One quality that has been instilled in our society is to systematically plan and execute life’s journey. We go to school on a regimented schedule, go to work in planned shifts and constantly move from one task to the next, trying to economize our time.

Summer vacation is almost as bad. Wedged between parents who want to keep us busy so as to stay out of trouble and guidance counselors promoting programs that look good on a college application, many high schoolers are left with no choice but to choose an activity.

At the beginning of this summer, I was set on getting a summer job. But only a few days into the job, plans went awry and I was forced to quit. I couldn’t accept not having a schedule to fill my time; I wasn’t okay with an idle summer.

I traveled to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota with YouthWorks, a Christian missionary group.

But it turned out that the quality of the experience I would have wouldn’t even have to be affirmed by an admissions office for me to know that the experience was life changing.

I ended up on a 28-hour bus ride to South Dakota with 22 teenagers I didn’t know, and who were, for the most part, less than thrilled to be on the bus.

Yes, life changing.

Going to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, one of the poorest areas in the nation, was definitely not in my original summer plans. I did not plan on painting a house in 106-degree heat, meeting a girl who wore the same clothes to school every day, learning that 21 suicides had been committed in the past few weeks, or that the average household housed 24 people. And I certainly didn’t plan on nonchalantly being called the n-word by a child whose family had been inflicted generations of injustice. I didn’t expect to try to convince a Lakota child that his mother was wrong when she told him God burnt us on accident.

The Lakota people live in a culture where it isn’t strictly instilled to adhere to schedules. On Lakota time, you don’t move at the sound of an alarm or administrative figure, but rather, when the task at hand is complete.

That week, I got to experience the power in becoming a servant, where my job was to meet the other party’s needs, regardless of what my preconceived notions were. By the end of the week, I realized that I wasn’t sent on the trip to boast about my encounter with poverty, or to gain material for a great college essay; it wasn’t about being thanked and treated as a saint for my service.

This was a life changing experience because I was renewed in my faith, and learned that loving and serving is an act of selflessness when you see someone in need. It was a time for all of me to be tested: the good, the bad and the ugly; my patience, my love and compassion and my confidence to develop relationships with people I knew little about.

No, truly serving by meeting others needs often isn’t in our plan. But when we re-boarded the bus, Shakeal, a 6’3” basketball player, cried at the thought of leaving the five-year-old Lakota friend he made at Pine Ridge.