The Big Picture

I was just thinking about all the chaos that being a full-time student at the Foster School of Business entails. (Accounting students get an additional dosage of chaos because we need to take four classes to be FT, since our acctg courses are only three credits each.) Someone emailed me to compliment my blog, which lead me to re-read some of the posts I'd written. Then I remembered....

IT'S NOT ABOUT me.

What?

It's not about Jessica. This whole accounting career thing... pulling all-nighters, trying to build an impressive resume.. I've been working for myself, for my glory, for only my own satisfaction, out of stress/paranoia about MY future... It seems that in the midst of all the things to be done and stress to be had I had forgotten that the whole point of me being in school, the crux of my efforts, is for these kids. I say that all the time... but when one says something so often, it's easy for the statement to lose its power and impact.

[photo credit: Agathos Foundation]

This is a starving child in Zimbabwe. I don't know if it's a boy of girl, its name, its story, or specifically how the Agathos Foundation has helped it. But I know that Agathos is making a difference in this baby's life.

In three weeks (6/15) I'll be on a plane to Uganda. Three days prior to that (6/12) I'll take my last final exam. Finals begin Saturday, June 6th. It is vital that I stay focused for the last two weeks of the quarter so I can finish as strong as possible. It is also vital to keep the BIG PICTURE in mind. I only have one year left... this time will fly by.

In lieu of getting distracted by all the typical "noise" that business students face, I need to remember that the better I do in school and work, the more I can help these kids. It's not for my glory... it's not for my fame... it's for the kids. It's so kids like Kwanele can get free access to ARVs to treat his HIV. It's so young men like Zamani can get their education paid for and go off to college so he can become a civil engineer and make his community better. I just need to remember that - at a heart level and not just a slightly-conscious level. I've got to keep the burden visible. Remembering this completely changes my motivation and makes things that would otherwise seem like toilsome annoyances worthwhile because everything I do in the next year will (at least indirectly) affect my ability to help nonprofits become more efficient so they can help more kids.

I hope these words aren't just empty phrases and promises. I hope that these words come from a genuine heart. I hope that my life and decisions will change and get re-calibrated to be rightly motivated. I hope this burden won't die and this dream won't fade. And I hope this with everything I have, however little or much that may be...

Jessica K. Nguyen
Junior - Accounting
Michael G. Foster School of Business
University of Washington, Seattle
accountingforAfrica.blogspot.com

Send Jessica to Africa, help orphans/widows/refugees! (updated post)

Dear Readers,

Some day I’d like to be a nonprofit tax accountant working for an accounting firm like Clark Nuber, Moss Adams, or Sweeney Conrad (who all have significant nonprofit clients). Some day further down the line I’d like to start an association of accountants to provide accounting services for nonprofits working in third world countries. Ultimately, I want to use my skills and degree to enable nonprofit organizations to become more (financially) efficient so they can help more kids in destitute situations.

One of my stepping stones toward these goals is to spend six weeks in Africa this summer to learn more about how nonprofits operate and how administrative decisions affect program work. This summer I’ll be spending three weeks in Uganda doing admin work with two accountants at Pilgrim Africa [http://www.pilgrimafrica.org] and possibly working with students at Pilgrim’s Beacon of Hope College [http://www.pilgrim-uganda.org/soroti.htm]. Then I’ll spend three weeks working at an orphanage in South Africa with the Agathos Foundation [http://www.agathosfoundation.org] loving on kids whose parents/relatives have been murdered or otherwise affected by HIV/AIDS. This trip will directly benefit orphans, widows, refugees, and former child soldiers. My work will also serve these nonprofits AND provide me with priceless insight into issues they face so I can know how to better serve them.

The only problem is… I’m about $3,000 short of my goal ($4,300). This amount covers airfare, housing, food, travel insurance, and other travel expenses. Personal/recreational expenses are on my tab. My payments are due on Monday, May 25^th, and if I don’t make this deadline… I don’t know what I’m going to do (other than, you know, cry). So I need YOUR HELP.

If you know ANYONE who is willing to support me in my endeavors to practice accounting for the sake of kids in Africa, please pass on this letter! Any amount helps; every dollar counts! I am willing to provide administrative, basic accounting, child care, organizational, and manual labor services in exchange for contributions.

Tax-deductible ways to give:

1) Make check(s) payable to Agathos Foundation and send to 702 N 128^th St Seattle, WA 98133 (preferred)

2) Agathos' Secure Online Giving: Please note "PT - Jessica Nguyen" or else the money won't go to my trip!

