Jen's Profile in ACU Business Interface

      By Lisa Castello

Jen at a ceremonial communion in Vanadzor, the first week we arrived in Armenia.

university loan officer was the first person to introduce the benefits of the Peace Corps to Jennifer (Floyd) Haile - part of her school loan would be cancelled if she ever joined. "I laughed and replied that I was a business marketing major; Peace Corps was not in my future," said Haile, a 1997 Abilene Christian University graduate. "My impression of the Peace Corps was that it was an organization for 'Save the Earth,' granola, hippie-types." In those days, Haile pictured for her life a plush office with a view, stylish suits and company stock. But throughout college, she gradually discovered a passion for humanitarian service that recently led her to join the Peace Corps in Armenia and discover benefits that far exceed the partial cancellation of a Perkins loan. In college, Haile participated in service projects and missions such as Spring Break Campaigns, Habitat for Humanity and World Wide Youth Camps.

"By the time I graduated, I found myself interested in travel, languages, serving others and working in an environment that made a difference," she said. Upon graduation, Haile worked as a research analyst in commercial real estate, before opting for a job in development at Children's Medical Center in Dallas. She learned all she could about fundraising at the center's large, established development department, she said. "It combined my marketing skills and education with my interest in serving the community. It is essentially sales and marketing, but it is selling a cause instead of a product." She married Jeremy Haile, also an ACU graduate who shared her interest in community service because he was a social worker. The couple assisted Sudanese refugees through their church, and Haile worked as a volunteer with single women through a Welfare to Work program. Although content with their North Dallas lifestyle, Haile and her husband had other ambitions, such as living overseas, having friends from different cultures and religious backgrounds and learning a foreign language. "Being the business type I am, I have lived by my Franklin-Covey day planner religiously since college graduation," Haile said. "It has an entire section for life-planning, goals, and a personal mission statement. My husband and I actually fill all that stuff out. At that point we had never even uttered the words Peace Corps." After one day too many of sitting in a cubicle, then fighting Dallas traffic to get home, Haile and her husband began to discuss the reality of travel for their future. Nonprofit salaries left their travel fund empty, and they were lamenting this plight when a close friend dropped by their apartment. When he suggested the Peace Corps, the idea held greater appeal for Haile than it had several years before. "The Peace Corps seemed to encompass all of my interests and aspirations: business, serving the community, travel, language learning and independence," she said. Haile also considered the Peace Corps to be an opportunity for spiritual growth; each time she sacrificed for someone else she had grown. "My entire life, work, family, marriage and relationships should revolve around Jesus' call to be a servant to all men. There are so many scriptures that call us to service, " she said. Haile quoted two favorites: "Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy" (Ezekiel 16:49); and "Do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased" (Hebrews 13:16). Last summer, Haile and her husband followed that call to Armenia, where Haile will be a small business development volunteer and Jeremy will teach English for two years. former Soviet Socialist Republic, Armenia covers more than 11,500 square miles of southwestern Asia. Slightly smaller than Maryland, much of the country lies on a mountainous plateau, positioned on a major fault line. A devastating earthquake in 1988 destroyed Armenia's second largest city, Gyumri - where the Hailes now work - and killed from 35,000-55,000 people. Following the earthquake, the USSR began to rebuild the city, providing temporary housing for thousands of homeless Armenians. But in 1991, the economy collapsed with the Soviet government, and employment in Armenia plummeted practically overnight. Many people with the resources fled the city. Those left were unable to rebuild it. "Our city is not the type of Peace Corps assignment you might expect," Jeremy Haile wrote on a Web site maintained by the couple for family and friends. "There are not farmers in need of modern tilling techniques. We do not wash our clothes in a river or cook over an open fire. There are stores all around us like you might find on the side of a Texas highway. They carry bread, eggs, beef jerky, smokes, sodas and ice cream. About five minutes away is the shuka, where we can find everything from 'Titanic" videos to Mercedes hood ornaments...What makes Armenia one of the most difficult assignments in the world - or so we've heard - is the depression that casts a pall over the entire nation. I suppose that our job here is to give the Armenians a reason to believe," he wrote. Peace Corps policy restricts volunteers from choosing a specific country, based on the philosophy that they should be willing to serve places with the greatest need; however, volunteers can request a certain part of the world, Haile said. "When we first applied to the Peace Corps, we requested Latin America. Our second choice was Eastern Europe, and we were assigned to Armenia which is in the Middle East, Western Asia or Eastern