Uganda 2014: Countdown-18 days

I have been thinking a lot about this trip and anticipating what is going to happen. My thoughts are usually about the children and even more so the children at Destiny Orphanage. I have read a couple biographies about people in Uganda. These books show me a little of what the children of Uganda go through everyday. Really they are children by age, but adults emotionally. They have go through so many trials in their short lives and seen so many people close to them die than I could ever imagine. Even the children at Destiny Orphanage because I doubt, like in so many movies, they were just left on the doorstep by a family member as a baby. I am so excited to love on these children and just like groups before me, show them how much God loves them.

It is now 18 days before the group and I start our long journey to Uganda. I am excited to actually get to know my team! We have been in a few meetings together, so I have seen some of them for a few hours since I signed up. That is not the same a when you spend time “trapped” with them for two weeks and experience amazing things together.

Well, all this to say, I want you all to know how this trip came about and how God has provided for me, sometimes even through you. 🙂
One day last summer (2013) I was sitting in Dairy Queen with Cassie. I believe this is the only day we were able to find time to spend together after weeks of trying to work around my work schedule and her busy life. While we were talking I got a text message from my brother, Ben. He said he was going to Uganda in March. Cassie and I were so jealous. I asked how much he had to pay. He told me and I freaked. I understood, but it was about three and a half times what I pay to go to El Salvador. Which I was actually finishing paying for my October trip to El Salvador trip in a couple months. Ben also told me there was an optional safari, but I told him he had to do it, even though it cost more, because it was a once in a lifetime chance. Cassie and I kept talking about it and how fun it would be to go. I think I told her that it the trip would not cost so much I would have asked to go.

The next day I got another text from Ben. He asked me if I would like to go with him. If I said yes he offered to help me fundraise. I wanted to say yes so bad right then and there, but I thought better of it and said I had to pray about it and talk to my work because between El Salvador and Uganda I would not have enough vacation time. The funny thing is that I was so excited that I was going to Uganda even though I had not talked to anyone except Ben. Once I got things figured out with work and a week or so had passed I filled out the paperwork Ben emailed to me. I was still not 100% sure if God wanted me to go, so, I told God that if he wanted me to go he had to provide the money.

Side note: when all this was going on and right before Ben’s first text, I was so into the song “I will follow.” Here is the chorus: “where you go I’ll go, where you stay I’ll stay, when you move I’ll move, I will follow, whom you love I’ll love, how you serve I’ll serve, if this life I lose, I will follow you.”

Back to the story: 🙂
Within about two weeks of me telling God he had to provide the money if he wanted me to go to Uganda, I had to house sitting jobs and was given full time at work. At this point I knew God truly wanted me to go and I was so excited! I could not wait to meet the other team members, meet the orphans, and go on the safari. I actually had a hard time focusing on the fact that I was leaving for El Salvador until about two weeks before we left.

At this point I feel so unprepared because it will not be the same as El Salvador. I am not stressed… I don’t think I am at least. I just feel like I don’t have everything I need or something. I am so thankful for all the help I have received financially, through prayer, and also for the people who have given me item that I can give away to the children in Uganda. Please keep the team and I in your prayers that we are ready and that God will teach us as well as use us while we are there. Thank you all for everything!

Blessings!