Personal Expression

Alice M. Kissinger
District 7370

In 2004 I joined more than eighty Rotarians on a medical mission to

Brazil where fifteen different projects were performed.

My team and I were taken to Tombos, a small town meaning

‘waterfall’. Our mission was to install a new X-ray machine and an ultra

sound unit.

The hospital was something we might call a First Aid Center but it’s

what the people had. One day two sisters brought, by wheelchair, their

ailing father who appeared close to death. The sister not behind the chair

was petrified and panicked but we looked into each other’s eyes. While I

could do nothing for her father, I went to her, hugged her long and hard, and

we separated knowing each of us felt better.

Did I make a difference that day? Was this my defining moment in

Rotary? I don’t think so, but when words are useless and in another

language, all of us can show we still care about our brothers and sisters,

wherever they may be.

Alice M. Kissinger, DGE

District 7370
rotaryrk@ptd.net
Scheduled for 09 Oct 10 at 9:50 am