See Ya Later!

After just hugging everyone and saying our final goodbyes the end of this journey seemed a bit more real.  A few tears were shed and many hearts are overflowing with the love we all experienced on this trip.

  

It's hard to believe our month abroad is already over and done with, but the lessons we learned and the relationships we built with each other and the Ugandans we met will last forever.

Thank you to all of those who have supported us wholeheartedly before and throughout the entire trip whether that be with money or prayers.  None of us could have asked for a more wonderful experience and it's all thanks to you.  

Thank you to Rhonda, Tom, and Austin for putting all of yourselves into this trip.  We literally could not have done ANY of it without you.

Thank you team for loving each other well and for living on the edge for a month.  We probably couldn't have come up with a crazier or better team than we had.  And thank you boys for putting up with all the estrogen that floated around for the whole time.  You 4 are real troopers!  

So as we said to each other just an hour ago...it's not goodbye, it's see you later. :)

With love,

Meghan Scholtens and the JBU Uganda Missions Team! 

Reflection

Today marks our last day in Uganda. It still seems surreal that we are leaving this beautiful country. As I reflect on our time here, I realize just how blessed I am and how my heart has been changed on this mission trip. We came to help the people here, but more often than not, the people here helped us.

I travelled with the medical team to three different hospitals throughout the month spent in Uganda. In Kamuli, we met kind nurses, medical students, and doctors who taught us many things. We were unable to help them all that much because of lack of experience so most of our time there was spent in observation. We learned so much about the clinical experience, treatment, and procedures in Uganda. We saw the miracle of birth and experienced the sadness accompanied with death. We became incredibly thankful for modern medicine that is easily accessible in the United States. Our perspectives were changed and we realized just how blessed we are.

At Jinja Hospital, we met wonderful Ugandan nurses that took us under their wings. Also, there was a medical student from the United Kingdom and a registered nurse from the United States that worked with us and helped us along the way.  It was nice for us to talk with them because they understood what we were going through and they were easy to understand. J Here, we felt more helpful as we dressed wounds, observed surgeries, helped with HIV testing, administered injections, and started treatments.

For three days, we went to Nalufenya Children’s Unit. There were crowded beds, hot and smelly rooms, and crowds of people because several of the wards were under construction. We played with children, held babies, did HIV testing, took temperatures, and Meghan even got set up with a Ugandan doctor! J On the last day, we all got to be Santa Claus as we delivered stickers, coloring books, slinkies, and bubbles to patients and their siblings in the hospital. Everyone was so appreciative and it put a smile on all of their faces. We were thrilled to brighten someone’s day, even if just slightly.

Through all of our experiences, I saw God working. He was working in the nurses who diligently strived to do what they could with the resources they had. I felt Him giving me wisdom and strength to go to the hospitals everyday and put a smile on. I felt Him working on my heart, making me feel blessed and humble.  God’s provision was there in everything we did and I could not be more thankful.

Thank you for all of your continued prayers and support throughout our time in Uganda,

Kortni McCormick

Medical Team: Jinja Regional Hospital and Nalufenya Children's Unit

This was our last week working in the Jinja hospitals. The medical team spent the first half of the week continuing our work in the regional hospital and the second half at Nalufenya Children’s Unit.

At the regional hospital, I got to sit in on a C-section with Kortni McCormick. It was interesting to compare how they do surgery here in Uganda versus the United States. Working in the surgical ward was a very eye-opening experience as I was able to see people with broken bones, elephantiasis, osteomyelitis, and burns. One woman came in with 90% of her body covered in burns from a kitchen accident. The nurses needed Vaseline and gauze to treat this woman’s burns, but there was no Vaseline in the hospital. It was sad to see the nurses’ frustration and desperation as they tried to treat this woman.

Working in the HIV testing clinic at Nalufenya has been my favorite part of this trip. All the children and their parents have to be tested before being treated by the nurses and doctors. It was the busiest I’ve been as I pricked and blotted a huge line of mothers and children. It was also cool to see how the hospital would counsel those who tested positive and provide medical options to handle their HIV.

One of the most impactful thing for me was when we said goodbye at the Jinja regional hospital. Some of our favorite nurses sang a hymn over us and prayed for our journey back to the U.S. and for our future. This simple gesture reminded me of how much the Lord has blessed me on this trip. I believe that He has worked not only through us to bless the patients and hospital workers with His love, but also through the patients and hospital workers to bless us. Thank you, Lord, for your provision and your abundant blessings!

