A journey of healing

\"Next," he said. The slide changes to another colorful picture of a beautiful child with bright eyes. Looking at the image of these lively children on the projector screen, it's hard to imagine that they are living in worse conditions than Americans would let their dogs or cats live in, Dr. Chuck Dietzen said. The pediatric rehabilitation doctor from Indianapolis frequently refers to these children as his spiritual leaders and heroes. \n"Just your presence there will give these children significant hope," Dr. Chuck, as he is casually referred to, tells the room full of college students. "You can go back 10 years from now and they will remember you; remember you by name."\n"Next," Dr. Chuck said again. This time it's a small, pants-less boy happily running with a white pig on a string. The students, most planning to attend medical school, sit in desks and laugh at the amusing image. The smiles on the outside of the students' faces are not as big as the smiles on the inside though. As they look at the slides and listen to Dr. Chuck speak about his past journeys in twelve different countries, an inner satisfaction is growing, for they themselves will soon be touching the lives of children similar to the Haitian and Ecuadorian young ones they see in the slides of the presentation. \nDr. Chuck is preparing these students for a week-long trip with a group he founded called the Timmy Foundation. Dedicated to bringing medical services to places all over the world with a major focus on helping the lives of children, the Timmy Foundation sends volunteers on five or six international trips each year and has sent medical care to approximately 50 countries through the funds, volunteers, and supplies it solicits. \n"Typically if people ask for help, we'll give them something," Dr. Chuck said. "Everybody is somebody's child."\nThe Timmy Foundation has recently spread its message of healing to the IU campus. Juniors Dionissi Aliprantis and Aaron Remenschneider and IU graduate Eddie Kubek organized a Timmy Foundation club in Bloomington this academic year and are leading 25 students on a medical brigade to Honduras during spring break. Student volunteers will stay at an orphanage in Honduras, spending time with children and running a three-day clinic alongside Dr. Chuck and other doctors. \n"I will show you things you won't be able to see until your junior year of medical school," Dr. Chuck said to the group.\nDr. Chuck not only showed the students the delightful faces of the children, playing with volunteers on past trips, but also things that might be difficult to look at, such as people lying on streets and an open fracture wound that had been untreated for two years. Dr. Chuck said the students need to know that some of the things they will see will be disturbing.\n "You will see some suffering," he said. "But, for the most part, these kids don't realize they're poor. That's the life they know. They have nothing to compare it to. It will be overwhelming for some people, but this is a great opportunity. It's important to find out what the rest of the world is like."\n In preparation for the trip, volunteers can attend group meetings and register for a class that has been developed to supplement the trip: L200, Spheres of Caring. The group will also attend training sessions to learn how to do some medical basics, such as taking blood pressure and how to triage patients in the clinics that they will set up almost anywhere, whether in buildings or under trees.\nBut, Dr. Chuck said he doesn't want the IU group to be working dusk till dawn.\n"I want our people to get out and meet folks, to learn about the culture and spend time outside the clinic," said Dr. Chuck. \nThese outside clinic activities, such as playing soccer and reaching out to the community members can be just as important as the work done in the clinics. They are creating a bond with the close-knit communities of the culture to keep in contact with and make sure they are getting the help they need in the future. Preventative medicine is also a major component of the Timmy Foundation in forms of clothing, education, and nutrition.\nDr. Chuck started the foundation in 1997 and named it after his oldest brother who died as an infant. A life-changing experience of meeting Mother Teresa while working with Missionaries of Charity in India motivated Dr. Chuck to do more. He claims the meeting was the greatest experience of his life.\n"Mother Teresa epitomizes what we all are striving to be, whether we realize it or not," he said. "It does not take an extraordinary soul, but an ordinary person doing extraordinary things."\nDr. Chuck frequently tells volunteers a Mother Teresa quote: "It is not my job to be successful, it is my job to be faithful." He said that although he may not get to every child in the world, it doesn't mean he'll stop trying. \nHe stressed it's not about numbers, it's just about touching people's lives.\nThe Timmy Foundation had only been up and running for about a year when Aliprantis and Remenschneider met up with Dr. Chuck. Their involvement began with a series of chance events the summer before their senior year of high school in Indianapolis. A magazine advertisement led Remenschneider to the Timmy Foundation. \nWhen he approached his high school friend Aliprantis about looking into one of the volunteer trips, Aliprantis coincidentally said he had just heard about the same group from his mother, who had heard Dr. Chuck speak at her church. So intrigued by Dr. Chuck from what they heard, they set out the next day for his office. They ran in to Dr. Chuck, who had just happened to have his next appointment canceled, in the hallway of the building. One visit led to more with this inspiring mentor.\n"We just started randomly stopping by. He's such a busy doctor, but somehow he always had time for us," Remenschneider said.\nDr. Chuck put the two to work right away doing odd jobs for the Timmy Foundation, such as sorting medical items in their warehouse, and having patients flown in from Haiti for surgery stay in their homes. Aliprantis went on a trip to Cuba, Remenschneider went to Ecuador, and both went to Haiti to work in clinics with Dr. Chuck. When Remenschneider and Aliprantis came to IU, they met up with Eddie Kubek, who had traveled to Mexico on a similar medical trip, and after kicking the idea around for awhile, decided organizing their own trip with IU students was something they had to do.