Dream Trekker

A Glimpse into International Volunteering

Not everybody gets to go home. Not everybody wants to go back home. I, however, had always wanted to see the land where my grandparents had been born. All my life, I had been curious about life on the other side of the pond, where my ancestors had walked and talked. I too wanted to walk the streets and see the scenery at fifty-five degrees latitude, but I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would go to Poland as a clown.

So begins a series of seven journeys that would take Gabriella Sheldon around the world as a volunteer. In Poland, she helped in a wheelchair distribution, but later she would witness the atrocities of Auschwitz. She lived and taught at a school in rural China, and she also got to see such famous sites as the Great Wall. She was a clown, a teacher, an orphan caretaker, and a traveler. Her roles varied, and so did the cultures she visited. She studied Polish, Russian, Mandarin, Spanish, and Lithuanian, never gaining fluency, yet always learning. Each journey was a step of faith as she bought her plane tickets and made her plans, often joining strangers in an outreach.

As you read Dream Trekker, you will find yourself immersed in the daily life of a volunteer.