To the Ends of the Earth

I’ll never forget the day when I realized my life was not going to be normal. It was July of 2010. I was a junior in college, halfway through nursing school, and smack-dab in the middle of Kenya. I had spent two months there and was exposed for the first time to visions of hope in the midst of raw, desperate poverty. I looked at my life and realized that if I was going to claim to truly follow Jesus, then I had to be about the things that he was about: serving the poor, caring for the orphans and widows, feeding the hungry, caring for the sick and imprisoned, and dying to my vision of the American dream. It was in the middle of Kenya that God shattered my comfortable ignorance and selfish heart. It was there that He made it abundantly clear to me that the path He was calling me to was no longer going to be one of normalcy. This realization hurt deeply, but it sparked a fire in my heart that changed my life forever.

I began to talk openly with Austin about my heart for East Africa and my desire to pursue long-term mission work in February of this year. I was shocked that he was even willing to take me seriously with all of my big, crazy, ridiculous plans! We had lots of long heart to hearts and came to the conclusion that it was time for me to go back to Africa and for Austin to go for the first time. A few days later, my sister Lara called me and told me about her upcoming trip to Uganda with Sixty Feet. It seemed like the perfect option for us. We would tag along with her, explore Uganda and the ministry of Sixty Feet, and see if this crazy, long-term mission work idea was something we were even interested in pursuing.

We had an absolutely amazing week working with Sixty Feet in Uganda, which you can read about here. Austin and I fell in love with the work and the people almost immediately. Within 48 hours of arriving and working with the children in the remand homes, Austin and I decided that it was time to talk to our trip leader, Shelly (who just so happens to be the wife of the CEO of Sixty Feet!) We sat down with her the next day over dinner and explained our heart for serving the poor in East Africa and our desire to be obedient to what we knew God was calling us to do. We explained what we could offer to the ministry—my obvious skill being nursing and Austin’s being a hodge-podge of potentially useful experience, including several years in management, a computer degree, and some construction experience in high school. It was an awesome opportunity to share our hearts and our desire to be a part of the amazing work that Sixty Feet is doing in Uganda. Shelly seemed excited to hear all this from us. She told us that if we were still interested after we returned to the States, she would love to fly us out to Atlanta to meet with the Board of Directors of the ministry.

We came home at the end of our trip and tried our best to go back to our daily lives. All along, we knew our hearts were still in Africa. We counted down the days until we could fly to Atlanta and meet the people responsible for starting the ministry we had fallen in love with. The couples we met in Georgia were some of the kindest people ever and their heart for living out the Gospel was contagious. We laughed together and had some wonderful discussions. Two weeks after we returned home, we finally got the email we had been waiting for: we are officially going to Uganda to work as full time staff with Sixty Feet!

Our decision to go to Uganda is one of both passion and obedience. God has made it undeniably clear to us that moving to Uganda is His plan for us at this stage in our lives. I feel so passionate about caring for and advocating for these imprisoned children in Uganda, and the fact that my husband feels the same way reassures me that we are making the right decision. Jesus reminds us in Matthew 25 that whatever we do for the least of these, we do for Him. The imprisoned children of Uganda truly are the least of these. We choose to go to them out of obedience, out of joy, and out of a true desire to follow Jesus.

I know everyone is curious about the logistics of how this move is going to work. Our goal is to leave for Uganda sometime this November. We will be making a commitment of at least one year with Sixty Feet, though we could realistically see ourselves living in Uganda for several years beyond that if that is what is required of us. I will still be working primarily as a nurse, though it won’t be in an in-patient hospital setting. I will be spending the majority of my time working with the Ugandan nurses to provide direct care to the children in the prisons. Austin’s role will be to come alongside the interns already in Uganda by working to develop the child sponsorship program, by visiting and ministering to the children, and by dealing with the Ugandan government as the need arises. We are fully prepared for the fact that our roles and job descriptions may change daily in Africa, so we are training ourselves to be flexible and to do whatever we need to do to make the in-country day to day operations run smoothly. As full-time interns with Sixty Feet, the ministry will pay for most of our major living expenses. We will, however, still need to fundraise a bit for other parts of our cost of living. But we’ll save that for a later post!

We are unbelievably excited about the opportunity ahead of us. The next few months will be spent planning and preparing for what God has in store for us in Africa. We appreciate your love, your prayers, and your support as we seek to be His hands and feet. This is the start of a great adventure!

“And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth…” - Acts 1:8

My Week in the Red Dirt

Is it super nerdy that I have a pair of raggedy old socks that I refuse to throw away because the bottoms of them are stained with red dirt from Kenya? Despite applying ungodly amounts of bleach and serious scrubbing, I just can’t get the stains out (not that I really want to anyway!) Africa is like that. It leaves a red dirt stain on your life that you just can’t wash out. One of the many reasons that I love it.

I was so excited for the opportunity to go back to Africa last month with Sixty Feet. I would pretty much leap at any opportunity that allowed me to head back to my favorite continent. Even more exciting was the fact that Austin was able to come with me and experience Africa for the first time.

First, a shameless plug for the ministry that we worked with in Uganda: Sixty Feet is an amazing organization based out of Atlanta. The ministry works primarily with children imprisoned by the Ugandan government in remand homes. Some of these children have committed legitimate crimes. Others have been incarcerated for “offenses” such as stubbornness or disobedience. Many of these children have not committed crimes but are simply orphaned, abandoned, or have special needs that leave them with nowhere else to go.

