Magen David Adom Certified

Ever since I was a kid, I've always had a passion for helping others. Much of the reason I came to Israel is to help people. For the past 10 days, I have been in intensive training to become a Magen David Adom (MDA) certified first responded. MDA is the national ambulance service in Israel that takes overseas volunteers to work in their ambulances. A very large part of me signing up for Young Judaea is that I will get to volunteer with MDA for 5 months, starting in January.
After 10 days of 12 hour a day classes, I finally became MDA certified. That means that, beginning in January and ending in May, I will be volunteering for MDA, riding along and working in ambulances in Israel between 2-5 times a week. This is a great opportunity for me to gain experience and I am very excited to begin my volunteering for MDA.

Starting at 8:30 in the morning and officially ending at 8:30 at night, we often stayed until 9 or 10 practicing and perfecting CPR or back-boarding  We learned about what it takes to work for MDA and how to provide care and basic life support in an emergency situation. While the course was extremely intense, it doesn't mean we didn't have fun. Sometimes the fun came from just hanging out with my MDA friends, guessing about the life of one of our instructors, and sometimes it came in a nice competitive back-boarding race against the Spanish class (which my team won in 1:40). Sometimes it came with acting out scenarios and trying to come up with the craziest scenarios, and sometimes the fun was with watching me try not to pass out after they put an IV in me and took it out. All in all, it was a very fun, but intensive class.
For me, volunteering in an ambulance in Israel means more to me than just gaining that experience. It means that I am making a difference. I am helping people in Israel. I'm not a tourist anymore. Israel is my home for the next 7 months and I am making a difference while I am here. It means a lot to me to be able to help people here. As I've said before, Jews have survived for this long because we work together and help each other in any difficult scenario. Volunteering for MDA is part of my way of helping other Jews survive and working together with them. I am honored to be MDA certified and I am looking forward to beginning my MDA volunteering. Shabbat Shalom and stay tuned for more updates...