Europe, depending on whom you ask," she said. As a small business development volunteer, Haile works as a consultant to two non-governmental organizations. Economic Consulting Services of Gyumri was created to help regional businesses succeed in market economy, and the Fur Armenian Foundation was designed to operate various businesses and help needy people with the profit. Haile also teaches business classes at Shirakatsi and Progress universities. "Teaching and consulting are difficult here because free enterprise is still a new and obscure idea for Armenians," she said. "Consulting is nearly hopeless because the business managers here have lived their entire lives under a Soviet system where most of their production, distribution and marketing decisions were made for them." The Armenian government makes it difficult to create and effectively manage a business in the supposed free market economy; bribes or government connections are sometimes the only way to enter the business community, Haile said. After the Soviet collapse, Armenia's limited trade ceased, leaving the country isolated with a 60 percent unemployment rate. The country's economy is mostly supported by foreign aid and other sources of international income, such as men working abroad and sending money home. "I try my best to appreciate what the people have been through," Haile said. "It is impossible to make major changes in the attitudes of the country, but I can choose to live every day as a blessing to the Armenians." Haile plans to encourage entrepreneurship and Western business practices, while exhibiting optimism and humility. She wants to teach young people to use the computer so they can connect with the world. Haile also wants to teach women how to be strong and ethical leaders in their communities. Her business classes comprise mostly young women, who lack business role models and usually consider only careers that are traditionally female, Haile said. She wants to help inspire young women to express their opinions, creativity and diversity in the male-dominated culture. In Armenia, women do not travel or drive alone, and they do all housework, cooking and child rearing whether or not men are employed. As a female professional, Haile has experienced first-hand this gender discrimination, she said. "I am judged first as a woman, then as a professional. The first questions asked when I meet a male are, 'Are you married; do you have children?' It is advantageous for me to be married because I've gained credibility and a greater comfort level when working with men, but I still struggle with being taken seriously." This cultural adjustment is just one of many that Haile and her husband are making in Armenia. They admit to missing their Dallas lifestyle of organic health foods, American coffee, and dependable electricity and running water. In Dallas, Haile maintained a disciplined routine, which included a bedtime of 10:30 p.m. and a 5:30 a.m. morning run. In Armenia, running daily is impossible because Haile can shower only a few times a week. "There are no typical days; in Armenia, you can't count on anything," she said. "When you wake up, there may be electricity and water, but maybe not. Transportation is unreliable unless you're on foot." Because of the country's unpredictable resources, Armenians do not maintain schedules as Haile was accustomed to doing at home. Work often may not begin until 10 a.m., and definite meetings are impossible because the bus could break down or a phone line may not be available. "I'm learning to look at my life from afar and see what it really is," she said. "Now I can't imagine going back home and getting angry with the bagel shop because it is out of honey whole wheat bagels on a given morning. I hope I'll be more patient with every foreigner that doesn't speak perfect English because I'll be able to relate." With blond hair, fair skin and a wide smile, Haile is an obvious foreigner and feels constant scrutiny from Armenians in her path, she said. "From what I understand, Christ does not instruct us to just bless those who appreciate our help. Christ gave his life for everyone. The only way I keep my perspective is through daily prayer. I need God's help to smile when I know it won't be returned and to turn the other cheek," she said. Her determination seems to be winning over the Armenians, based on a passage she wrote for the Web site. "Now that I'm comfortable I stroll into the shops and shout a friendly, 'Barev Zes,' which has made me very popular among the shopkeepers. I walked past a bread store yesterday and heard a little old lady yelling 'Jen' from the back of the bakery. I think the smokers loitering out front must have tipped her off that an Americatzi was in view." After her two years of service, Haile will enjoy the reunion with her American lifestyle and particularly with family and friends. A self-proclaimed dreamer, she maintains a long list of post-Peace Corps ambitions such as earning her master's in business administration, owning a business, teaching at a university, running for political office, returning to nonprofit fundraising and having four children. But with 15 months to go in Armenia, she lives happily in a unique "classroom," where she is learning a new language, culture and skills - outside of a cubicle - that is broadening her perspective and deepening her spirituality. "My friend, Teri, reminded me the other day of what I wrote to her the day I left for Armenia. 'Just think - if I never left, never risked, never struggled I would run out of things to share. I love the challenge of desperately needing the Lord.'"