A Spirit of Adventure
She had to do it. They would worry, but she had no choice - so with just minutes to spare, Frida called her parents.
The loud ping in the background ushering in another announcement gave them their first clue - their daughter was jetting off in search of work and it was too late to persuade her otherwise.
"It was my childhood dream," says Frida Siregar, now an education programme team leader for one of World Vision's partners in Indonesia.
"As a kid I remember writing in my diary that I wanted a bike, a tent, and some binoculars to go on an adventure - and I did."
EXPLORING HER OPTIONS
The ninth child of her parents' 10 children, fifth-grader Frida did not hesitate to set off on her first trip when an older brother offered to take her from her home in the north of Indonesia's largest wholly owned island, Sumatra, to the nation's capital, Jakarta.
After finishing her studies, Frida landed a job in the general affairs section of a private bank, but her fledgling career was cut short when she was caught up in the Asian financial crisis that enveloped the country in 1998.
Forced to seek other work, the former banker decided to move back to North Sumatra to become a labour rights activist for an NGO.
In her new role, Frida met many workers struggling to make a living and facing exploitation, especially economic migrants whose vulnerability attracts human traffickers.
ADVENTURING INTO FOREIGN TERRITORY
Such stories were not enough to dampen her spirit of adventure though, and so it was in 2002 that she called her shocked parents from the airport: she was flying to Jordan for work.
"I wanted to be a migrant worker to help those who had gone before me," she explains. "If I wanted to stand up for them, I had to understand what we were fighting for and what they were going through."
After touching down in the Middle East, a Jordanian dentist offered Frida a job taking care of his household and helping with his dental practice, which she did for two and a half years.
"I was lucky," says the then expat. "My boss allowed me to use the internet to keep in touch with my family. A lot of my friends there didn't have that luxury and were treated very badly."
In 2004, Frida decided to return home to Indonesia.
RESPONDING TO A DISASTER
It was on Boxing Day 2004 that the tsunami struck, not long after Frida had moved back to her hometown of Medan.
With devastation all around, World Vision worked with local people to alleviate their suffering and a friend suggested she join the organisation's logistics team.
Frida's relationship with World Vision continues to this day, with the staff member now working to ensure all children have their right to education fulfilled.
CONTINUING THE ADVENTURE, FIGHTING FOR EDUCATION
Working for a humanitarian organization gives her satisfaction that money cannot buy through opening access to education.
In Aceh, the province at Sumatra's northern tip hit hard by the tsunami, Frida encouraged everyone, especially school officials, to rebuild to provide quality schooling for the region's children.
From Aceh, Frida moved east to join World Vision's partner Wahana Visi Indonesia in Poso, a port city on the island of Sulawesi still recovering from inter-faith conflict.
To ease the healing process, her new team brought teachers from different schools and with different beliefs together, so the next generation does not have to live through such turmoil.
Their project, Harmony Education, was such a success that judges awarded it second prize in the education category of the 2013 Indonesian Millennium Development Goals Awards.
Today, Frida is responsible for Wahana Visi's education programme in the remote villages of central Papua in the far east of the archipelago. Once again, she sees education from her perspective as a child rights activist.
"The future of Papua is in its children's hands. I don't want them to face discrimination and be seen as second-class citizens in their own land."
Written by Shintya Kurniawan, Media Relations officer, World Vision Indonesia