- Alanna
This is the page for Alanna Burnett. She is a junior in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Academy attending Northwest High School. She aspires to be a Marine Biologist and wants to someday travel to the most exotic places and document all of her adventures. Her passion for people and finding the inner beauty of the world is evident. She loves journalism and strives to connect to other people through the art of writing. She is a strong believer that anyone can make a change. If you are looking for a place to find out how people are impacting the world and making it a better place you’ve come to the right spot!
Rachel is a missionary in Haiti and she is in charge of coordinating and organizing the trips for churches who come to Haiti to serve. In her blog, she writes about her experiences in the villages and how she loves to serve with the people around her. I enjoy reading about her journey in her blogs because I share the same interest as she does. I have been on many mission trips since middle school and it truly is life changing. I always go feeling a little lost and leave feeling completely refreshed. A mission trip is extremely tiring because you are giving your all for strangers you’ve never met but you are planting a seed in their lives and sharing life with them and because of your efforts, they are also leaving changed. One example of this was a mission trip to San Angelo, TX. I actually went on the trip with Rachel when she was working under my dad at our church and it was incredible watching her serve. We went to a small church in a neighborhood in poverty and honestly, I didn’t know what to think. By the end of the trip we met amazing people who I would’ve never known and the kids who were crazy at the start became our best friends! Rachel was and still is one of my idols because of her devotion and passion for what she does. We were able to share a happiness with them that they didn’t get to experience every day and made what seemed like a boring place became some of the best memories. The exhaustion was worth it because serving gives you a kind of refreshing energy that coffee can never offer. From knowing Rachel and reading her posts from Haiti, I feel like I finally understand how to enjoy life. It’s one of the main concepts she writes about even though she never directly says it in her posts. Her love for life and people is evident in how she enjoys the simplest things. It’s the simple things that have the biggest impact on our lives. It’s obvious just by looking at her pictures and seeing how she shows the elatedness of the Haitian children playing with each other and how they make bad situations into a good one just by having fun. Just playing in the dirt makes them happy compared to playing with iPhones and other artificial things that give us artificial joy. After getting to witness this, I understand how she feels about loving others and treating them the way they should be treated. There is a trend that continues in places like San Angelo all the way to Port Au Prince in Haiti. Life is meant to be enjoyed no matter the situation or where you came from. Rachel went to Haiti for the first time on a mission trip and it made such an impact on her that she applied for a job and she’s been there ever since. Rachel sees the struggles of the Haitian people every day and has witnessed their life firsthand and instead of letting that ruin their attitude, the citizens of Haiti remain optimistic and cherish every moment of the day. In one of her recent blogs, Rachel says “life in a tent is incredibly difficult, but there is a joy that cannot be stolen”. This really stuck out to me because no matter the circumstances, we can always find the good in everything that happens. Only then can we truly enjoy life.
- Alanna
4 Comments
Melissa Griffith
11/11/2015 03:40:35 pm
Alanna, I enjoyed reading about your experiences on the mission trip! I'm sure your experiences will have a positive impact on your perspective and will result in a broader insight of the world. I look forward to your future articles! ~Ms.G
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Adrian Romero
11/11/2015 06:58:10 pm
Alanna! I really liked this post. I thought your last post was good but you improved on this one. I like how you not only included your experience which was really inspiring, but you also added a call to action for the readers! (You might have not told me but that's what I got) The message was simple but effective. I loved the way you formatted your post and the images you included. I don't know if you took those pictures. However, if you didn't make sure you add the citations in there! Awesome job and keep it up. Remember there's always room for improvement.
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Reflection
11/12/2015 09:47:23 pm
I chose to write about topic 1 where I had to choose an idea, concept or topic that my journalist writes about, discuss what she has to say about the topic, and then my own experiences and perspectives on it. After that I ended with a point about life, based on the subject I chose to write about. I think I addressed the topic well and described my experiences and tied it all together with what she had to say about the topic and I used at least one direct quote. I did not use in-text citations because in my signal phrase I mentioned it was from her blog and all over my page I have different ways to access her blog. Looking back on my posts, I have used effective media and conversational words to make my page appealing to teens. I develop the idea but one of my goals is to make my call to action more obvious. Another goal is to not only just say my quote is from her page but remember to actually make a citation. It’s hard to remember because I’m so close with her that it doesn’t occur to me that her work still needs to be cited as if she were a professional that I was reading for the first time. Lastly I want to be able to communicate my ideas without getting everything jumbled up in my head. I am getting better at this but all of my thoughts just come out at once so I want to be able to really organize my thoughts to where it’s effective and makes more sense. -Alanna
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Julian Santos
11/13/2015 09:15:20 pm
Alanna this post is truly great! you talked about her blogs and you brought your own expierences as a link between both. Ending on the note of life and how good things can be found in bad things was the cherry on top for this post.
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About the Journalist:Alanna is very close friends with Rachel Durban who is a missionary in Haiti who works at Mission of Hope. She helps villages in poverty and giving children love and a place to feel safe. She is Alanna's inspiration and maybe she can inspire you too!
Like what you're reading?Find out more at Hashtagger?Follow Mission of Hope on Twitter and Facebook for more stories or go to YouTube for video footage of mission trips.
You can also go to #missionofhopehaiti on Instagram.
Watch this video from a mission trip at my church!Random stuff to make your day better!Click here to read about Rachel's awkward airplane experiences and her list for things you need to make your trips even better!
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