Occasionally in life, you get to do something amazing.  What's more, you might change your life as a result.

Twenty years ago, we had what my husband, Bud Philbrook, wryly refers to as "a properly balanced honeymoon." We spent five days at theme parks in Orlando, followed by five days in an impoverished Guatemalan village. This curious blending of Disney World and "the real world" led not only to my own life change, but enabled life-enhancing experiences for thousands of others around the world.

Our honeymoon plans had originally centered around a "barefoot cruise" in the Caribbean. But it was late in 1979, the period of a massive exodus of Hmong and Cambodian people into the vast waters toward America. Week after week, evening network newscasts spotlighted the growing tragedy – the casualties of overburdened refugee boats capsizing, their occupants lost to the frigid waters. A cruise seemed increasingly frivolous to us in the context of world events. We decided on a more meaningful vacation. We would indulge Bud’s childhood dream of visiting Disney World, and then begin our married life in solidarity with those who struggle with life’s most basic needs.

We offered ourselves as volunteers to an international development organization we were associated with locally. Having only limited experience with church and student volunteers, the program directors were skeptical about our practical value to village projects as short-term volunteers. But they were persuaded to permit us a five-day visit at one of their more established sites in Central America. Aware that their acquiescence was less an acknowledgment of our usefulness and more a cautious indulgence of our idealism, we were thrilled to receive our invitation to Conacaste, Guatemala. This combination of vacation and service, I reasoned, would enable us to become true "world citizens."

After a predictably captivating week in Orlando, I was eager, but also apprehensive about the next leg of our journey. I mentally reviewed all I knew about Guatemala.  It took about two minutes.  Anxieties settled like a heavy meal in my stomach.

Unquestionably, Bud’s vision was clearer than mine. A former state legislator and graduate of the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, he often challenged me to question my personal role in waging world peace. But I felt ill-equipped to make a real difference outside my immediate area of influence: My family, my neighborhood, my office. How would I react to the realities of life in the village community I would soon encounter? How would I make sense of the poverty and struggles of a life I knew nothing about? I didn't know that the answers would come so easily.

Descending to the airport, I suddenly felt exposed and insecure. All I knew about Guatemala was what I read in news magazines and watched on news broadcasts. I only hoped that I could somehow contribute to our hosts in some small way.

Our warm welcome into Conacaste assuaged my worries. We were greeted by the American program directors and the local community leaders, several of whom spoke English. One of my first thoughts were: "They’re just like us." While we toured the village, I felt increasingly comforted by the openness and hospitality of the villagers who nodded and smiled as we passed.

The little mountain hamlet embraced some 200 families, descendants of indigenous Indian tribes, who welcomed us into their homes, fields, and friendly conversations. I was awe-struck by how utterly normal – albeit difficult – life there seemed. With minimal electricity, no running water, except in the community center, few books, no organized children’s activities, and no stores for daily necessities, the villagers accepted their formidable challenges not with resignation, but with pride. A nature-dominated flow of daily life seemed to guide their gentle spirits. Life was to be celebrated.

The gently folding valley sparkled with brilliant flower petals bursting from window boxes and nearly every tree and bush in sight. The pastel-glazed clay brick houses gleamed with doors and windows outlined in vibrant reds, greens and blue designs. In the yards and streets, black-haired women and girls wore intricately-patterned woven skirts and shawls and carried brightly decorated pots and water pitchers. At once, I was mesmerized by the color and natural beauty of the place.

My comfort level in my temporary "home" grew as I became familiar with local residents. We were eager to become as much a part of the community as possible.  The children were especially engaging.  Frisky as pups, and immune to their humble surroundings, they swarmed around us ever-ready for a game of "toss."

Bud, with his background in human and economic development, was asked to help write a grant proposal, and I, with my journalism background, began work on a brochure explaining the community’s needs to potential benefactors.

Days quickly passed. Each morning I was jolted awake by the abrupt hawking and scratching of the roosters perched on our tin-roofed room. Other vibrantly colored birds peered into the screened window curiously as the interrupted moths scattered.  Before daybreak, I strained to hear the distant chortle of the gas-powered generator straining to start the corn grinder of the tortilla "factory" housed in a family’s shed: Putt-putt-putt- hiss-hiss-putt-putt-hiss….. 

Soon after, the village animals would start their wake-up routine -- their bleating, howling and shrieking like a circus choir. Only as the earliest fingers of the sun’s ochre rays stretched tentatively into the village lanes did low human voices become audible. By the time sunlight bathed the eastern fields, the day had stimulated every living creature in the village.

A bread-baking "industry" began the previous year by a group of village women who together with project leaders built a central brick oven. The bread was sold to village families as well as to visitors on busses passing through. Construction on a basket-weaving center had recently begun with the financial assistance of grants and individual contributions and the labor of student volunteers. The project leaders explained that progress was slow, because as a demonstration project, the construction techniques used must be replicable with locally available resources. The American program directors knew that the initiative, as well as the strategies, must be the local people’s themselves if the community’s efforts would remain in the long-term. Therefore, construction practices that to me had first seemed awkward and unnecessarily labor-intensive, gained greater relevance as I began to understand the meaning of "appropriate technology."

A short distance away from our little eight-by-ten-foot concrete room in the community center the village's sole typewriter awaited my day's efforts.  The ever-present dogs and numerous village children gleefully followed me on my ten-minute walk. Dispatching my "escorts" upon arrival at my destination took longer than the walk itself! But their predictable smiles and youthful games offered security and familiarity I hadn't thought possible in such a short visit. 

Each morning I passed  the open doors of the villager’s homes -- with the hard-packed dirt floors and peevish front-yard chickens -- and tried to imagine the tiny village in 20 years.  

Would one-room, thatched-roofed homes be replaced by more spacious dwellings? Would the village build the educational and medical facilities needed to ensure its children’s health and development? Would farmers develop agricultural techniques to raise the families’ subsistence-style of life? My heart swelled with hope and optimism.

Now, 21 years later, I have personally witnessed what is possible when local initiative and community self-determination joins with catalytic assistance from committed "outsiders". Global Volunteers exists to enable local people to enlist others’ support and practical skills to visualize and achieve their community hopes and dreams.

With our Conacaste honeymoon as a springboard, Bud and I worked with like-minded friends and associates to establish a non-profit organization that would wage peace through person-to-person development assistance in host communities around the world.

In January 1984, a board of directors was established and Global Volunteers was founded. Bud led our first and only two volunteer service programs that year – to Woburn Lawn, Jamaica, a "sister village" of Conacaste. The North American project directors in Woburn Lawn were "alumni" of the Conacaste project through the same development organization. 

Our short-term volunteer "experiment" has subsequently been welcomed in some 70 host communities in 27 countries worldwide. 

Lives have been forever altered - those of the volunteers, and of the people they have so generously served. Like most people, Global Volunteers’ team members are at first motivated to make a difference, to "give back" some of what they are grateful for in their own lives, and to know that in a small, personal way, they have altered the course of world history in a positive way. It is upon reflection they often realize, perhaps as they are packing their bags to return home…..that they are the ones who have truly benefited from their act of service. Life will never be the same. They have their own story to tell.  Now, that's amazing!