New Horizon

March 10^th 2019

Today marks one month into this new adventure. I am working with Medair, a Swiss Emergency Response and Humanitarian Aid organization. I am part of the Medair team in Bangladesh, working in partnership with World Concern.

I’ll be living in Bangladesh for the next five months working as a Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, supporting the team here and helping to strengthen the programs based in the near by refugee camps. The refugee crisis has left thousands of people living in camps and extremely vulnerable to malnutrition, disease, and environmental hazards. We are working to save lives through health, nutrition, and shelter assistance.

How did I get here? What’s Medair? 

Here’s the story so far:

Since finishing up my Master’s in Public Health I’ve been looking for a job where I can work internationally, in an organization motivated by the values that drive me as a person, in a role that utilizes and grows my abilities and experience, where I can be part of tangibly making a difference in the world. Eventually I found out about Medair, and the more I learned about their values and goals, the more certain I was that I had finally found the organization I’d been looking for.

Medair’s values are not just a nice list of ideas, they are the core essentials that the entire organization is built on, and they are the unshakeable elements that fuse hundreds of people from all around the world into one united purpose to reach the forgotten, save lives and strengthen communities. These values are faith, compassion, integrity, dignity, accountability, and hope.

After applications and an initial interview, I was invited to Switzerland to participate in the R.O.C. This is the pass/fail testing week that challenges you in simulations that mirror what you may experience in the field. It’s intense. It’s amazing. It will help you know whether or not this sort of work is for you. I passed and began looking for job openings that I could apply for.

I applied and was accepted for a Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) job in Bangladesh. The same day I got the acceptance email I put in my two-weeks notice at the NYS DOH. In those two weeks I was humbled and amazed by the way my co-workers supported and encouraged me as I began the mountain of preparation work before flying to Switzerland for an induction week at Medair’s headquarters.

During the induction week I shared a small apartment with six other new Medair staff from all around the world. It was a week of deep conversations, dance parties, and sending each other into the field with love and prayer.

After two weeks in Switzerland I traveled to Bangladesh to being this new adventure. For those of you who know me well, you know that I’ve spent the last two years waiting and praying for the right next step and striving to grow in the in-between season. What an amazing feeling it is to be here now and be part of this work!

The title “New Horizon” is from one of my favorite songs. It speaks to the the truth that God is present with us in each season, quieting our fears and doubts as we keep our hearts focused on Him… “It’s a new horizon, and I’m set on You. And You meet me here today with mercies that are new. All my fears and doubts, they can all come too, because they can’t stay long when I’m here with You.”