About Me: Elodie Demmon

Hi everybody! To start this tiny tangent off, I’d like to say that I have never blogged before, so bear with me here. My name is Elodie Demmon and I am a freshman who is currently on the Secondary Education track with a tentative major in English. I’ve been living at Marquette for only two and a half months, and it’s been nothing but an awesome rollercoaster ride so far. The people, the food, the smiles and the city—I’m soaking everything up and loving every second of my time here at Marquette.

Real quick fun facts: I’m from a suburb of Milwaukee (not Chicago, shockingly enough) where I have the raddest parents and brothers around. I’m a music junkie, food lover, Barnes and Noble addict, movie quoter, dog hugger, and general wonderer of all tiny beautiful moments and ordinary things. I find service to be a core value of my faith and will take up any given opportunity to dive in and out of my comfort zone.

Journeying to South Africa with this incredible group of people is a huge step outside of my comfort zone, and I couldn’t be more grateful and excited. I cannot wait to become immersed in the beauty and culture of South Africa and see how it will affect each one of our lives. I believe that service is a two way street: when you give something to someone, you receive just as much. Connecting with the people of South Africa and serving with them instead of to them—that is what I am excited to experience. I am already learning so much through our group sessions and I know that this growth will continue as our journey to Cape Town progresses. God only knows what’s ahead!

Peace, Love, and Ubuntu,

Elodie

About Me: Kaitlyn Daly

Hi, everyone!

I’m Kaitlyn Daly, and I am a sophomore in the College of Nursing here at Marquette. I am from Lisle, IL, which is a suburb of Chicago. My super supportive and loving mom, dad, and older brother are three of my best friends and my greatest source of laughter. I am so, so excited to begin this journey with an amazing group of people with such diverse and valuable gifts, stories, and perspectives. To start, I would just like to mention that I am drafting this post in an email draft in light of a tip I got from a recent Google search, “how to write a blog for a non writer?” As you can see, I:

1. Ask Google many of life’s important and frivolous questions (i.e. Is it okay to eat three apples in one day? What is the normal range for white blood cells? What is the best Italian restaurant in Milwaukee? Is oatmeal gluten-free?)
2. Have never written a blog before…but, I love to think, reflect, and make note of unordinary moments and people from my day, God moments, epiphanies, and scenes of déjà vu.

I tend to get flustered with where to start and how to word things when it comes to writing down stories or experiences, so I am forever grateful to a mentor of mine who suggested the use of bullet points while journaling. To test that out blog-post-style, here are a few more things about me:

• I love peanut butter, wheat saltines, and apples (together or separate).
• Traveling and serving abroad fill my soul.
• I think conversation is one of the coolest things in the world and in all of life.
• I look forward to discovering who my neighbor will be on trains, airplanes, and buses (for the above reason).
• Colectivo is one of my favorite spots off campus (they have café au laits and baked oatmeal).
• I had pet hamsters growing up (a classic Daly family story originates from this fun fact – even if you only encounter my family once, you’ll probably hear it).
• I was a gymnast for 15 years.
• My bedtime is usually around 10:00pm (I have many grandma-like tendencies and qualities that I am 100% okay with and happily embrace).

I am greatly looking forward to walking with the people of Cape Town, South Africa as we learn, serve, and grow in the context of their people, history, and culture. I find God in the people in my life and in the stories each one holds. As we all share bits and pieces of our stories here, I hope our experiences of the people, places, thoughts, and prayers we encounter in the communities around us and in our own hearts will inspire you to seek and live out our interconnected humanity, or ubuntu.

Thanks for joining us on this journey!

Blessings, Kaitlyn

Hi There, it’s Lauren!

Hi everyone! My name is Lauren Rimmel and I am a sophomore at Marquette University studying Exercise Physiology in the direct-admit Physical Therapy program. Before I say anything I’d just like to point out the fact that it’s already November, which means we leave in less than two months for Capetown – holy buckets.

A little bit about me: I am from the East Coast and have strong ties to Long Island and Boston (which I bring up waaaaay too frequently – sorry about that, just love those places!). I also love the ocean, sports, reading, binge-watching Netflix (shout out to Christina for being a Parks and Rec fan!), and spending time with family and friends. I’m a little bit of a nerd, but that’s okay, right?

I’m wicked excited to be journeying to South Africa. Okay, that’s an understatement. I am thrilled and nervous and jittery and feel so blessed to be going with such a great group of people. We’re all going for different reasons, but that’s part of what’s been making the process so wonderful. Personally, I feel called to go. As Ann put it, I feel that there’s a reason bigger than me or my concerns and fears that is drawing me toward this place. I want to travel through service and build my career by helping others, and feel that this is the starting place. Yes, I have my reservations and fears, but that’s okay – they motivate me to stay informed and make educated decisions, and help me keep my dialogue with God.

