Why Uganda?
For those of you who have been following along for a while, you might remember that I started sharing my backstory about a year ago:
http://katscloserwalk.blogspot.com/2016/05/testimony.html
http://katscloserwalk.blogspot.com/2016/06/you-make-your-plans.html
http://katscloserwalk.blogspot.com/2016/08/fine.html
And then I got to the hard part. And I found it hard to put into words what happened then and what it felt like. And there were so many other, more fun things to write about – like cancer! Haha. But today is still not the day you’re going to get to hear about that part of my life. Because there’s something really big happening right now that requires me to skip ahead in the story a bit: I am on the way to Africa.
But before we get to Africa, we have to go back about ten years. My life had kind of gone up in smoke and I was left sifting through ashes, trying to find something still usable. I felt sorry for myself, and you would have, too. But after several months, I began to think that some people probably had it worse than me and maybe I needed to get out of my own head space and find some of them. I read that helping others makes you feel better, so I hopped on www.volunteer.org or some site like that and searched for nearby charities.
I’m not exactly sure why this organization caught my eye – maybe because it mentioned offering grants for couples trying to adopt. Maybe because it had a Christian focus. Or maybe just because it was a God-thing. I contacted Caroline’s Promise and asked how I could volunteer. They seemed surprised to hear from me; they had never had anyone contact them after seeing their posting on the volunteer website, but they were happy to put me to work.
Shortly after connecting with Caroline’s Promise, I ended up moving out of state. This made it a little trickier to keep volunteering, but I was able to put some computer skills to use for them and keep up my support long-distance.
The couple who started the organization had adopted their daughter, Caroline, from Guatemala, which is what led them to start Caroline’s Promise. When I heard they were going to be taking a trip to Guatemala to visit the orphans, bring school supplies, and do gospel outreach, I had to go. This would be my first time out of the country! I had been on mission trips within the United States, but Guatemala would be the first stamp in my passport.
I had no idea how people lived outside the US. There were guards armed with machine guns at the entrances to buildings in Guatemala City. There were places in town we couldn’t visit because it would be too dangerous for Americans. The highway out of town was a dirt road with no lines and no street lights, with rocks they had painted white and were using where we would have had a guardrail. There were chickens roaming the streets and old American school buses being used as public transportation. There were kids attending school in something akin to a cave, in a remote location across Lake Atitlan that was so poor they couldn’t even afford a dock for boats to land. You just ran the boat aground and leaped from the boat to land (and hoped you didn’t fall in the water!).
But it was beautiful, colorful, historic, with a landscape and a culture I had never experienced before. I loved sharing with the children and bringing them the love of Jesus. And Jesus met me there, too, making real to me the heights and depths of His love, from the top of one of the highest mountains I’d seen, looking down on the valley below: “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him” (Psalms 103:11 ESV).
To whom much is given, much is required, and I felt like I was responsible for sharing what I had seen and calling others to join me in caring for these needs. But still I remember, while I was in Guatemala, someone saying, “Yes, but you should see what it’s like in Africa.” And with that sentence, God planted Africa in my heart. It was a tiny little seed at first, whispering “Africa, Africa” when it found a quiet moment. But it grew over time and the whisper became an audible voice until, the following year, when I heard that Caroline’s Promise was doing a vision trip to Uganda, I did all but jump up and down and squeal, “Pick me! Pick me!”
So I went to Uganda in 2009 and it changed my life. It inspired me to start my first blog, Somewhere Along the Road. I wrote about that trip here (http://kkirshberger.blogspot.com/2009/10/uganda.html), so I won’t repeat the same story. Just go there, read, and come back. I’ll wait for you.
* * * * *
As you now understand, Africa broke my heart and wrecked my life. But wrecked it in the best possible way - wrecked it for the American Dream, the comfortable life, the life that looked out for myself first. Tim Keller calls it “the upside-down kingdom” – where the way up is the way down, where the weak are strong and the humblest are greatest, where losing your life saves it and where giving to the poor earns treasure in heaven.
I kept my ties to Guatemala and Africa through child sponsorship. It wasn’t face-to-face work, but I have seen firsthand that sponsorship makes an amazing difference in the life of a child - providing not only education, but sometimes his/her only meal of the day. In 2010, a friend of mine moved to Kenya to teach art in the slums of Nairobi. I was so jealous that she had found a way to minister on the ground in Africa and vowed that I would go visit her.
Andrea, Miffy, and I made it to Kenya in February 2011. We blogged about the trip here: http://liveloveafrica.blogspot.com. While it was so good to be back in Africa and I loved our Kenyan adventure, Nairobi was vastly different from the rural Uganda where I had first met Africa. Uganda still had my heart. A few months after getting home from Kenya, I received the monthly newsletter from a missionary couple I had met while in Uganda. In this newsletter was a picture of a teenage boy standing outside an orphanage. It said this young man showed promise and greatly desired to finish his schooling, but was unable to continue because there was no money for school fees. (In case you don’t know, most countries around the world do not offer free education. Students are required to pay school fees, purchase uniforms, and furnish their own supplies, including extras not required in the US, things like sugar and toilet paper.)