\n"We saw the impact that the trip to Haiti had on us. We thought it would be such a great thing, especially for people already thinking about being doctors," said Remenschneider, who takes pre-med classes. "Experiences like this give you a drive, gives you some purpose. If you get nothing else out of it, you get the clinical experience."\nWorking closely with the Executive Director of Timmy Foundation, Scott Keller, and other experienced organizers, the three men settled on Honduras as a practical location for a week-long trip where Timmy Foundation connections were already established with an orphanage community. Volunteers will stay with local families or in the orphanage itself. Mass e-mails were sent out through IU mailing lists and they found there was a lot of interest in the pre-med community though only spots for 25 students to go. After sorting through about 60 application essays, the group was established and it was time to tackle the biggest obstacle -- fundraising.\nWith estimated total costs of over $35,000, which includes airfare, transportation, medical supplies and extra funds to leave at the orphanage, Remenschneider admits that, at times, it was overwhelming, especially after sending out letter after letter without any response.\n"The only thing standing between medical trips like these is fundraising," Remenschneider said. "There were just a lot of dead ends. You'd get a pat on the back, but no help."\nThe group is very grateful for donations they have received here and there and several volunteers even received individual grants from the Honors College. Most recently, a meeting with the Vice Chancellor gained the group an additional $4,000.\nJunior Chioma Ndubisi, a pre-med biology major who is going on the Honduras trip, said fundraising wasn't much of a problem for her.\n"I've seen some of the best of people as I've fundraised for this trip," she said. She has received generous donations from her teammates on the IU track team, parents of friends, and from the Office of Multicultural Affairs. Ndubisi, whose dream is to open a women's clinic in her parents' homeland of Nigeria, sees this trip as a way for preparing for the future since conditions in Nigeria are likely to be similar to those in Honduras. \n"This is an opportunity to see medicine at its best," she said. "In America, medicine is overcrowded with payments and insurance. You don't really see the passion behind medicine."\nWorking alongside Dr. Chuck and gaining invaluable medical experience is also a plus for Ndubisi.\n"Just to be right there next to Dr. Chuck, performing procedures, like stitching someone's hand. Something as little as that is so big to me!" she said laughing.\n"He is basically living the life a doctor was meant to live, which is helping others," she said, becoming earnest. She credits the Timmy Foundation as one of the only ways she can have this experience.\nIn preparing for the trip, Ndubisi registered for the class and is hoping it will help her process the meaning of the trip more clearly.\nThis type of reflection is a major purpose of the course, said Assistant Professor Jo Ann Campbell, who will also be joining the students in Honduras. She is the director of the Office of Community Partnerships in Service Learning and approached Remenschneider about developing a course for the trip when she taught him last semester. In the six-week class, students are reading a book, "Don't Be Afraid Gringo," the oral history of Honduran activist Elvia Alvarado that will present a prelude to the culture. The class will also discuss models of caring and aspects of service leadership. \nNot only will the students be gaining an academic perspective on their trip, but also building a community with others who will be going.\nCampbell said service learning incorporates as much student input as possible and she is excited about working alongside her students in Honduras.\n"I love spending time with students, but it's usually in a classroom or in my office," she said. "In this, we are really peers learning together."\nWhile on the trip, the students are encouraged to keep journals and will spend time every evening processing what they learned that day and answer each other's questions so they can start fresh the next day, Campbell said. When the group comes back from the trip they will have two more weeks left in class for deep analysis and reflection and will be writing a paper about the trip.\n"Writing can be a powerful way to pull everything together," Campbell said.\nAlso, when the students get back, the Timmy Foundation Club plans to direct their efforts locally and do volunteer work in Bloomington while planning a trip for next year, hoping for eventually two trips a year. Aliprantis, Remenschneider, and Kubek want the club to become an established group that will continue to grow. They also want the idea to spread to other college campuses for they realize that much more must be done to improve the dire situation of the world's medical needs.\n"You can't solve the problem by going on the trip and looking there for solutions. The resources just aren't there," Remenschneider said. "The people here, in this country, are the people who can make a difference."\nThe three plan to speak and give slide shows at colleges and churches to propose the idea.\n"We hope the idea is transferable," Kubek said. "A seed can be planted here and there as people go off to medical schools or through friends at other schools."\nThey also hope that their accomplishments in Honduras will help them in their fundraising endeavors for future trips.\n"We have proof that students really can do something like this," Kubek added, smiling.\nDr. Chuck agreed that the IU students' work is an example of how powerful young people can be. He has repeatedly said that the Timmy Foundation is not in the habit of outlining missions, but in the habit of supporting missions. They encourage people to find their mission and let the Timmy Foundation help supply them with the resources.\n"We were not all born to be doctors or nurses," Dr. Chuck said, "but we were all born to be healers. Spiritually, there is no other reason for us being here than to help each other along on this journey. We are created to need each other and to reach out to each other. I like to help people find that, what is it that they have to offer to another human being to make this a better place"