Rebecca Young

Orphanage Team: Amani Baby Cottage/Everything Skit

Greetings from the orphanage team!

This past week we were blessed with the opportunity to visit Amani Baby Cottage. Many of us were able to spend quality time with the children. We read storybooks, colored pictures of dinosaurs, changed dirty diapers, fed itty bitty babies, and talked to small children who have impeccable English thanks to the preschool that most of them attend daily at the Cottage. We were also able to help start some projects: trench-digging for a foundation that will eventually become a goat pen as the Cottage becomes more self-sustaining, and leveling a surface that will soon become an outdoor storage unit.

One of the highlights of the week was praising God and studying His Word with the Mamas (the Ugandan caretakers of the children). They clapped their hands and danced to songs about God’s faithfulness in Lugandan. Later in the week, I (Lisa) got to talk to two of the Mamas. They both encouraged me in my faith and shared bits of their testimony with me. I am glad that the kids are cared for by these two wise, God-fearing women.

Another highlight of my week was being a part of the skit on Sunday at the Wayange Girls Secondary (senior high) School church service. A group of us did the Lifehouse Everything skit. Throughout most of the skit, we thought that the girls didn't understand because they would giggle whenever something bad happened to the girl representing a Christian (played by Kalee). But at the very end when Jesus (played by Joey) jumped in and rescued her, a roar of cheering went up through the ceiling of the chapel to the glory of Jesus Christ. It was powerful beyond words to hear the girls cheer. As one of the actresses, I felt new vigor for the part I was playing in the skit because it was no longer me performing for a bunch of young women, but us together as one body worshiping Jesus the Savior who died and rose again so that we might be free. This was a truly unexpected blessing from the Lord for our whole team.

Thank you for continuing to keep up with us and pray for us. Please pray for our continued unity as a team and for safety as we travel out of Uganda. All for Jesus!

Education Team - Week 3

Hello!

My name is Kristie Lotz, and I am blessed to have been a part of the Education team during our time in Uganda. As the month comes to a close, I give thanks to you for your prayers, support, and encouragement as we have faced the challenges of sickness, new experiences, close encounters with poverty and extreme need, and saying goodbye to new friends and students each week. Despite the hard things, your prayers have been felt as God continually proves His faithfulness to us.

Because Monday was Heroes Day, a public holiday in Uganda similar to Memorial Day in the U.S., we spent the day with the kids at Amani Baby Cottage before our school week began on Tuesday. Several of us became sick, and KaLee and I returned to our compound early to recover and rest on the first day of school, leaving Emily, Morgan, and Tom to continue serving in the classrooms. In spite of a difficult start to the week, we were all excited to have significantly decreased class sizes, down to 12-50 students rather than 90+ children! Overall, we have enjoyed getting to know our students personally and have been able to use our experiences from the last two weeks to engage in these Ugandan classrooms with our new teachers and children.

Our team prayer this week has been a request for moment-by-moment focus on the task at hand, as it is very easy for our minds to drift to our exhaustion and our upcoming travel plans. I have been greatly encouraged by Ephesians 3:16-17 during this time: “…according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.”

Thanks again for all you have done to support our journey! It has been an eye-opening, life-changing month, and we are grateful!

Speaker's Blog

Hello dear friends and families!
On behalf of the group, I want to say thank you for your prayer, support, and encouragement throughout this trip. My name is Morgan Male and I am one of the Education majors in the group. While we have been in Uganda, several of us have had the opportunity to share our testimonies in the church services. The first week Nate, KaLee, and Joey shared their stories of realizing who God is and that there is a Father in heaven that truly loves them. The second week, Emily, Rachel, and myself shared about becoming new creations through Jesus Christ. This past Sunday we heard from Meghan, Meaghan, Kristie, and Jacqueline, who spoke on the struggles they have faced and that God has kept them close and helped them through.

I want to share with you about how God used my testimony in a service. My story is ugly, humbling, and redemptive. I didn't want to share it, especially not to a group of high school students with our group there as well. I was terrified, and thought that nobody in Uganda could connect with what I've experienced. I was so incredibly wrong. Thankfully with the help of our leaders and some close friends, I found that by sharing my story it opened the door for the high school students to connect to others' stories of pain and restoration to learn from their experiences. Emily led that day and talked about how Joshua had to rely on God before a battle and how he didn't turn to him for the next battle. She related this to how we do not always walk with Christ, but can still be a new creation. Rachel then shared her testimony about when she didn't always walk with God. I shared Ephesians 2 and how we are dead in our transgressions and in my life, I stopped there. I believed that God would never forgive me for what I had done. Thankfully I read on to learn that God's grace is sufficient for all and it is through grace by faith that we have been saved. Nothing that we have done or try to do deters Christ from covering us with his blood. The reverend invited students to come forward if they wanted to accept Christ that day and ten students came forward. We got to talk to several of them after the service, but we are all praying that they truly meant what they said that day and that they will continue to grow in Christ daily.

