From Halifax to new Delhi: an intern's story: three-month tour expands student's worldview.

DAWN DICKIESON, a theology student at Atlantic School of Theology in Halifax, had mixed feelings last spring when her application to go abroad as part of The Anglican Church of Canada's international intern program was accepted.

She was glad to be part of the program--that was for sure. However, she'd written in her application essay that "ever since I was young, I have wanted to go to AFrica." Ms. Dickieson, who is 30, named Archbishop Desmond Tutu as a major influence.

But the mission coordinators deciding on placements didn't send her to AFrica. "I called my morn and I said, 'I'm going to India.' Mom said, 'India?' I'd never given any consideration to going to India. We don't have a large Indian population on the East Coast. Initially, I was disappointed," she said in an interview. But a conversation with her brother, Fred, changed her outlook. "He said, 'You want to go to AFrica so much, you will some day. But you wouldn't have thought of going to India on your own,'" she recalled.

The Theological Students' International Intern Program is administered by the Partners In Mission department of the national church office in Toronto. Launched in 1992, it is a three-month summer program that is designed for second- and third-year theological students who want to increase their awareness of global concerns, expand cultural experience and deepen their commitment to the Anglican church's mission and ministry.

After a 16-hour flight, Ms. Dickieson's first impression of India was the climate. "I flew to New Delhi on May 9. It was 10 degrees (Celsius) in Halifax and 35 degrees at 11 p.m. when I walked off the plane," she remembered.

Her cross-cultural experiences started on the plane. "It was full of Indian people and what struck me was the way some of the Indian men looked at me, kind of checking me out. Men have the right to do that and I thought, 'I am a woman in a completely difFerent context.'"

But she was game. "I've always felt ministry is local but also a global task. As part of a global church, it's important to have a sense of us being part of a body of Christ, not just in Canada," she said. Ms. Dickieson, who grew up on Prince Edward Island, holds a B.A. degree in geography from Bishop's University in Quebec and has had a wide range of church experience at several parishes in P.E.I. and Nova Scotia.

She had said in her application that she was interested in HIV/AIDS and visited a number of locations and projects in India that concerned the deadly disease.

"There are five to ten million people with HIV in India and the number of cases is multiplying. In India, there is a sense that Africa (where AIDS has spread further) 'will be us' not 'may be us," Ms. Dickieson said.

She was met in New Delhi by Ritika Joseph and Dr. Amrita Raj, project officers with an HIV/AIDS program, and spent much of the three months on the move. "I spent three weeks in a rural Christian hospital. I worked in a traveling clinic where they also teach village health workers how to take care of people with HIV/AIDS.

"In Pune, I went to a national conference on women's health attended by Protestant women's groups. It was so exciting to meet so many women, from women who work in cities to women who came to the conference for the first time on a train. Most of the focus was on women's reproductive health," she said. In India, she learned, there are still myths about AIDS, such as that a person can get the immune-system disease from eating certain kinds of meat. She .participated in workshops that helped church pastors talk about the subject of AIDS and prevention, such as the importance of using condoms.

One rural region affected her most. The people of the Bancharra community "have developed a system of traditional prostitution. Each Family delivers one daughter to the business and they sell themselves to the truckers passing through. The government doesn't like their customs. When I walked in, I thought I would see women who were exploited, but they were empowered; they were the breadwinners," she recalled.

"The church has worked incredibly hard to get past the gatekeepers" and church workers were there to transmit reliable health information, not proselytize or preach against their way of life. "I saw healthier people in those villages than in any other, because they were making money. How do you tell them it is wrong? But they were at very high risk of AIDS. I am still really challenged when I think of that community," she said.

In August, Ms. Dickieson flew back to Canada, first for a debriefing meeting at the Anglican national office, then home to the Maritimes. "I'm still trying to figure out who I am since I went to India. I am still me, not a totally different person, but I became more aware of the world and it really challenged me to a deeper understanding of 'the other,' that person who is not us. Now I have to discern how this affects my ministry," she said.