The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Some students who graduate from grade 12 may not know what they want to do with their lives, other than get to get away to 'the big city' and enroll at the university that all their peers are going to. This was not the case with Tiffany Lazar. Tiffany wanted to travel and yet not pull herself completely away from school. She had read some brochures at school about a program offered by the Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg, and had talked to Janelle Hacault, who had gone the year before. Tiffany decided to enroll. This is a traveling missionary program with credits in biblical studies and conflict resolutions. Tiffany figured that since she would be in a group, with a Christian background, that it would be a safe experience. Tiffany had a plan for her life and she wasn't afraid to go after it. The program she joined is divided into three sites with 34 students to a site. When a person enrolls you get to pick where you want to go Ð either to one of the two sites in Guatemala, or the one to South Africa. Tiffany chose South Africa. The students spend their first semester in western Canada. The first week of the program is called Urban Plunge, and Tiffany spent that week working in the core area of Winnipeg. Her group observed the prostitutes, giving them roses. She also worked in the soup kitchens, giving out food. Then they went off to Hope, B.C., to a camp called Camp Kawkawa, which was their base camp. There they had several speakers on biblical studies. They spent some time at Camp Esperenza, where they did some physical work by cutting down trees, stacking wood and helping to fix up a camp that the Native people come to for refuge. See 'South' P.# Con't from P.# Then her eyes light up and she smiles, "we got to spend four days on a houseboat in B.C., that was kind of nice." On January 14, 2004, Tiffany and her group left for South Africa for three months. This is where the conflict resolutions training really came into play. There were four groups of people that Tiffany lived with. Tiffany laughs, "I thought I was going to go over there and teach them a thing or two." First they landed in Johannesburg and then they traveled around the coast to Victoria, then they lived with an African family near Cape Town in a place called Strangfontaine. Next they moved on to Durban, where they stayed with another family. Some of the people were very poor. "The commercials you see on TV with those poor little children starving to death is very real. I'll never look at them again without remembering those poor children," said Tiffany. "That is reality, I have seen it." "And yet, even if they realize how poor they are, it doesn't seem to matter to them because they are rich in their relationships with their families, they have one another and the material things don't seem to matter," says Tiffany. "Then I began to wonder who the smart people really are! There is so much we can learn from them. We go in thinking how much we can show them and leave realizing how much they have changed us!" Tiffany adds, "this kind of trip takes a lot out of you emotionally, there is a lot to deal with and even though I have been back since April 14, I am still processing what I have experienced." She adds, "I don't have to be right there to help them and right now I am exploring all the options." "This trip has made me more culturally aware, in the ways different people live and interact with each other," she said. Tiffany highly recommends this trip to students, saying that "no matter what kind of a mind set you go in with, this is a real learning experience." Tiffany has taken a job for the summer working at Simonhouse Bible Camp as a counselor. She plans on going back to the Canadian Mennonite University in the fall and take courses in music (she plays the clarinet, oboe and the bass guitar) and French education. Her goal is to become a teacher, starting off in Canada. She says then, "if I feel the call to be there (South Africa), although there is so much to deal with and I'd have to prepare myself , I will go." Some of the highlights of her trip were climbing Ryan's Peak, which is a 18 km hike, spending her 19th birthday on the summit. "Worth it once I got to the top!" she laughs. However, her major highlight was a 216 meter Bungee jump, "I didn't even scream, I was so excited. I was pretty impressed with myself that I wasn't as scared as I thought I would be!" She said there were a few jumps to choose from but she said, "I figured I might as well go all the way, so I chose the highest one!" Good luck in your future endeavors, Tiffany. It looks like you are well on your way to a very successful life!
