Miriam Calamaro has made a roundtrip of more than 14,000 miles to come home to Lexington.

She was born here but grew up in South Korea where her parents were in Christian ministry.

Since graduating from Columbia International University, Miriam is the new director of Turning Pages adult literacy tutoring for Lexington and Richland counties. Here she talks about her life and work in helping others to read.

Q. What motivated you to want to work with an adult tutoring program?

A. I wasn’t initially interested in Turning Pages because illiteracy and adult education is not something I felt incredibly passionate about. However, as I prayed about the opportunity and listened to the board’s stories and the passion they have for adult literacy, my heart changed.

I felt the Lord leading me to serve this ministry. The needs matched my skills and talents. When the board offered me the job, I knew this was where the Lord wanted me to be.

In the two months since hearing about Turning Pages, my passion and compassion have grown for this ministry, and I believe they will continue to do so.

Q. What do you feel best prepared you for this role?

A. I can look back on the last 5 years of my life and see many different things the Lord used to prepare me uniquely for this role.

I have always had excellent administrative skills. My time as a graduate assistant to the field education director at CIU honed those. I was able to practice my ability to optimize systems, especially of data.

My time as a Mary Kay Consultant built my confidence. I am an introvert by nature and talking to strangers can be awkward.

Mary Kay taught me to push through the discomfort, be myself, and focus on the other person instead of my own awkwardness.

Q. Where did you grow up and who most influenced your career choices?

A. I was born in Lexington and grew up around CIU. When I was 7, my dad got a job teaching Bible overseas at an International Christian School, and we moved to South Korea. After high school. I returned to attend CIU.

My dad probably had the greatest influence on my career choices. He is a phenomenal teacher. As a little girl, I wanted to be just like him. My fourth grade teacher definitely had a big impact on my decision to become a teacher.

Q. Why did you choose to go into education?

A. For several reasons. First, I wanted to make a difference in people’s lives.

Second, I love communicating. I am good at it.

Finally, I wanted to honor the Lord’s calling. He asked me to enter into the education program at CIU.

I gained much from my time in Korea. Cultural awareness is a big one.

Many people never get the chance to experience another culture in such an immersive manner. People are realizing the benefit and value of multi-cultural experiences in our world.

Korean culture is incredibly different from American culture in many ways.

I learned how to effectively address and deal with cultural differences.

Q. What skills do you need tutors to bring to TP?

A. We can equip tutors with the skills they need. We cannot equip them with the dispositions they need.

We need tutors who are dedicated, compassionate, love people, have grit and don’t quit or give up when the going gets tough.

We need tutors who believe in everyone’s ability to learn and grow. We need tutors who are contagiously excited life-long learners and can inspire their learners to become passionate about reading, writing, learning and growing.

Q. In 5 years, what do you want to see TP doing?

A. I believe there are ways to make our systems more effective so that we can support more learners and tutors and see more progress with our learners.

What we’re doing is excellent. I want us to stay the course, remain focused, and become more effective and efficient in what we do.

For more information visit http://turningpagessc.com/