As I have seen with my own eyes, the children in these prisons live in dire circumstances. Sixty Feet works to bring them medical care directly through their nursing staff (which is what I spent most of my week doing.) They also work with justice initiatives and prominent lawmakers to change the Ugandan court system and allow children to get through the judicial system faster. They resettle children who have been released from the remand homes and work to set them up with American sponsors to pay for their school fees. This allows them the chance to get an education or learn a trade. They teach the kids about a gracious God who loves them infinitely and redeems the lost and brokenhearted. Ultimately, the goal of the ministry is to raise up these forgotten children to be healthy, thriving leaders of Uganda who love and serve the Lord. True beauty from ashes.

The majority of my week was spent working with Betty, the Ugandan nurse on staff with Sixty Feet. We went to a different remand home each day and provided care for the kids there. It felt like each of the homes had very different medical needs. At M2, I spent most of my time administering malaria tests. At M1 and M3, there were many children walking around with large, gaping wounds that desperately needed to be dressed. I busted out my big ole’ bag of nursing supplies, lined the kiddos up, and dressed wound after wound after wound. It was hard to get over the fact that many of them needed further medical attention than I could provide (like some serious stitches), but in a third world country, you truly have to learn to work with what you have.

It was great to meet a practical need by providing some nursing care, but my favorite part of the week was the time I got to spend loving on the little ones at the remand homes. And I do mean little ones. I was struck to see children under the age of 3 living in these prisons. Many of them were severely malnourished and some of them were visibly sick. The older children did their best to care for the babies, but it truly shook me to my core to see toddlers living in these desperate situations.

We were sitting on the grass one day at M1 when Austin had a little girl who was maybe 2 come up to him and promptly curl herself in his lap. We took turns passing her back and forth. I don’t think I’ve ever met a toddler who was so content to just sit and enjoy every ounce of love and affection she could get. I remember rocking her and rubbing her back and wondering when the last time was that she had been held. I thought of my blonde haired, blue eyed 2-year-old niece who I love to pieces and shuddered at the thought of her living in a place like M1. When we had to leave, I went to set her down with one of the older girls and she broke down into big sobs with crocodile tears rolling down her little cheeks. I fought back my own tears as I turned and walked towards our van. I think that’s when the injustice of the whole situation got to me. Something about a 2-year-old in prison deeply disturbed me that day. I’m not okay with that. I can’t come back home to America and make myself be okay with that. These children may seem forgotten by the world, but they are not forgotten by their Creator, who knows them intimately and loves them infinitely.

Every night as I lay down in my comfy bed, I think about the children I met that week in Uganda. I think about their faces and their stories. The red dirt rubs into my heart deeper and deeper. I’m so grateful to have been able to serve them in a small way by putting on some Bactine and bandaids for a week. But a week is only 7 days. I think about the work that Sixty Feet is doing to embody the Gospel by serving these children day in and day out. It excites me to my core and makes me want to be a part of what God is doing in the lives of these kids in East Africa. He is restoring what is broken. He is making all things new.

Austin and I at the source of the Nile in Jinja, Uganda

Fun, Fabulous, 4th of July Food

I love food. There, I'm glad I got that off my chest. Food is definitely one of my favorite things, and I would probably weigh 20 pounds less if I didn’t love it so much. One of the things I love about food is the way it brings people together, especially around holidays.

This year, 4th of July was a little different for my family. It was the first major holiday since my parents’ divorce, and the first one where my Mom wasn’t there to cook a big meal as she has done for the past 22 years of my life. Rather than spend the holiday with my dad and sisters eating take out, I decided to try and fill her shoes by making a really good 4th of July dinner.

I planned the menu out a few days in advance and went shopping early on Wednesday with my little sister, Caroline (who also proved to be a big help in the kitchen!) We started cooking at 1 PM. First, I made a spectacular loaded baked potato salad. (A big-shout out to Pinterest for giving me this awesome recipe as well as other everyday food inspiration!)

Next I tackled my red velvet cupcakes with homemade cream cheese frosting. I will never use canned frosting again now that I know how much better it tastes when it’s freshly made without all those chemicals! Surprisingly, these turned out to be the most time consuming part of the dinner. It probably would have taken less time if I had just made a whole red velvet cake, but I’m a big believer that cupcakes are always far superior to cake (and much more fun to eat.) Besides, who wants to wash all those forks?

The next thing I tackled were the deviled eggs.  I used my 91 year old great-grandma (Nana’s) recipe. Nana is famous for two things: her fudge at Christmas, and her deviled eggs. She was thrilled when I called to ask for her recipe. It was funny because when she explained to me how to make them, she never actually used a measurable quantity of anything. She just told me to add a little of this and some of that. No measuring cups or measuring spoons in Nana’s kitchen I guess!

Everything else was super easy to throw together at the end. Heat a can of Bush’s Baked Beans over the stove, slice up a juicy seedless watermelon, shuck and steam some fresh corn cobs. Austin came over at about 4:00 to tackle the steak. I was admittedly nervous about letting him cook the meat because he has never grilled a day in his life, and there is nothing more upsetting to me than overdone or improperly cooked steak. (Okay, I’m exaggerating. But still.) He completely surprised me by grilling some of the best steak I’ve ever had! He seasoned it with coarse salt and pepper, seared it on the grill with garlic and onion powder, and then cooked the first side for 7 minutes and the second side for 5 over low heat. Then he covered it and let it rest for a few minutes to lock in the juicy yumminess. Oh my goodness, it was melt-in-your-mouth kind of good. Who knew that my husband who can barely cook a bowl of cereal would be such a grill master? He was pretty proud of himself and I was too.

Here is our completed dinner, 5 hours after I started cooking it!

I think my family really loved our little feast. It was nice to be able to serve them in this way and to maintain a sense of normalcy and tradition when so many things have changed in our lives. Plus, I love every minute that I get to spend in my Dad’s big ole’ kitchen, with counter space galore.  Hope your 4th of July barbeque was just as fun and delicious as mine!