Embedded Files
The Peace Corps is a civilian organization, sponsored by the U.S. government, that sends volunteers to instruct citizens of underdeveloped countries in the execution of industrial, agricultural, educational, and health programs.
This year the Peace Corps is celebrating its 60th anniversary with volunteers serving in over 120 countries. Peace Corps week is held from Feb. 28th-March 6th to commemorate its establishment on March 1st, 1961.
Ms. Ashely Benson, Ms. Jolanda Ferguson, Ms. Kelly Houston, Mr. Tom Houston, Ms. Christine McDowell, Ms. Helen Raftery, Mr. John Tecklenburg, & Mr. Bob Wojtowicz are former Peace Corps Volunteer Veterans and we are fortunate to have them among us at both Sturgis Campuses.
Learn more about Sturgis Teacher's experience in the Peace Corps!
Learn more about Sturgis Teacher's experience in the Peace Corps!
I was in the Peace Corps from October 2003-November 2005. I taught at a secondary school in a rural village in the Thyolo district of Malawi, Africa. Attached is a picture of the school staff in front of our offices.
Highlights of my service include making a lot of Malawian friends that I still talk to today, travelling around Southern Africa, and meeting my wife!
Tom Houston
I had an opportunity to serve in the Peace Corps twice. My initial service was in Ecuador in the coastal town of Machala. The second was a short term assignment through PC Response, where I served in Georgetown, Guyana for 6 months. When I started out as a volunteer and surveyed my site's needs with my local counterpart, I genuinely felt I could do a great deal to carry out the community's requests. I assisted with developing youth groups, helped form a community banking partnership, offered after school activities, and taught sex education.
But after my service I came to an important realization; rather than me supporting them, my host community had actually supported me.
My community (whether they were aware of it or not) had guided me to become a more thoughtful, humble, and open-minded individual. And that is the real take-away. It is not just about providing training or creating sustainable projects as a volunteer, but the friendships you form along the way and the enlightening conversations you have with others. I wouldn't be who I am today without these experiences.
Ashley Benson
My husband and I should’ve met a long time ago. In high school, we lived only a few miles away from one another. He waited tables at a particular local restaurant and I worked at the ice cream shop across town.
After we left for college, both of our families moved from Connecticut and relocated only 45 minutes away from each other in Florida. Despite all the times that we may have brushed elbows, it was an it wasn’t until we joined the Peace Corps that we met. During staging in Washington DC, Tom was looking for someone to sign as a witness on one of his registration documents and I happen to be the person standing next to him. We still have that paperwork as proof of our first encounter.
Between culture and language lessons at the Dedza College of Forestry in Malawi, we grew close sharing stories of our friends and families. We quickly learned that we had a common interests - the outdoors, travel, education, and comedies from the 1980's. Over time, we began to date. which turned out to be quite a challenge.
We didn’t have phones and we were a 2 to 5 hour dusty pick-up drive away from each other, so we wrote lots of letters .Tom eventually figured out how to bike to my site, through the maze of cornfields and dry riverbeds, by identifying local landmarks. With the help of teachers at his school, he sketched a map of the footpaths and would pedal the 30 miles to my village with the hot sun overhead and children calling out as he passed by. Those visits became weekend-long dates, with trips to the local market, lessons from neighbors on preparing Malawian cuisine, planting and harvesting crops with my headmaster, and teaching enrichment sessions to eager students.
When we came home in 2005, we decided to settle in New York City and became high school teachers in challenging Title I schools. We often share our Malawi experience with our curious students through pictures and cultural artifacts. Through our stories, we demonstrate Malawian values like patience, kindness, hard work, and perseverance.
Our 2008 wedding ceremony included in Malawian Chichewa proverb, and our rings are both engraved with "Ndima Kukonda" which translates to "I love you." We welcomed our son Joshua in November 2010. Soon after his birth, we received a card from our friends back in Malawi congratulating us. Tom and I talk about visiting there in the future. Malawi is more than just a place where we volunteered for two years, it is where our love story began.
Kelly Houston
Page updated
Report abuse