I believe I can fly – Do you?

Karen Melville, UK
- Autumn Volunteer 2001
 
It doesn’t matter how impossible things seem, or how unlikely, if we learn to live out our dreams anything can happen.
 
Our Chalet is such a special place to so many people around the world, both those who have visited, and those that to date have only dreamt about it.  I pray that one day it will become a reality for them as it has for me.  
 
I am here, in this magical place, sharing so many special memories with the people who visit. What more could I ask for – perhaps in a way I am flying.
 
Each girl who visits Our Chalet has her own hopes and expectations for her time here.  If I have made a memory for her, or inspired her in some way to be the best she can then I will have made a difference to her life and achieved some of my aims, whilst enabling her to glimpse a dream for her life.
 
There were times when I wished that others were different or would do something in another way.  But I have realised I can’t change them, I can only change my own attitude towards them or to what they are doing.  I have had to understand both cultural and personality differences.  It has sometimes been hard, but I am learning.
 
We influence every person we meet.  Some people will soon forget us, and others will remember us for a long time.  Only we can determine what their memory of us will be.  However, my aim is only that they remember the lesson that we live at Our Chalet: “That each of us must believe in ourselves, for we are all capable of far more than we let ourselves think.”
 
If I have helped one person find her dream here then I will have given her a flying lesson. She in turn will want to teach others to fly too and so slowly, from a change in each one of us, the whole world may eventually believe in themselves, follow their dreams and learn to fly with us.
 
I have learnt to take every opportunity that I am given, to challenge myself further than I thought possible and to do things even when I am afraid.  Above all I must be the best that I can be. Life at Our Chalet has taught me to believe that I can fly and I hope that each person who visits will learn to believe that for themselves too.