Hello and welcome to the blog that is going to document my upcoming mission trip to Uganda Africa! This is will be a life-changing experience that I will share with 22 individuals from across the country. On our journey, we will be working with local villages to help meet the physical and spiritual needs of orphaned children in Iganga, Bugiri, Butamira, Busembatia, Bewenge and Mityana. While missionaries have been in African villages for years, orphans still desperately need spiritual mentoring, love and humanitarianism.
I was going to start the blog with some fun photos of the numerous shots I will be receiving - note that I am not excited about this part of the journey - but I have been receiving questions asking why I am going to Africa to help children when there are children in America that need help. As I thought about this it made me sad that a person would infer that American children are more deserving of the love and resources we are about to give to African children. As if to say African children are not important because they are not American. I am sure I am reading far to much in to that, but a child is a child. They all deserve to be loved no matter what their nationality - children do not choose their environment. For that reason, I wanted to provide some general insight about Africa and the lost nation of orphans it houses.
The nation of South Africa has the distinction of being the wealthiest most developed African nation, yet 61% of its people still live within the grasp of extreme poverty. In this post apartheid era millions of South Africans eke out an existence and survival is an everyday struggle. Each day 15,000 children in Sub-Saharan Africa die. In America we have programs like Medicare, CHIP and WIC that provide nutrition programs and a host of basic and essential services to impoverished families. In contrast, HIV/AIDS, malnutrition, tuberculosis and death are a way of life for the nearly 3.8 million orphans of South Africa, most of which will go to bed hungry tonight.
These statistics coupled with insensitivity to the need that is a direct result of the individualist society we have created as a social modern-day norm in America is what makes me so sad. We are creatures of habit that have developed an out-of-sight out-of-mind mentality and this has become society's way of life as a whole. I am by far not saying all people are like this - certainly not the ones I surround myself with - but there are some that will surprise you with a comment of self-importance that makes me want to cry.
I have worked several natural disasters in Central and North America, provided assistance in guerrilla warfare territory in South America, provided childcare services for battered-women shelters, served food to the homeless, organized clothing and hygiene kit drives for earthquake victims and dressed like a reindeer to see a homeless child smile at Christmas, but more importantly I have seen the change one person can have when they have love and compassion in their heart. I am not asking you to agree with my work, or where I do it, or even to support it. But I do ask you to understand that we are all equal - no matter our race, gender, age or religion.
I am going to be the change I want to see in the world. I hope you will be too. We all deserve love.
I was going to start the blog with some fun photos of the numerous shots I will be receiving - note that I am not excited about this part of the journey - but I have been receiving questions asking why I am going to Africa to help children when there are children in America that need help. As I thought about this it made me sad that a person would infer that American children are more deserving of the love and resources we are about to give to African children. As if to say African children are not important because they are not American. I am sure I am reading far to much in to that, but a child is a child. They all deserve to be loved no matter what their nationality - children do not choose their environment. For that reason, I wanted to provide some general insight about Africa and the lost nation of orphans it houses.
The nation of South Africa has the distinction of being the wealthiest most developed African nation, yet 61% of its people still live within the grasp of extreme poverty. In this post apartheid era millions of South Africans eke out an existence and survival is an everyday struggle. Each day 15,000 children in Sub-Saharan Africa die. In America we have programs like Medicare, CHIP and WIC that provide nutrition programs and a host of basic and essential services to impoverished families. In contrast, HIV/AIDS, malnutrition, tuberculosis and death are a way of life for the nearly 3.8 million orphans of South Africa, most of which will go to bed hungry tonight.
These statistics coupled with insensitivity to the need that is a direct result of the individualist society we have created as a social modern-day norm in America is what makes me so sad. We are creatures of habit that have developed an out-of-sight out-of-mind mentality and this has become society's way of life as a whole. I am by far not saying all people are like this - certainly not the ones I surround myself with - but there are some that will surprise you with a comment of self-importance that makes me want to cry.
I have worked several natural disasters in Central and North America, provided assistance in guerrilla warfare territory in South America, provided childcare services for battered-women shelters, served food to the homeless, organized clothing and hygiene kit drives for earthquake victims and dressed like a reindeer to see a homeless child smile at Christmas, but more importantly I have seen the change one person can have when they have love and compassion in their heart. I am not asking you to agree with my work, or where I do it, or even to support it. But I do ask you to understand that we are all equal - no matter our race, gender, age or religion.
I am going to be the change I want to see in the world. I hope you will be too. We all deserve love.
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