In just 100 days my mom, cousin
Ashley, and I will be leaving for Africa. In November we will be able to take a
trip of a lifetime. We are so very blessed by the plan that God has for our
lives right now. We are going on a Visiting Orphans Mission trip to Uganda and
Ethiopia. Our trip is November 6th through November 19th. There are 163 million orphans in the
world today and that means there are 163 million reasons why we want to go. We
all have always had a special place in our hearts for children, and orphans
hold an even deeper place in our hearts. My mom teaches Special Education at
Attica Elementary, Ashley is a nurse at Riley Hospital for Children, and I am
going to Lincoln Christian University to become a missionary for orphanages.
Some may not know that I had a
rough semester with health issues and ended up needing to have my gallbladder
taken out. With a little less than two months left of the semester I was about
ready to throw the towel in and just be done with school. I told my parents that
I was going to take a semester off and work in an orphanage in Africa
somewhere. I was serious enough that I contacted a mission agency that I could
possibly work with. I was so sick of school that every time I went back I would
cry the first ten minutes of the drive. Mom even told me that if I went that I
would have to stay over there the full semester and not come home early. She
also told me that if I went that she would be there on her fall break.
There was one specific Sunday I was
going to church and I knew that I was the only one from my group of friends to
be there. I had the thought that I could turn around and just go to church
where I knew I would have people there that I knew. But little did I know that
God had a plan for me that day. As I was sitting there waiting for the service
to start and I was reading their bulletin. I saw that they were having a
mission trip to Uganda and Ethiopia to visit some orphanages. I knew that this
trip was for me and that God was not calling me to take a semester off. I
called my mom as soon as the service was over and to say that I was excited to
read about the trip is an understatement. I knew that I was going to have to
start the process of trying to get details about the trip and figuring out if I
could go since I would be taking two weeks off for school. My professors
approved the trip in no time and I knew right then that it was God’s plan for
me to go.
We will be traveling with a team
formed by God to visit just a handful of the orphans. We will travel to Kampala, Uganda for one
week where we will work with the children of Return Ministries. We will be able to sing, play, teach and feed
these precious children. We will get a
glimpse of life in the villages and attempt to give them hope, joy and comfort
by visiting with them. We will end our
time in Uganda at Dwelling Places, which is a ministry that rescues street
children from newborn up to 12 years of age.
The second week of travels will be spent in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. We will work in the community of Korah, which
is next to the city dump. We will work
with Project 61, a ministry that provides feeding programs, educational
opportunities, child sponsorships, and long-term solutions to the residents of
this poor community.
God calls us to spread His word, to
show His love, and to be His hands and feet.
He doesn’t call all of us to do the same thing. Some of us are called to the mission field;
some of us are called to sponsor those that are called, while others are called
to be covering those in the field with prayer.
We have no doubt that He has called us to go to the mission field in
November. We have faith that if He calls
you to it-He will see you through it. We
would ask that you pray our hearts will be open to what lies before us, a mind
to understand what we will see, eyes that will look for those in need, and
hands to do His work.
We are very excited that God has
called us on this special trip. We feel
led to make a difference to these children that God will place in our
path. Every child has a dream to be
loved and to belong to someone, even if only for a short time.