This was encouraging to see as a group, to have hope that we are making small differences even if we do not see it immediately. Please pray for those ten students and that God will continue to work through us! We will see you all soon!

#fromwhereIstand

Greetings from Jinja, Uganda! My name is Shelby Briley, and I am a pre-medical student. As we enter our last "work week" in Uganda, I look back over our time here reflect on all I've seen and learned. As part of the medical team, I feel that our purpose here has been less defined than the education team or the family and human team, in that as pre-medical students we are not yet qualified to practice medicine. Indeed, there is very little we are permitted to do. Some of us have experience from home as certified nursing assistants, but even this only really equips us for the most basic of all health care. That being said, I think it would be fair to say that we have all felt rather helpless during much of our time in the hospitals. The conditions there, to say the least, are extraordinarily poor, and it is difficult to accept that there is very little we can do to help. Unlike the other two teams, our role has panned out to be one consisting mostly of observation rather than service. Personally, I have struggled greatly with this because the greatest fulfillment I have ever known has been found in helping those who are in desperate need. However, I found comfort in this verse which one of our team members (Lisa) shared with us. 1 Peter 1:12 says, "It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look." This verse reminded me that I have never really served those in need; I have served God, who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or think, and who for some reason, has chosen to work through people to accomplish His means. Although I may not be serving in the more tangible way I had imagined prior to coming to Uganda, God has a definite purpose for my being here.
All that being said, I would like to share a quick vignette from this weekend. On Sunday we visited a malnutrition rehabilitation center called Serving His Children, who's mission in Uganda is to break the cycle of malnutrition one life at a time. They do this through three programs: inpatient rehabilitation, outpatient early intervention clinic, and community health and nutrition classes. The third program is particularly crucial because they do not merely rehabilitate the patients, but rather educate them and their families/caregivers to break the cycle of malnutrition. After being in the Ugandan hospitals for two weeks and seeing the level of care provided there, Serving His Children was a breath of fresh air! It was clean, there were heart and blood pressure monitors, and there was oxygen available. This may sound basic, but it was more than I had seen in the entirety of my experience here. Most impressive was the founder and manager of the center who set up the entire operation when she was 19. She is now 24 and is celebrating her fifth anniversary here. Serving His Children reminded me that God can and will do great and mighty things with a willing heart and pair of hands.
So in summary, although our time here has been trying, it has also been rewarding. I suppose you could say my personal verse for this trip has been Romans 5:3-5 which I will close with. It says, "...but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."
God Bless,
Shelby Briley

Welcome Home!

     Hi there! My name is Meaghan Ranz, and I am so blessed to be a part of the Family and Human Services part of our team. I have been overwhelmed by how close our team has become these past few weeks! This week we were working in an orphanage called Welcome Home. There are about 65 beautiful children from birth-6 who live there. They are loved and cared for by amazing staff who are dedicated to serving through hard work. 

     I personally loved spending time with a few children in particular. There is a little boy who has severe medical needs that affect his brain which prevents verbal communication, and he is in a full leg cast. I spent a lot of time sitting with him and exchanging songs, noises, and kisses on the cheek. There was also a boy who was brought into the orphanage on our last day. He had cuts all over his ears and face. All I could do was hold him tightly, pray fervently that he would know that he is loved by me, and most importantly, by Jesus Christ. 

     The Lord is good to bring us encouragement, joy and laughter in the best and worst days alike. He is faithful and is teaching us more and more as time goes on! Thank you for your prayer and support. We are so blessed to be a part of the Lord's work here in Uganda, particularly within the orphanages that we work in.

Week Two Education Team!!!!!!!!!!!

