By Judy Halone-The Courier-Herald

Erin Pflueger left her world of plenty for a land of poverty, sickness and death. She returned Dec. 7 to Bonney Lake and said that if she could, she'd do it again.

Pflueger, 22, graduated last spring from Western Washington University with a bachelor of arts degree in community health. While at WWU, she became involved with Neuman Catholic Campus Ministries. That involvement spurred her desire to travel to India for three months to help with the Social Welfare Group in Raiganj. With the help of the organization's priest, Father Puthumai, Pflueger and her traveling companions volunteered at Missionaries of Charity hospitals, orphanages, and villages.

At first, her dad wasn't sold on the idea.

“When she approached us, we said, ‘oh honey, there's a lot you can do to help people here,” Tim Pflueger said. “But she said no, this was something she felt she had to do. She'd be working with kids who were diseased, whose parents had died, and with people who have absolutely nothing - just waiting to die.”

Nothing - not even her friends' stories of previous trips or their pictures - could prepare her.

“I wrote in my blog (www.erinpfluegerindia.blogspot.com) that I was kind of dropped in a huge ocean, not knowing how to swim,” she said. “Emotionally, physically - it was really overwhelming. There was a lot of pain.”

Pflueger witnessed that pain several times, like the day an infant boy, an orphan, had just died while she was at the hospital. His mother, sick with tuberculosis and a widow of six months, was staying at another hospital but had come to visit her young son.

The most touching story that impacted Pflueger was meeting an infant boy with deformities. “His ankles were flipped up, so most likely he wouldn't be able to walk,” she said.

Yet even through their pain, the Indian people offered Pflueger and her traveling companions friendship and generosity, she said. The children danced and giggled when she worked in the hospital and villagers - once comfortable with her white skin - embraced her with generosity and friendship.

“They had never had anyone volunteer to help them before,” she said. “The girls held our hands and wanted to show us each of their (mud) huts.”

Pflueger helped government health workers educate teach villagers about immunizations - a task complicated by low literacy rates, she said.

With the trip behind her, Pflueger said she hopes those who read her story will be encouraged to reach out and help people where they live.

“Just a small amount of service can go a really long way,” she said. “The needs are there very much, but we do not recognize it. To spread the love that you have would make a difference.”

Judy Halone can be reached at jhalone@courierherald.com.