens. I hope to spread “public diplomacy” as well by showing the good side and caring side of our American people and of our school personnel. I look forward to making life long friendships and connections with my fellow volunteers. I want to make my wife and children proud of me by modeling a life of service.

Question: How do you think the Memory Mission will change you? Do you have personal goals for what you take away from this experience?

Response: I think this trip will change me in terms of the building experiences, the family/citizen interactions, the overall cultural exchange in the Dominican Republic. My goal is to listen, learn, embrace the culture and the people and aim to give as much as I can to these projects.

The video is below: