The Countdown Begins!

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 6^th through November 19^th.  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.