3) Let’s meet up for lunch/coffee; I can tell you more about my trip/vision and you can give as you feel led =D

OR: 4) PayPal (NOT tax-deductible)

Screenshots of my brochure (hard copies available): Click to enlarge

Kindest Regards,

Jessica K. Nguyen
Junior – Accounting
Michael G. Foster School of Business
University of Washington, Seattle
accountingforafrica.blogspot.com
accountantforAfrica.blogspot.com

tossing and turning.

It's happening again.

My mind is whirring. Ideas are formulating. Fears are irking.

Africa.

I can't get away from it..

Africa.

How do I verbalize this burden? It's on my heart, on my shoulders, on my mind...

I need to write support letters.

But where do I start?

Hi, my name is Jessica. I need $6,000 to help widows, orphans, and refugees in Africa.

Okay. Well, that's vague. What does that even mean?

I want to spend three weeks in Uganda doing administrative work for an NGO (Pilgrim Uganda) that serves refugees through a school, university, and relief work - physically and spiritually. Pilgrim also has an anti-malaria program (Move On Malaria) that has been so successful that the Ugandan government wants to adopt their program as a template to fight malaria throughout the entire country. Pilgrim is also making moves to fight malaria in Congo, which is in a very dangerous state right now. Your money will enable me to enable Pilgrim to run more efficiently and accomplish its goals more readily. Your contributions will bring Pilgrim one step closer to eliminating malaria, one step closer to bringing hope to this nation.

I also want to spend two to three weeks in South Africa at the orphanage I visited in 2007. I spent almost four weeks at the Cottages at Injesuthi and it completely changed my life.

Where do I begin with how it changed my life? How can I iterate the life-encompassing implications of holding a dying child in your arms - not knowing how long the child has left, but knowing that his time will be spent with people who love him unconditionally, fully, faithfully....? How do I tell people about the sobering effects of hearing the stories of horror and redemption in these people's lives? Have you ever heard a grown woman tell you about her aunt sending a witch doctor to rape her when she was a child? Have you heard her story of victory - fighting off the man and being rescued from that life? Have you heard her story of redemption? She used to never know where her next meal would come from - or if there would ever be one. All eleven of her brothers and sisters have DIED - mostly from HIV/AIDS. But now she's staying at a place where she's served three square meals per day, she's a caretaker for several of her nieces and nephews, she's got her own business (Lungile's Cards), and she's using proceeds to build a house so that her family can be together. She has the love of her community and her church and her God, when before she only experienced fear and sorrow from blood relatives.

I left the Cottages knowing that I wanted to do something about what I saw. Staying at the Cottages burdened me to the point where I lost sleep and grade points because I couldn't rest without reacting to the glimpses of redemption I saw. After MUCH deliberation, thought, and prayer, I came to the conclusion that I want to use my degree to help these kids. I want to practice accounting to help organizations run more efficiently and better accomplish their mission of serving others.

But I won't be doing accounting work in South Africa.

The Agathos Foundation's flagship orphan village is located in Loskop, RSA (Republic of South Africa). I spent every single day there with a thirteen-year-old girl (Nothile). While she was at school I hung out with two toddlers: Mfundo and Kwanele (HIV+). I got to know a few other kids, but left regretting not spending enough time/effort getting to know them. Ever since I boarded the plane back to America, I have wanted to go back. I want these kids to understand that people DO consistently think about, care for, and love them. I want to go back and get to know them better, offer any advice they might need, and be a person who can just listen to and pray for them. I want to lead Bible studies and point them to Jesus to remind them to have HOPE - because He is the true Source of HOPE.

But this trip isn't all about me and what I can get out of it. It's about the kids. I just want to go there and love on them - show them Jesus' love through my words and actions. I know that I will learn more from them than they'll learn from me... that's what happened last time.

Do you see Kwanele's eyes? Do you see the hope in them? That hope is there because of God's work through the Agathos Foundation - through the help of people like you.

Will you help me do this? Will you support me in your donations and/or prayers to make a difference in the lives of orphans, widows, and refugees in Africa?

I have a PayPal account, but prefer to not use it because they charge for transactions and that's taking money away from these kids. If you are interested in supporting me or in being part of my email list serve of people to pray for my trip, please contact me at jesknguyen@gmail.com.

Okay, it is 2:17 am and I have class in six hours. (Apologies for grammatical/syntactical errors. It is 2am, after all..) I hope you will join me in efforts to better these people's lives.

Kindest Regards,

Jessica K. Nguyen
Junior - Accounting
Michael G. Foster School of Business
University of Washington, Seattle
accountingforAfrica.blogspot.com

The fight's not over yet.

