Renton's David York, a 1990 Kentridge High grad who went on to a career in nursing, is now on the staff at Puyallup's Good Samaritan Hospital.

At 33, he's also a man on a mission.

``I've made it a personal goal to go out and just kind of help the world in different places,'' he said.

In recent years, York has done just that, traveling to Latvia a couple of times to help at orphanages and help build a school. Last August, he went to Micronesia, where he worked on a hospital boat and helped rebuild after a typhoon.

Now he's headed off again -- this time to Sri Lanka, where he'll be part of a five-person team from Good Sam helping tsunami victims. Dr. Senthil Nadaraja, a native of Sri Lanka, heads the team.

Nadaraja has ties to the Sri Lankan community on the Eastside and attended a fund-raiser there last weekend to raise money for tsunami victims. He also has connections with International Medical Health Organization USA, a medical relief organization.

The team leaves Jan. 13 and plans to return Jan. 29.

``The work we do will probably be medical in nature,'' York said. ``But any time you do anything like this you have to be really flexible and serve whatever needs that come.''

Home again, gone again

Bothell's Carol Zada, a woman who doesn't sit still for long, is already in Sri Lanka. Call that a quick turnaround for Zada, an emergency room nurse at Group Health Hospital in Redmond, who flew to the Sudan the day after Thanksgiving and spent four weeks on a mercy mission with Northwest Medical Teams.

Back home briefly last month, she headed to Sri Lanka on New Year's Day.

Just days earlier, Mark Bloomfield, a nurse at Bellevue's Overlake Medical Center, left for Thailand with another Northwest Medical Team.

No newcomer to missions of mercy, he's been on relief teams volunteering in Rwanda, Mozambique, Honduras, El Salvador and Albania.