Read my story: Outreach360

Charlie Chaplin once said, "We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness not by each other's misery." That's what I would like to share with you today, the message of service. I've always wanted to be more than what my town or what the world offers me. The world around me always seemed to be stuck in the status quo. Being different in my high school wasn't highly encouraged but if I couldn't be myself there where could I in the world? Who was I and what was I going to stand for? I am Kaitlin Bracken and I was seriously confused.

 I was graduating high school not knowing what I wanted to be when I "grew up" or what impact I wanted to make in this world. The struggles and trials of going through life stunt your growth in something bigger than yourself. The Beatles song Blackbird described exactly what I wanted to do and they said, "take these broken wings and learn to fly… you were only waiting for this moment to arise." Not knowing who I was and what I wanted to become I set off to the world unknown to me. Arriving to Nicaragua with Outreach360 I thought that I could truly find all the answers I had in my life. Going in with too much pride I hit the brick wall. I didn't know spanish and I felt that I would never make a difference in a country where that was their main language. I didn't think that I could make a difference and all I wanted to do was return back home to the typical life I had. Pressing forward trying to find my place I found this girl named Joseline who wouldn't even mutter her name or giggle at the silliest things. Soon after I found that she had Leukemia and the world around suddenly didn't matter anymore. She was the only thing that mattered and the thought that I could give her the happiness that the kids around her were having. By the end of the week her face was different, she had the smile that I had been dreaming of each night and when her mom came up to me and sincerely thanked me everything seemed so much more clear. 

I found something in me that I never found before, I found the hero within me. I won't do anything to keep it inside of me anymore and I know that each one of you have the opportunity to release the hero inside of you. The town that I was just staying in became my second home and the people I was just walking beside became a new found love. Go out! Go out to Nicaragua or Dominican Republic with Outreach360 and find who you are in a world where many think its already decided for them and do what the Beatles suggested, take those broken, tattered, weak wings and fly. This is the moment to arise and fly to the endless possibilities that the world doesn't share with you. Don't keep that potential of becoming a hero, somebody's hero inside of you, show what you can do in this world. What you can do in these two countries. The need is there and you can do something about it.