The Intercordia Difference

Dear Readers,

I will wait until tomorrow or Sunday to write my usual weekly update. Instead I will share my part of my journal entry from yesterday.

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Day Sixty-nine - 16 July 2009

Today I think I found out really the difference between Intercordia and most other volunteer organizations. This morning like on most Thursdays Kimberley and I went to the orphanage. But today was a special day. There was a group of foreigners coming, and so some of the children had prepared a display of traditional Ukrainian folk dancing. Of course, neither Kimberley nor myself knew this was going to happen. Furthermore, this group of foreigners was from Alberta of all places. Some of them even live 500km north of Edmonton! They were a group of teenagers going around to difference places seeing different kinds of folk dancing. Anyway, after the little performance, the group from Alberta opened up their suitcases full of stuff for the children. Although this group wasn't a volunteer organization, their attitude was the same. They of course had the best of intentions, and no one can deny them that, but they were still the ones from the first-world country going to the poor to help them, or do whatever they were doing, and then leaving. Again, I repeat, their intentions were of course good, and they performed a good deed. Still, they didn't really do what was needed. What the children need is love, stability, and family. Not balls and flags and pencils.

In the long run, it doesn't matter if you're a disabled person in Ukraine, a troubled youth in Nicaragua, a child made an orphan by AIDS in Swaziland, or a university student in Canada. We are all human and we all need the same thing: to love and to be loved. Only by loving others and by being loved by others can we be happy. I think the staff at the orphanage realized this truth, or at least part of it, as well. They didn't look overly excited when the children were being given all of those toys. They know what the children need, and it isn't more stuff.

So what is Intercordia about? It is about learning how to love and how to be loved. It is about making a real difference in the lives of others, and allowing others to make a real difference in your life. it is day sixty-nine of my three month placement, and month ten of my involvement in Intercordia, and only now have I finally tapped into what Intercordia really is. And furthermore, this wasn't somethign that I was thinking deeply about, instead it simply dawned upon me amidst rather unusual and unexpected circumstances.

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This was just a thought, a very underdeveloped one at best, but something I think I can build on.

Until next time,
Michael