The orphanage in the picture was Mercy Home for Children. The very place I went my first day in Uganda. The place that broke my heart and saved it all at the same time. Finally, there was something I could do, not just for someone in Uganda, but for someone at the very orphanage I most wanted to help. I immediately contacted the missionaries and told them I wanted to sponsor this boy. And that is how Vicent came into my life.
http://katscloserwalk.blogspot.com/2016/05/testimony.html
http://katscloserwalk.blogspot.com/2016/06/you-make-your-plans.html
http://katscloserwalk.blogspot.com/2016/08/fine.html
And then I got to the hard part. And I found it hard to put into words what happened then and what it felt like. And there were so many other, more fun things to write about – like cancer! Haha. But today is still not the day you’re going to get to hear about that part of my life. Because there’s something really big happening right now that requires me to skip ahead in the story a bit: I am on the way to Africa.
But before we get to Africa, we have to go back about ten years. My life had kind of gone up in smoke and I was left sifting through ashes, trying to find something still usable. I felt sorry for myself, and you would have, too. But after several months, I began to think that some people probably had it worse than me and maybe I needed to get out of my own head space and find some of them. I read that helping others makes you feel better, so I hopped on www.volunteer.org or some site like that and searched for nearby charities.
I’m not exactly sure why this organization caught my eye – maybe because it mentioned offering grants for couples trying to adopt. Maybe because it had a Christian focus. Or maybe just because it was a God-thing. I contacted Caroline’s Promise and asked how I could volunteer. They seemed surprised to hear from me; they had never had anyone contact them after seeing their posting on the volunteer website, but they were happy to put me to work.
Shortly after connecting with Caroline’s Promise, I ended up moving out of state. This made it a little trickier to keep volunteering, but I was able to put some computer skills to use for them and keep up my support long-distance.
The couple who started the organization had adopted their daughter, Caroline, from Guatemala, which is what led them to start Caroline’s Promise. When I heard they were going to be taking a trip to Guatemala to visit the orphans, bring school supplies, and do gospel outreach, I had to go. This would be my first time out of the country! I had been on mission trips within the United States, but Guatemala would be the first stamp in my passport.
I had no idea how people lived outside the US. There were guards armed with machine guns at the entrances to buildings in Guatemala City. There were places in town we couldn’t visit because it would be too dangerous for Americans. The highway out of town was a dirt road with no lines and no street lights, with rocks they had painted white and were using where we would have had a guardrail. There were chickens roaming the streets and old American school buses being used as public transportation. There were kids attending school in something akin to a cave, in a remote location across Lake Atitlan that was so poor they couldn’t even afford a dock for boats to land. You just ran the boat aground and leaped from the boat to land (and hoped you didn’t fall in the water!).
But it was beautiful, colorful, historic, with a landscape and a culture I had never experienced before. I loved sharing with the children and bringing them the love of Jesus. And Jesus met me there, too, making real to me the heights and depths of His love, from the top of one of the highest mountains I’d seen, looking down on the valley below: “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him” (Psalms 103:11 ESV).
To whom much is given, much is required, and I felt like I was responsible for sharing what I had seen and calling others to join me in caring for these needs. But still I remember, while I was in Guatemala, someone saying, “Yes, but you should see what it’s like in Africa.” And with that sentence, God planted Africa in my heart. It was a tiny little seed at first, whispering “Africa, Africa” when it found a quiet moment. But it grew over time and the whisper became an audible voice until, the following year, when I heard that Caroline’s Promise was doing a vision trip to Uganda, I did all but jump up and down and squeal, “Pick me! Pick me!”
So I went to Uganda in 2009 and it changed my life. It inspired me to start my first blog, Somewhere Along the Road. I wrote about that trip here (http://kkirshberger.blogspot.com/2009/10/uganda.html), so I won’t repeat the same story. Just go there, read, and come back. I’ll wait for you.
* * * * *
As you now understand, Africa broke my heart and wrecked my life. But wrecked it in the best possible way - wrecked it for the American Dream, the comfortable life, the life that looked out for myself first. Tim Keller calls it “the upside-down kingdom” – where the way up is the way down, where the weak are strong and the humblest are greatest, where losing your life saves it and where giving to the poor earns treasure in heaven.
I kept my ties to Guatemala and Africa through child sponsorship. It wasn’t face-to-face work, but I have seen firsthand that sponsorship makes an amazing difference in the life of a child - providing not only education, but sometimes his/her only meal of the day. In 2010, a friend of mine moved to Kenya to teach art in the slums of Nairobi. I was so jealous that she had found a way to minister on the ground in Africa and vowed that I would go visit her.
Andrea, Miffy, and I made it to Kenya in February 2011. We blogged about the trip here: http://liveloveafrica.blogspot.com. While it was so good to be back in Africa and I loved our Kenyan adventure, Nairobi was vastly different from the rural Uganda where I had first met Africa. Uganda still had my heart. A few months after getting home from Kenya, I received the monthly newsletter from a missionary couple I had met while in Uganda. In this newsletter was a picture of a teenage boy standing outside an orphanage. It said this young man showed promise and greatly desired to finish his schooling, but was unable to continue because there was no money for school fees. (In case you don’t know, most countries around the world do not offer free education. Students are required to pay school fees, purchase uniforms, and furnish their own supplies, including extras not required in the US, things like sugar and toilet paper.)
The orphanage in the picture was Mercy Home for Children. The very place I went my first day in Uganda. The place that broke my heart and saved it all at the same time. Finally, there was something I could do, not just for someone in Uganda, but for someone at the very orphanage I most wanted to help. I immediately contacted the missionaries and told them I wanted to sponsor this boy. And that is how Vicent came into my life.
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