Cumberlite - 2012 Winter

Making Deposits in the Lives of People
Stuart King, Class of 2004
Stuart King, Class of 2004,
at his Peace Corps swearing-in
ceremony.
Service often looks
a lot like the coin jar
we keep on the corner
of our desk. Deposits
aren’t usually planned
nor do they occupy any
significant portion of
our daily thoughts. But
with time, the clearing of
that annoyingly loud and
surprisingly heavy metal in
our pockets begins to fill
the jar, and our personal
economy gives us a hint of satisfaction.
I knew at a fairly young age that service needed
to be more than an afterthought. I didn’t know how,
but I wanted to put myself in situations in which life,
work, and service were one and the same. My family
roots stretch deep into the medical field so that would
have been a good place to start had the sight of blood
not made me queasy. Instead I settled on the wonderful
world of business, finance, and statistics. How exactly
this would get me to where I wanted, I wasn’t quite
sure.
While in college I would often tell people I
was interested in international development. That
sounded like service to me and would usually elicit
an agreeable response, but at that point I had no clue
what international development was or how a young
college kid could get involved.
My solution to the service question and getting a
professional service career off the ground led me to the
Peace Corps. I made the decision to join as I finished
up my last semester at Southern Adventist University,
simultaneously submitting my
applications to the Peace Corps
and graduate school. I was
accepted to the University of
Denver, and after an internship at
World Vision, I began my studies
in Global Finance, Trade, and
Economics. In my final quarter
at Denver I received my official
invitation to Peace Corps to serve
as a Community Development
volunteer in Ukraine. I accepted
and cold weather preparation
began immediately.
Stuart with host brother, Yura and his host
mother, Natasha.
I arrived in Ukraine in March 2011 to culture
shock that has only slightly subsided and a seemingly
impenetrable wall otherwise known as the Russian
language. After three months of intensive language
training and four months at an English language
camp on the Black Sea coast, I finally made it to my
permanent work site of Izmail, Odessa Oblast. Izmail is
a city of 70,000 residents situated in the far southwest
corner of Ukraine on the Danube River and Romanian
border. My hosting organization is the Izmail Fund
for Entrepreneurship Support, and my primary job
responsibilities include English training, grant writing,
and program design and management. Planned projects
for this coming year include a community-wide
HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention campaign, the
construction of a new playground for mentally and
physically disabled children, and the opening of a
resource center to teach valuable life skills to children
at the local orphanage.
Ukraine is a land of rich culture, history, and
tradition. I do not even pretend to understand it all and
have learned to eat whatever is put in front of me without
asking where it came from (you learn quickly that once
you know it’s raw pig fat it becomes ten times harder
to swallow it down). Peace Corps’ work in Ukraine is
unique in that Ukraine is a transitional economy, and
thus much more developed than places such as rural
Africa. This means I have hot water, electricity, and
even high-speed Internet, but it also means the fruits
of my labor aren’t so easily observed. I’ve often asked
myself what kind of difference I am truly making in
the lives of the people I work with. I might not be
changing the world, but I trust the spirit of Peace Corps
service will influence those I come in contact with and
will foster a stronger human bond
across cultures. I am proud to be a
Peace Corps volunteer and serve
my country. It comes with sacrifice
and a slew of personal challenges,
and even though failure is more
common than success, Peace Corps
service has given me exactly what I
was looking for.
Stuart King can be reached at
sdking49@gmail.com should you have
further questions about his work with the
Peace Corps or if you would like to access
his blog.
Winter 2012 the Cumberlite 5