For Chris McCormick, honors student at Armstrong Atlantic State University, advanced planning last winter earned him the opportunity to travel to two countries, participate in community service projects and earn college credit toward his bachelor’s degree — all at the same time. And the experience proved more rewarding than he expected.

As a recipient of the Regents Global Ambassador Travel Grant awarded by the University System of Georgia, McCormick studied Spanish in Mexico and art history in Ireland. The catch to the travel grant was that he had to perform community service during each study-abroad experience. The trips, he said, let him see “the other side of tourist life.”

According to Jim Anderson, director of international studies at Armstrong, the university applies for funding from the University System for study-abroad grants. The university must match those funds dollar for dollar.

“We did not have enough funds to cover everything I had applied for,” Anderson said, so the Armstrong Foundation provided the additional funds to help match the travel grants. In return, “most of those (students) receiving awards did spend three to four hours helping raise the needed money by contacting area businesses whose names were provided by the foundation.”

McCormick participated in helping generate those funds for the Foundation before he traveled abroad.

Then for two weeks in May 2004, McCormick took classes at Kukulcan in Cuernavaca, Mexico, “a Spanish language school for English-speaking people learning Spanish,” he said.

According to Spanish professor Bill Deaver, McCormick “took full advantage of his intensive language classes and the cultural opportunities during his two weeks in Mexico. He was enthusiastic about experiencing all aspects of the trip and practicing his developing language skills.”

As he earned credit for the third course in his foreign language sequence, McCormick visited Puebla and Mexico City and toured the pyramids at Teotihuacan, Cholula and Cacaxtla. As he immersed himself in the culture, McCormick strengthened his language skills.

Those skills especially helped him during the highlight of the trip, volunteering at the Nuestros PequeZos Hermanos orphanage in Miacatlán. “I had gotten good enough that I could kind of talk to (the children),” he said.

According to Deaver, the Nuestros PequeZos Hermanos houses “seven hundred orphans in a self-sufficient environment.” The facility “receives 90 percent of its funding from private donations,” so volunteers provide valuable assistance.

“I feel sort of guilty because it didn’t feel like work,” McCormick said. “I had so much fun playing with those kids. They wore me out. The kids were so energetic. Their faces lit up. It was very charming.”

McCormick’s second two-week study- abroad experience brought a different kind of enlightenment. As part of Professor Jill Miller’s special topics course, “Art of Ireland,” McCormick traveled with the rest of the class to examine “prehistoric to contemporary Irish art,” Miller said.

“We saw arguably one of the most famous manuscripts there — the Book of Kells — at Trinity College,” said Miller. “We went to the Boyne Valley, about an hour north of Dublin. There were very moving Neolithic tombs. They’ve just been excavated recently, and they’re just as moving as Stonehenge.”

As the only Regents Global Ambassador in the class, however, McCormick capped off the experience with a trip to Belfast, Northern Ireland. While the other students took a free day to visit Dublin, McCormick and Miller drove to Belfast to help build a Habitat for Humanity house.

“Habitat for Humanity has always been in my consciousness because Jimmy Carter (one of Habitat’s earliest supporters) is from Georgia,” Miller said. When Miller heard of the site in Belfast, she encouraged McCormick to volunteer there with her.

Miller’s interest in Belfast’s Habitat for Humanity site also stemmed from her memories of “the Troubles,” Northern Ireland’s political upheavals of the late 1960s and early 1980s. She recalled vivid televised images of the Blanket/Dirty Protest of mistreatment of Catholic prisoners and Bobby Sands’ leadership in subsequent protests.

“He went on a hunger strike and died,” Miller said. “I was sixteen or seventeen years old when that happened. Those memories of what I saw on TV lingered in my mind.” She wanted to go to Belfast to see the neighborhoods featured in televised newscasts of riots and terrorism.

She and McCormick got more than they bargained for.

In the neighborhood of Ballysillan, McCormick and Miller worked with other Habitat volunteers to construct a house. “We were pounding nails that day. I thought I was afraid of a hammer, and I was going to be no good to them,” Miller said. “But I really used tools and put up part of a house!”

The labor also enlightened McCormick. “I’ve never built a house or anything. It was all new to me,” he said.

More fulfilling, however, was the humanitarian aspect of the work. Belfast’s Habitat work site addresses more than poverty and homelessness. By collaborating with churches of all denominations, Habitat for Humanity in Belfast also strives to erase the effects of the violence and segregation plaguing Northern Ireland for centuries.

“They try to take Catholic and Protestant volunteers to work at the same site,” McCormick said. “These are people who may have in the past thrown pipe bombs at each other, so Habitat has tried to get Catholics and Protestants together. To me this was not just any Habitat for Humanity project. We were bridging religious differences.”

Making a lasting impression on McCormick were exhibits of past projects fostering camaraderie among volunteers. In the portable building used for the project’s office “there was a picture of a couple, Protestant and Catholic,” McCormick said. “You could tell how proud (the managers) were of a photo of a man and woman, Catholic and Protestant, hugging each other.”

Miller elaborated, “This might be one of the more active Habitat for Humanity sites in the world. There are so many groups, such as church mission groups, that come there to work. They get so excited that they come back (to Belfast) or they go places like Ethiopia and work. It’s amazing to hear of the ripple effects of this group.”

The Habitat site welcomed any volunteers. “All of the homes are handicap accessible,” McCormick explained. “So they welcome workers of all abilities.”

Habitat’s mission to transcend religious boundaries inspired McCormick and Miller to explore Belfast and learn more about its turbulent history. “It’s different from what you see in the rest of Ireland,” McCormick said.

During a tour, McCormick and Miller viewed the Peace Wall, a corrugated metal wall constructed to separate factions and avoid conflict. “The government kept building the wall higher and higher to keep Catholics and Protestants from throwing pipe bombs at each other,” McCormick said. Over the years, residents and tourists have covered the wall with murals and messages of peace.

“It reminded you of prison or the Berlin wall, and the fact that it was still standing was sobering,” Miller said. She and McCormick added their names to the many already inscribed on the metal. “There’s some healing going on,” Miller said, “but it’s still very painful.”

Had it not been for the community service aspect of his studies abroad, McCormick would not have experienced the healing process at work in Belfast. The trip has motivated McCormick to generate more interest at home. “It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done,” he said. “I’d like to give it more time. When you see the people in the community, you can really see how much it matters.

“I feel more ambition about community service,” he added. “We’ve talked about getting the honors program involved in Habitat for Humanity (in Savannah). Or even going back to Belfast. Anywhere. It’s a great cause.”

Miller now realizes that Belfast has much to offer international students. Initially cautious from her memories of the Troubles, Miller hesitated to take a group of students to Belfast.

“I heard things were still bitter,” she said. “So I took just Chris.” Now she feels differently. “I would love to bring students back there,” she said. She hopes to recruit more students to join Habitat’s efforts this summer.

According to Miller and McCormick, Northern Ireland offers a unique travel experience. “A lot of Americans go to Ireland,” Miller said. “They’re everywhere. But they’re afraid to go to Belfast, and they shouldn’t be anymore.”

McCormick added that the Habitat experience and the visit to Belfast were “a must do. You learn more than you could in any museum. It’s hands-on learning.”

What more could he ask of a summer vacation?