I (briefly) remember learning about HIV and AIDS through my public school's sex education program. In elementary I remember being told with urgency that I couldn't get HIV by shaking hands with a kid on the playground, or even from drinking out of the same water fountain. I thought, "That's nice..." but didn't know what the fuss was all about. I never knew anyone with AIDS and outside of sex ed and the great Broadway hit Rent I heard virtually nothing of it.

This article, "Why so Little AIDS Coverage?" resonates well with me. In it, Allan Richards, chairman of Florida International University's Department of Journalism and Broadcasting, tells of how he had his students research HIV and AIDS in Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and Palm Beach, Florida. Much to their surprise, they found that these cities have some of the highest HIV/AIDS rates in the U.S. They found a correlation between local print and broadcast media reporting and the prevalence of HIV and AIDS. ....Basically, with this article and the other research I've been doing, it is clear that public awareness and HIV/AIDS rates go hand in hand.

All this is to say.. AIDS is definitely still around. You may have heard the stats; 20 million children have been orphaned by AIDS and another 20 million are due the same fate by 2010 (check out UNAIDS for more). One of my hopes with this blog is to not only inform people of the harsh truths surrounding the HIV/AIDS pandemic, but also to inspire them to do something about it. It's ironic that in my Sociology lectures we "label" seropositives (HIV-positive people) as "homosexuals," or "IV drug users," or the victim of an unclean blood transfusion... yet every time I think of "HIV" I think "Kwanele." I think of Kwanele telling me, "I love you MORE!" with a giggle and Sinethemba harassing me to teach him Kung Fu. Or that night when Mkhule finally softened up and showed a little affection, coyly informing me that, yes, he'd like a hug goodnight - but shifting back to the tough guy (he's 7) as soon as his caretaker showed up. I hope that Nothile, a 13-year-old HIV-negative girl who I spent every day with while in South Africa, stays seronegative. I hope that if it works out for me to go back to the Cottages, Kwanele and his AIDS-infected mother Thandi will still be there.

AIDS does not discriminate. And it has not yet given up its victims.

Jessica K. Nguyen
Accounting, Finance Class of 2010
Michael G. Foster School of Business
University of Washington, Seattle
accountingforAfrica.blogspot.com

Age of AIDS

A couple weeks ago I watched this Frontline documentary to get some background for my Sociology term paper on HIV/AIDS in women and children in South Africa. It was very sobering and at many points devastating to see, again, the reality that is HIV and AIDS in this world.

Jessica K. Nguyen
Accounting, Finance Class of 2010
Michael G. Foster School of Business
University of Washington, Seattle
accountingforAfrica.blogspot.com

Visual Stimuli

Below are pictures of just a few of the children who have been on my heart since this summer. (I spent almost four weeks at the "Cottages at Injesuthi," an orphan village run by the Agathos Foundation in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa.) Since I am a visual person, I felt that showing pictures of the kids who I held in my arms (and know will not live much longer) would make my Africa experience more real for you.


This is Kwanele, the HIV-positive toddler I mentioned in my admissions essay, hugging my legs in this picture. This is my desktop background... it helps remind me why I should work so hard to become a non-profit accountant.

The last time I spoke with the Cottages director (Aaron Ruud) he said, "We were told it is unusual for a HIV+ baby to live past one year. He is often sick, somewhat listless at times, and not as active as you would expect a boy of his age to be. But all in all Kwanele is still doing well."


This is Kwanele (right) and his toddler buddy Mfundo (left). They're together all day long while the older kids are at school.
















This is me with Asanda (girl in blue), Kwanele (in red), and Mkhule (boy in the back, HIV+) in the nurse's station. Both Asanda (preschool) and Mkhule (age 7) are orphans and have been through some very rough times. In fact, a few years ago Asanda was taken away by the South African social services for a bit of time. It was difficult for her to be away from her "family," but she has been back for a while now and they were/are very glad to have her.




This is Sinethemba (age 10, HIV+), the little boy I mentioned in my admissions essay whom I had to leave behind. It's difficult to tell from this picture, but he really was a sad sight. This was my last look at him before we left for the States. He loves martial arts (upon realizing my ethnicity, he dubbed me "Jet Li" and continuously asked me to demonstrate my knowledge Kung Fu, which is not very much) and (almost) always wears a big grin.

I will upload more another night - stay tuned!

-Jessica Nguyen, Accounting/Finance, Foster School of Business, University of Washington Class of 2010