Beth Hess is a big believer in fate.
Hess, like many college students, had changed career plans several times during college before she graduated from AU in 2004. Spurred in part by her participation in Alpha Phi Omega, AU's co-ed community service fraternity, she gave serious consideration to a job in community service.
Although she had been accepted to graduate school to study international relations, Hess applied to both Teach for America and the Peace Corps. Even though she made it to the final round of the Teach for America application process, she was not ultimately accepted.
"If I had been accepted to Teach for America, who knows where I'd be today," she said.
Jenna Briggs, a senior in the School of International Service, was a member of Alpha Phi Omega with Hess for a semester. She said Hess was very active in the fraternity and encouraged the group to help with unconventional projects.
"She always wanted to do the weird projects that no one else would do," she said.
Hess continued her love of "weird service" when she joined the Peace Corps. She left for East Timor in August 2004.
The group Hess was with was only the third group of Peace Corps volunteers to go to East Timor since the country gained independence from Indonesia in 2002. After three months of training in the capital city of Dili, Hess, a petite 22-year-old with unruly curly hair, was sent to the island of Arturo. She was the first Peace Corps member to be stationed there.
Once Peace Corps members are sent out into the community, it is up to the individual volunteers to make connections in the community and find out where their help is most needed.
When she was on the island, Hess taught English at the only high school on the entire island.
"The education system in that country will make you cry," she said.
Due to the Indonesian occupation of East Timor from 1975 to 2002, up to 80 percent of schools have been destroyed, all textbooks have been ruined and no qualified teachers are available, according to UNESCO.
Life on Arturo was very different from the life Hess, who was once a member of AU's homecoming court, was accustomed to in the United States.
"There was no running water, electricity was spotty and my island had issues with food scarcity," she said.
In May of this year, Hess and the other members of the Peace Corps were forced to evacuate East Timor after a conflict erupted among the police and factions of the military from the eastern and western parts of the country.
"It was very upsetting to all of us," she said. "We didn't get to say goodbye to the people who we had lived with for two years."
Hess said she believes fate brought her back to the United States at just the right time. One of her grandfathers had just suffered a stroke right after she returned from East Timor.
"If I had been in Timor when that happened, I never would have forgiven myself," she said.
She now spends her time in Pennsylvania, caring for her other grandfather who has Parkinson's disease and working part-time for a catering company.
"I was going to go back to Timor, but my family needed me here," she said.
Hess still hopes to someday go back to East Timor.
"I always know I have a place there," she said.
Being back in America does have one major perk for Hess - Chipotle burritos.
"God, I love Chipotle," she said. "Neato Burrito [a similar chain of restaurants located in Harrisburg, Penn.] just isn't the same. It's too much like Taco Bell"
