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t m c » p u l s e | s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 7 29 "I remember being upset with her. I remember feeling angry," Alaniz said. "I thought, 'How could she do this again? To put herself through danger again? How irresponsible.'" Coming to America In 1994, Donna Ivey, M.D., a former emergency room physician at Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth, arrived in Malawi to visit friends who were working with Alaniz's father as part of a medical mission trip. Ivey witnessed the injustice, poor health care conditions and lack of access to basic resources in Malawi and decided to bring Alaniz to the U.S., where the teenager could pursue her dream of becoming a doctor. By helping to change the life of this one child, Ivey reasoned, she might be able to save the lives of many. "The story with Anne is the prover- bial rock thrown in the pond: The rip- ples go out and you never know where the ripples are going to end," Ivey said. "God just happened to let me throw the rock in the pond, and that rock was Anne. The ripples have now washed on the shores of an orphanage, a clinic, a school, her life and her sisters' lives, so I'm just blessed that God let me pick up the rock." Alaniz, then 17, stayed with Ivey and her family in the U.S. She enrolled as a high school senior at Community Christian School in Mineral Wells, Texas, and then attended Dallas Baptist University, where she majored in biology and chemistry as a pre-medical student. In between courses, Alaniz earned an income babysitting and tutoring in the writing lab, and sent the money home to help cover her siblings' school fees. She returned to her home country the summer after completing her first year of college. As the plane made its final descent into the international airport, Alaniz looked out at the vast canvas of nothingness—just trees, dirt roads and huts as far as the eye could see. It was so different from the soaring skyscrapers, vast concrete highways and bevy of cars to which she had grown accustomed in Texas. "All of a sudden this stark contrast was so clear to me," Alaniz said. Revisiting her childhood and watching her father in the clinic, she became awestruck and devastated by the conditions plaguing her country. She had grown up accepting that children died of malaria, diarrhea or water contamination. That women died during childbirth. That HIV/AIDS, malnutrition and poor sanitation were widespread. It was all she knew as a child, but after she returned as an adult, these realities suddenly filled her with sadness. (continued) Above: The outpatient clinic operated by the Pothawira Foundation. Above right, Alaniz's father, left, at the clinic. Credit: Global Health Innovations