Most legislators spent the beginning of May shepherding their remaining bills through the process, cutting deals to pass important legislation or engaging in a budget standoff. Rep. Mark Anderson’s days were filled with none of those typical political wranglings.

For a two-week period in early May, the District 18 Republican was on a trip with a service organization working to repair some of the damage done to a Thailand village in last December’s tsunami. He woke at 4 a.m., ate breakfast at 5 a.m., arrived at a local school at 6 a.m. and worked until 11:30 a.m., when the heat became unbearable.

He was part of a group of 60 mostly college-age people from 14 countries that were working to build a clinic at a Thai school in Krabi, a small town south of Phuket, one of the cities hit hardest in the Dec. 26 disaster.

Religious Youth Service, a social service organization, coordinated the effort. The group, which performs a dozen or so such projects each year, recruits youth volunteers — mostly 18- to 24 years old — from across spectrum of religions, races and countries to help improve the quality of life in poor countries.

“The concept is people that work together overcome barriers,” Mr. Anderson said.

Providing community service — or, in this case, global service — is a responsibility we all share, Mr. Anderson said, though it is often difficult to do more than merely give money.

“One of the hardest things to do is find the right kind of service project,” he says.

Shacks And Cell Phones

Thailand is a dichotomy of poverty and technology, the not-so-seamless mix of the old and the new. Small homes — buildings that may not rise above the level of “shanties” in America — contain new color televisions. A mall in Bangkok contains two-dozen cell phone stores.

“It’s like a third-world country, but technology-wise…you’ll see a structure and you’ll see computers and there’ll be a group of kids playing computer games on these computers,” Mr. Anderson said.

The technology for building the addition to the clinic was, likewise, decidedly old-world. The locals wanted a three-foot tall dirt foundation for the building. Essentially, a fire-brigade was used to move the dirt: those on the beach would use hoes to scoop up mud and put it in small buckets, which were then passed from person to person until they reached the building site, where they were dumped to form the foundation.

Volunteers also hand-mixed cement and carried bricks and other supplies without the use of wheelbarrows.

“It was a good experience because it’s not something so technical that only certain people could do it,” Mr. Anderson said. “Anyone can do it, as long as you had the stamina to do it.”

When the work was done for the day — local citizens did not help the construction during the day because April and May is the hottest time of year for the region; instead they worked on the site once the sun went down — and the RYS group gathered in the evenings, the volunteers had a chance to experience the cultures that had gathered to work on the project.

Mr. Anderson said the nighttime culture sessions were filled with dancing, songs and foods from the members, whose homes ranged from Sri Lanka to India to Australia.

3rd Service Trip For Anderson

Because of Religious Youth Service’s dedication to breaking down the barriers that exist between religious, political and national ideologies, Mr. Anderson says they embody the true meaning of service.

He also uses the RYS service trips — this is his third so far, having gone to Honduras in 1999 and Trinidad and Tobago in 2003 — as an opportunity to spend time with his sons. On each trip, a different son has traveled with the lawmaker, something Mr. Anderson says builds not only a service ethic, but also family values.

“In my concept as a parent, it’s a great experience for them because they’re serving in a country that needs a lot of help,” he said.

Lawmaker Takes Son With Him

This year, Mr. Anderson took his 19-year-old son Nedd on the service project. While the past trips have occurred later in the summer, this year’s was scheduled for early May to accommodate the son’s hectic schedule: this summer, he is working as a wildfire fighter before moving to Tucson to attend the University of Arizona in the fall.

For a while, it looked like the session might have ended before Mr. Anderson left for Thailand — a budget was passed in March and legislative leaders were committed to ending the session by April 15 — but, eventually, a decision had to be made.

“It’s a hard decision, because you don’t want to leave session, especially the last two weeks, but it was the only time they were doing this,” he said. “I felt this is important for my son — after this, he’s gone.”

Just because Mr. Anderson wasn’t around to work on his legislation didn’t mean he wasn’t successful. All of the bills he sponsored that were still moving were passed by the Legislature and the budget items he sought made their way into the final product.

Airport, Then On To Capitol

After his May 12 flight home from Bangkok landed and he arrived home, he got a message that House Speaker Jim Weiers wanted to speak with him. He was at the Capitol within two hours of landing, arriving at about 7:30 p.m., in plenty of time for the final evening of session and adjournment sine die.

It was nice to be back to see the session through to the end.

“You hate to just sort of leave it hanging, without some finality of having things wrapped up,” he said. —