I would like to begin by saying thank you to all of you that have supported us and have been faithfully praying for us! I would ask you to continue to do so as our team enters the last full week of our time here in Uganda. My name is Rachel Williams, and I will be giving you an update on the education team. This past week, the education team worked at Masese Co Primary School which is located on a hill in Jinja, Uganda that overlooks the city and Lake Victoria. The location was beautiful. Each JBU student teacher was assigned a Ugandan teacher and class for the week. The transition to this school was more difficult than we expected. The welcome we received was less enthusiastic than the welcome we received at Bolawoli Primary School; however, we eventually made good connections with our teachers. At the end of the week, we even received African names (mine is Muwanika in case you were wondering). The facilities at this school were pretty decent although many of the students came from an extremely poor area located at the bottom of the hill. An outside organization fed the students from the school and the children from the community at breakfast and lunch time everyday. It was a blessing for these students to be able to have two guaranteed meals every school day!

 We thoroughly enjoyed our interactions with the students and staff throughout the week. Thankfully, both our team and the Ugandans were able to understand accents more clearly due to the school being located in the city. Something that many members of our education have been dealing with is the lasting impact of our time here in the schools. The students here learn predominantly through direct instruction and through the repetition of facts given to them. Little critical or higher level thinking has taken place in the classrooms in which we have been placed. Our team has struggled with how to help this situation since the Ugandan educators would need to make adjustments in their educational practices for lasting changes to occur.

We have truly enjoyed spending time with the students and teachers! We have had the opportunity to teach the students, get to know them, and partake in fun activities such as singing and playing games with them. The school even created a program filled with singing and dancing to present to us on the day of our departure from the school. Just simply seeing the smile on a child's face that we are interacting with can make our whole day! I would ask that you would pray for us to have strength as we begin teaching at a new school this week. Please pray that we would be the hands and feet of Christ to all that we come in contact with.

Blessings,
Rachel Williams

Education Team Update!

First off, I would like to say it has been such a blessing to be a part of this amazing team here in Uganda and working alongside some wonderful individuals. We are incredibly thankful for the prayers and support we have been receiving from family and friends! If you haven’t recently checked our updates, we have arrived in Jinja and have officially started our work here. For the past ten days, we lived in Kamuli and our teams worked in the community.

My name is KaLee Holloway and I am one of seven individuals who are a part of the education team here in Uganda. It has been such a joy to be in the schools so far, learning from both the teachers and the students. Our team didn’t really know what to expect our first week in the schools, but we were very excited to jump in and start working alongside the teachers.

            We had the pleasure of attending Balawoli Primary School in Kamuli our first week in Uganda. The staff, teachers, and students were extremely welcoming and accepted us with open arms. Our team absolutely fell in love with the kids we were able to interact with. Each of us got paired with a teacher based on our area of interest or emphasis. Throughout the week, we taught lessons in the classrooms, played games with the kids, and participated in a multitude of songs and dances.

            At first, it was difficult in the classrooms because of the language barrier. It can be discouraging at times when attempting to teach a lesson and our accent prohibits us from connecting with the students. However, the more we engaged with the students, the easier it became, and we were able to build relationships!

Teaching is hands down one of the greatest joys and it has been our pleasure to teach here in Uganda. We have started teaching in Jinja and we are excited to continue to share our journey with you! 

We have had many adventures so far and we can't wait to see what else God has in store for us during our time here.

Blessings,

KaLee Holloway 

Orphanage team update

Hello family and friends!

This is the Family and Human Services group reporting live from Jinja, Uganda! We have missed you all, and are so excited to update you <3 We are pumped to report that we are back in civilization where wifi, hot showers, and toilets are accessible J However, we are by no means complaining; the simple ways of life forced our group to bond and created hilarious moments that you will soon here about. We also loved staying on Momma Bishop’s compound! She is so incredibly sweet, and her staff spoiled us beyond belief.

We loved our time in Kamuli! We worked at a school called Maria’s Care, which hosts 360 students. The school boards around 150 of the students who are orphans. They also have a deaf unit, which has 50 students currently enrolled. We worked Monday through Friday, around seven hours a day!

When we toured the campus, we noticed that the boys in particular were living in terrible conditions. The walls in their room were extremely dirty, and the drywall was flaking off the wall. We also discovered termites, broken windows, and a horrible stench.  These things broke all of our hearts, so we decided to give back by cleaning and repainting the walls! The project was much bigger than we originally scoped it out to be, but was so much fun! We managed to finish on the last day, just in time. We played with the kids while they were on breaks in between classes and worked on our painting project while the kids were in class. The kids were all so sweet and we thoroughly enjoyed loving on them throughout the week. Our energy was completely drained by the end of the week, but our hearts were filled with so much joy.

We are so thankful that God chose us as an outlet for his work. Thank you to all who supported us and who are still supporting us as we carry out our mission in Africa.

                                                                                                -Taryn and Becca