I was born in Tulsa; I've always lived here and, even though I used to resent it, it's grown on me. I attended Eisenhower International School for primary school. While I used to see being a part of a Spanish immersion program as the norm, I now realize how it is shaped my values into something different from those of my peers. I was taught from a young age the importance of global awareness. While it wasn't a mindset that I developed until my middle school years, I think that it had a lot to do with the fact that I am here now.
I went to Edison for middle school; though I initially went for more social reasons rather than academics (good parenting, Mama & Papa) it ended up being an environment where I was challenged as a student and stretched as a person. This is when I forged strong friendships with girls who share my faith, the same friends to whom I am still very close.
At this season in life, I wasn't at my best with God. When I was in elementary school, church wasn't an option. My father was a Sunday School teacher and, whether I liked it or not, I was out of bed and at church at 9:30 on Sunday morning. When I got to middle school, I had the choice, but I still went. In my eighth grade year, I and several friends attended a conference at which an organization called Compassion International spoke. During one of those petty intermissions that they often offer so that kids scarf down a Juicy Juice and a Pop-Tart, I wandered over to their booth where I saw dozens of faces staring up at me from behind plastic packets. The one that caught my eye was a young boy named Moti Baisa. I carried the package back to my friends, and we decided then and there that we would become Moti’s sponsors.
For nearly nine months, we met every week to plan fundraisers and write letters to Moti. It eventually evolved into a mini-organization, one that we christened “Save the Word” (I couldn’t tell you the origin or meaning of this name, but it made perfect sense to us at the time, so it went unchallenged.)
As the anniversary of our sponsorship drew near, our minute budget ran out (after all, the allowance of five jobless eighth graders isn’t exactly abundant.) When we received a letter asking us to renew Moti’s sponsorship, we disappointedly declined. Two weeks later, we received the only correspondence that Moti ever offered us--a brief letter with a drawing at the bottom. The note expressed his gratitude for what we had been able to give him: he told us about the commencement of his education, a rarity in his rural Ethiopian village. His drawing portrayed the village how he saw it, though he was nearly blind.
I cried when I received the letter and, while I showed it to my other friends in “Save the Word,” I selfishly kept it and still have it in a box that sits on my nightstand. I’m not sure what happened to Moti, but I do know that there are millions like him. While he was only able to offer me a glimpse of his life, I became enthralled with his world, a world I have never known.
That was a long tangent for a short statement: I felt a calling.
Unfortunately, I haven't acted upon it throughout my high school career. While a school like Booker T. probably would have been an excellent place to start a movement, I took the easy way out and concentrated on academics. This is not to say that I have been strictly studious; in addition to what few would classify as a social life, I've pursued just about every extra curricular I could dream of: dance, debate, piano, philanthropy-to name a few. My summers, too, have been fulfilling-I served as an Ignite intern, worked as a US Senate Page, and ran around with kids at Camp Loughridge. However, something has been missing and, until this spring, I didn't realize that it all might have to do with Moti.
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