Before he came to Monmouth College, Mike Burden ’00 didn’t have much of an idea of what life was like “outside the corn belt.”

“Monmouth was the first opportunity I’d ever had to meet someone from a foreign country,” he said. “Through friendships with folks such as George Washington Mukimbila ’99, I got to hear what life was like beyond the Midwest.”

Late-night conversations about religion and politics sparked his curiosity about other countries and made him want to see them for himself.

Now, he and his wife, Ashley, are doing just that, finishing up a two-year Peace Corps commitment in Bayankhongor, Mongolia, where Burden is an English teacher at a local college. The couple will officially finish their service on July 21, but Burden explained that it might take a while to actually get out of the country.

“Train tickets are sold out, so we’ll take a bus, car or even a camel to China,” he said. “Then we’ll head south to Southeast Asia until the end of September. We want to experience as much of this part of the world as we have time for before we head to California for Eric Sherrier’s (’99) wedding.”

In his school days, Burden made headlines for his wrestling prowess, placing fourth in the state his senior year at Erie High School and posting a 67-36 record at Monmouth, all the while competing without the use of his left arm.

“I never know how to answer questions about that,” he said, when asked his personal adversity. “I have one arm and I’ve always had one arm. It might take me 1.3 seconds longer to tie my shoes than the average bear, but I never felt I overcame any real physical hurdle. The only thing I had to overcome was people’s doubts.”

Burden is facing a new obstacle these days, and although it’s related to a physical disability, it’s not his own. He and Ashley are trying to raise funds for a facility to help their community’s developmentally disabled children before they leave. More than 100,000 of Mongolia’s 2.5 million people have a disability.

“We’re still trying to meet our goals, and we’re a long way from the $75,000 we need to build it,” admitted Burden, “but some friends and family back home are trying to help with that goal.”

On June 7, the Burdens’ friends will host a fundraising concert, silent auction and trivia competition at Rookies Sports Bar & Grill in Davenport, Iowa.

Continued Burden, who can be contacted by e-mail in Mongolia at mjbclimb@yahoo.com, “I had it incredibly easy compared to Mongolians with disabilities. Not only is there a lack of services, but the culture isn’t supportive of nurturing people’s talents. It’s more of an ‘Oh, that’s too bad,’ or ‘That must be difficult,’ not the ‘You can do it,’ that I heard growing up from my parents and coaches. But we’re working to change that.”

Burden said he meets twice a month with a group of kids with various disabilities and conducts life-skill activities that promote self-confidence.

“We hope that the 24-Hour Care Center for Children with Disabilities will serve as a force for positive change in our community, empowering families and helping kids with disabilities realize their potential.”

Although raising funds hasn’t been easy, there is no doubt that Burden has what it takes inside him to prevail. Some of that inner strength was developed as a youth in Erie, and another layer was added in his days at Monmouth.

“Wrestling at Monmouth was an incredible experience for me,” he said. “I didn’t accomplish all I set out to do, but I got to share the mat with some amazing teammates, and whose life hasn’t been enriched after coming in contact with Coach Ole? His guidance and our work ethic helped me develop the self-confidence that I could live away from home for two years in a ger (a felt tent with a diameter of 15 feet) in the desert.”

Besides his extracurricular lessons in the gym, Burden also enjoyed his academic life on campus.

“I took some fantastic English and history courses,” said Burden, including one that Stacy Cordery teaches on the Vietnam War (a country he’ll be visiting soon). A sociology course with Steve Buban “helped spark an interest to learn about other cultures and to better understand my own, which can be much easier to do when you step out of it for a while and see it from others’ eyes.”

It’s been nearly a decade since Burden walked the halls of Monmouth, but he is thankful for the way it helped shape his future, and he is eager to return.

“Monmouth is where I learned to ask questions, where I developed a sense of my small place in the world and where I made friendships that have stood the test of distance and time,” he said.

Having only lived in the smaller towns of Erie and Monmouth, Burden didn’t fully appreciate their appeal until he attended graduate school at the University of Missouri.

“Granted, I had fun and the rec center at Missouri was bigger and nicer (although that’s maybe not true now) but Monmouth’s closeness – its forced community – is what I loved about it,” he said. “All of the folks I have met that went to big schools have small groups of friends. At Monmouth, it was easy to be friends with anyone on campus. I’m really looking forward to coming to Homecoming this fall and seeing how it’s changed and, more importantly, connecting with some good people.”

After graduation, Burden’s path was a typical one, as he took a teaching and coaching position at Hickman High School in Columbia, Mo., where he had moved to live with his college roommate, A.J. Schmidt ’99.

“Teaching there was fantastic,” he said. “There were more students in the high school (2,300) than people in my entire hometown (1,600). Each day dawned with new challenges and surprises.”

In his second year of teaching, Burden sponsored a diversity club and started a rock-climbing club. It was also during that second year that he switched to the history department and became, he said, “an avid news consumer. My interest and curiosity in news led me to enter graduate school for journalism in the fall of 2002.”

In the meantime, a funny thing happened to Burden on a run-of-the-mill trip to the local pub.

“The weekend after Thanksgiving in 2000, while shooting pool, I met an incredible woman,” he said. “It’s true – you can meet nice people at a bar.”

He and Ashley were wed in 2005, and that was the step that convinced them to “take the plunge” and join the Peace Corps. The decision was years in the making and, for Burden, started with the great fun he had as a child on camping trips around northern Illinois, sleeping in his grandfather’s green canvas Army tent. That urge to travel abroad was present at Monmouth, but Burden didn’t want to give up a large portion of the wrestling season, which cut into both the fall and spring semesters.

“What it finally came down to was being fed up with many of our government’s policies and feeling that rather than continue to complain idly, I would act,” Burden said. He also reported being enthralled by the stories of one of his graduate school friends who had served in Niger.

“He met his wife there, and he and his wife really helped push Ashley and me on the path to Peace Corps service,” Burden said. “Now here we are after two years, having a great time, trying to help our friends where we can and hopefully gaining some global perspective. And although we’re ready for the next stage in our life, we’re planning on serving in the Peace Corps again in our golden years.”

Burden plans to complete his master’s degree in the spring of 2009. Beyond that, he said, “Who knows? But Ashley and I are both interested in working overseas again.”