Participant Blogs

How can you possibly be the same person after a year like no other... a year of ministering to the poorest of the poor, a year of simplicity, a year of community, a year of your purpose only being Jesus and loving people? How? Arriving in America, walking through the airport, looking at people from my nation and hearing people speak the way I speak...I couldn't stop smiling while thinking, I am about to meet my family after a year of not seeing them. This isn't normal for the person walking beside me, to be so excited for one simple moment. Yet...

Throwing his shoe he jumped back at the sight of a spider, the size of his hand. This was not just any spider but a spider that when bitten makes the inside of your body burn, poison spreading throughout it.   This actually really happened at the beginning of our time in Zambia to Wayne, our team leader. It really is a miracle that he didn’t get bit, but to me it is also something that really reflects the time in Zambia and brings together something I have learned and seen this year, in so many ways. As we took...

The Warm Heart of Africa... Leaving from Kenya to go to Malawi to now Zambia, was a journey of going through the past to the present, and then seeing the future. Malawi is truly the warm heart of Africa. The people are gentle, welcoming, and the very atmosphere of the country has actual warmth that fills your heart. Entering the country felt like breathing fresh air. Malawi, at its foundation, is a Christian nation with the majority of its population attending a church each Sunday. I love Malawi very much but my heart aches for this country. This structure of...

Why Me?? Why?? Why did you grow up in a western country? Why did you get to go to school, get a family who has all they need, get a bed to sleep on and your own room? Why did you grow up knowing Jesus? Why did you get food everyday for three meals a day? Why did you get parents that are still alive? Why did you get to live in a place of oppurtunity where you have options? Why ME??? Why not the african kid sitting in the slum? Why not the orphan depressed and abandoned? Why not the...

    Bump after bump, turn after turn, hill after hill... "Is this road ever going to end?" As we traveled from the doctor back to the compound, through the land of the Maasai people, these were my thoughts. We have had quite an interesting, intense, and different time in Maasai land and in Kenya, these past weeks. Then again I am not sure what place hasn't been interesting, intense, and different. As we started in Nairobi, we first went from visiting a family in one of the worst slums in the world, then after a few days, we had...

Africa Africa... Imagine with me for a second, going to school and working really hard to overcome the poverty your family lives in. Working hard in school so that you can do something with your life and finally getting a good job on a plantation. As you stand there washing your clothes maybe thinking about how you finally made it out of the poverty, you see rebels with guns come out of no where and your friends run. They surround you and kidnap you, putting you in a truck. Your life is gone. You have no one and are being...

Welcome to the Pearl of Africa… Walking into the nation of Uganda we were greeted by this sign. I don’t know why Uganda was originally labeled this but I do know I have found reasons why it should be. A pearl is formed through an intense process that isn’t easy or simple but once it makes it through the process you have a beautiful pure ball that we now wear and that is expensive to purchase. War, rebels, child soldiers, aids, orphans, poverty… There are still 9 districts in Uganda healing and trying to recover from the trauma from Joseph...

    I have nothing But you are my something. I may have nothing to eat, But at least I have feet to walk the street. I am humbled you call my name, May I love you and bring you fame. I will give you all Because you’re my life, purpose, and call. Alhthough people call me poor I have abundantly more. So here my friend and come, Eat what I have don’t leave some. Wait don’t go take this to Take my favourite things they’re just for you! I have nothing, But YOU are my something. Although I may...

Forget it! I am done! I can’t take it anymore! The honeymoon is over and the real life has begun. Why is it that there is a constant struggle? There is an unspoken struggle in life that has always been there and is so often not worked through and ignored. I am at a place, in this journey, where there is struggle. It’s struggle that’s always been there but it just hasn’t had to be worked through. Everyone no matter who they are gets irritated about something. They get hurt by the way someone says or does something, they think...

Flying to Ethiopia, as we reached the altitude safe enough for us to "go about the cabin", I wondered if God would do just as much as He did in Egypt. Or even if it was possible to be as impacted and shaken as I was in Egyp,t but one moment later I knew the answer... He would do even more in the countries to come and this was still just the beginning. As we flew to Ethiopia I met a man named George. George is from the Congo but is now living in Sudan and flying to Ethiopia for...