The trip that changed our lives!

       In 2005, the Watoto children's choir came to sing at our church; that was what I call the beginning of my love for Uganda.  I sat and cried at those beautiful little faces that sang so joyfully.  I was so moved with emotion (which is not like me) that I knew something big would happen in my life that would lead me to Uganda.  In early 2010 our church decided to go to Uganda on a mission trip to build a school for the orphan children.  I jumped right in and was ready to go.  The wait was long (2 years) and we had many fundraisers but the ultimate goal was to get to Uganda and serve those beautiful children for 2 weeks.  I had never flown and never left the Midwest so this was a big step for me.  I was out of my comfort zone but totally ready for this experience.  

       Nathan, me and 5 others from my church left on March 1, 2012  and flew for 25 hours to reach the Entebbe airport.  The moment we got off the plane we see a man with a machine gun patrolling the airport.  It was late at night when we arrived so I had no idea what I would experience when I got out of the airport.  We loaded on a bus to drive to Kampala to stay in the guest house.  The drive was scary, no traffic lights or center lines it was nuts. There are no street lights so all you could see for the hour drive were flickering lanterns and an endless line of little makeshift storefronts.  As we got closer to Kampala there were people everywhere.  We made it to the guest house and we had no electricity so the lady dripped some wax from her candle onto the tile floor and stuck the candle in the wax as a way to hold the candle up so we would have light to get our things put away.  The next morning is when my eyes were opened and the images of what I saw are forever etched into my memory.  Kids, Kids, Kids, they were everywhere.  There were lots of people but the kids stood out to me the most.  There were kids carrying babies on there backs and others carrying big containers of water on their little heads.  The images of Africa that you see in the tv commercials to get sponsors for those children crawling in trash heaps is so true.  You would just assume that those children had parents that loved them but unfortunately that is not the case for all of them.  There are around  5 million people in Kampala and 50% are under the age of 15 years old.  WHAT?!!!  

       We traveled to Gulu (200 miles on bus and it took us 6 hours to get there) to begin our work on the school and the stories that we heard there were crazy too.  Joseph Kony was a name I had never heard of but I know it well today.  The children he took to create his Lord's Resistance Army is so real as much as we want to believe that it is not.  The mutilation and killing of innocent people was just so devastating.  We helped build a school that today is educating children to be future leaders of Uganda and help restore that torn part of the country.  After leaving  Uganda and coming home to clean water, electricity and great road systems I still just craved being back with the wonderful people we left behind.  I thought this missing piece of my heart was the craving to be back in Uganda to serve but I was wrong.  In September 2012 God called Nathan and I to adopt from Uganda, for me this was an easy, "YES"!

       I thought about Uganda everyday since I had been home and I knew this made perfect sense.  There was a child in Uganda waiting for her family to love her!!  I was just so thrilled to know that God was allowing us to answer that child's prayers and plea for a family.  When I talked to Nathan he had a very different response, "No we have 3 kids already."  I was not going to just let this call go.  I knew what God was asking me to do so I told God to deal with Nathan while I continued the adoption research.  Only 2 days later Nathan said he heard from God too and he was moved to tears with the love that God had showed him and the love we will show this child!!  That was the day we conceived that little Ugandan girl in our hearts!!  We chose International Adoption Net (IAN) out of Colorado to be our agency.  We have sent our formal application in and will be beginning our home study in the next few weeks.  It takes about  7 months to 1 year to complete this adoption and I want all of you to be part of bringing this beautiful child home!!