Over the summer Willa went to Jordan through a program called NSLI-Y, funded by the US State Dept. She went to Amman for 6 weeks and went to school to learn Arabic, 5 hours a day, 5 days a week. On the weekends and after school she went on trips to Petra, the Dead Sea, Aqaba, and rode on Jeeps through the desert. She also worked to provide relief for Syrian refugees. She came back with her perspective completely changed.