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

Welcome to JINJA!

As I am sure you all know, WE’VE MADE IT TO JINJA!!!  We were absolutely and completely blessed to be able to stay at Momma Bishop’s this last week.  Her and her staff served us beyond what we deserved.  The food was incredible, the fruit was so, SO tasty, and we all now know how to hunt for mangos thanks to our bus driver Raj. J

            My name is Meghan Scholtens and I am one of the seven a part of the medical team.  For this past week we have been working in the Kamuli District Hospital in Kamuli.  While we were there we met many fantastic medical staff.  Many of them were nursing and medical students that were our age so it was really interesting to be able to talk to them about their schooling.  We will eventually have more training and schooling than them, but for now they know much more about treatment and physical medicine than we do.  We were also introduced to many of the head nurses of the different wards at the hospital.  We became especially close to two nurses in the maternity ward named Anita and Mary because we enjoyed spending time there . . . I think I can say for us all this was our favorite ward. J 

            We all witnessed at least one live birth and 2 of us witnessed a C-section.  It was amazing to be able to see these things because none of us had ever witnessed a birth before.  And I can also say that African women are beasts!  I don’t think they feel pain.  They are just amazing people!

            But along with this beauty came a lot of hurt.  Just from sharing with each other what we saw each day, I can tell you we all walked away from that hospital with a heavy heart.  We saw a part of the worst side of humanity and we’ll never forget that, but I believe we all have a new appreciation for modern medicine.

            If you want to know more about specific things we’ve seen and experiences we’ve had any of us are willing to talk about it, but I definitely can’t cover everything here.  J

            Thank you all for the prayers and support you are all sending us.  We definitely appreciate it and can’t wait to share more with you.  God bless!    

-Meghan :)