So, here we go. The journey to South Africa. For all those reading this, you’re in this too! For all those who aren’t…hey, there are some pretty cool people posting here so you should 😛

Peace, love, and ubuntu!

Lauren

Hi, I’m Christina!

Hi, I’m Christina Pavilon and I am a senior at Marquette in the College of Nursing. I grew up in Palos Park, which is a suburb of Chicago. I have an awesome-sauce little sister named Anna and two great parents! Here’s a list of my favorite things to do:

1. Traveling with my family
2. Riding my bike
3. Baking chocolate chip cookies and eating all the dough
4. Watching Parks and Rec
5. Exploring nature (includes long walks on the beach)
6. Swimming with dolphins
7. Trying new things!!

I am so humbled and thankful for my time I’ve had at Marquette. Throughout the course of my time here I’ve had the opportunity to serve others in new and unique ways. During the school year I mentor less fortunate girls and hold a leadership position for organizing retreats. I’ve spent all of my spring breaks traveling to different parts of the country on volunteer trips. On these trips, I’ve been privileged to help teach inner city school children, built friendships with the homeless, and helped in a rural community. I’ve gone down to New Orleans for a summer trip to help rebuilt homes that were destroyed in Hurricane Katrina. In short, I’ve discovered that this kind of active Christian service is an integral and necessary part of my life.

I am so excited that I’v been chosen to be a part of this incredible group to travel to South Africa during winter break. It has long been my passion to love and serve others. I’m so overjoyed that I will have the chance to travel to such a wonderful part of the world to learn about these people’s culture and to grow in community with them. I can already tell that this is going to be a life changing experience.

Can’t wait to see what this experience will bring! Thank you for your time!

Sincerely,

Christina 🙂

About Me: Clare Hulsebosch

Hello, everyone! I’m Clare Hulsebosch, and I’m a junior studying Secondary Education and English.  I’m from Palatine, IL, which is a northwest suburb of Chicago.  I have three awesome siblings–Kevin, Patrick, and Bridget–and two really supportive parents.  I absolutely love animals and have a very bad habit of talking to dogs before acknowledging their owners.  Dogs are much too cute to be ignored.  Also, I’m a huge book nerd, so I pretty much read anything I can get my hands on.  The last thing you might want to know about me if you read my blogs is that I love food.  When I experience I a new culture, I try to eat and learn to cook as much food as possible.

This South Africa trip combines two of my favorite things, travel and service.  As an education major, I love serving people and helping them with whatever they need.  It is what I want to do for the rest of my life.  Ever since I was little, I have loved doing service.  I firmly believe that people live for one another.  I have done Midnight Run throughout my time at Marquette, I tutor students, and I did MAP my freshman year.

I also love travel! I studied abroad last semester in Galway, Ireland, and it was the best five months of my life.  I learned so much about an amazing culture that values happiness over looks.  They did not stress over the things they knew they could not control, but instead just accepted what they could not change.  While I was there, I backpacked for one month around Ireland and Europe.  Two of those weeks I traveled alone, which was scary, but so worthwhile.  While I was on the continent though, I traveled with five other girls.  My goal for the semester was to travel to 20 countries before I reached 20, and I ended up reaching it! I love learning about different ways of life and seeing different places!

I do love recording my trips, whether it is through photography or journals.  I have only blogged once before, but I have never done one as a group.  I am really excited, since I think this will be an awesome way to keep people updated.

Thanks for reading!

~Clare

About Me: Phil Batzner

Hiya! My name is Phil Batzner and I’m a junior at Marquette studying advertising and marketing. I hail from New Berlin, WI, not too far from campus and have been blessed with a loving, supporting family. I’m the youngest of 4 children – Jack’s 23, Ashley’s 25 and Melissa’s 27. I’ve played volleyball just about my entire life, LOVE bow-ties (I own over 20), spin the tracks as DJ and am starting to really get into photography. Oh – you can probably find me with a burger in my hand, too!

Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved serving others. Whether this was actual service, like working at a food kitchen or participating in service trips, or the simple gesture of caring for someone, service has always been one of my core values. Since being at Marquette, I have been lucky to perform hundreds of hours of service in Milwaukee and across the country. I’ve been a participant of MAP in Benton Harbor, MI, ventured down south to New Orleans with MARDI GRAS and work locally with Midnight Run in Milwaukee. Lately, I’ve been even more blessed to serve as a MAP facilitator this upcoming year. In addition, during the summer of 2013 I led mission trips across the country interacting with over 1,000 participants and 4 different communities.

I guess you could say I have a bit of the travel bug. Throughout my past journeys I have kept personal + travel blogs and noticed keeping up with a travel blog is one of the most challenging tasks when you truly are trying to make the most of every moment. Therefore, I created this blog as a way for our group to share thoughts, images, stories, perspectives and memories collectively with the loved ones in our life.

Peace, Love and Ubuntu.

– Phil