First Week Back!

Can it be that I have already been here for a week? It is unreal how fast time flies by. My first week back has been amazing! It has been great being back Amani. The kids have grown up so much!

When I got here, I found out that Amani now has a full time nurse. I am so happy to hear this! It turned out that her visa was expiring and she had to leave the country for almost a week. The timing was perfect and I have been able to fill in for her temporarily. Please pray for these kids and their health. It seems an infection is spreading around Amani and a ton of the kids have been having high fevers and coughs. We have taken a few of them to the clinic in town to rule out Malaria. Also, one of our little babies has Bacterial Pnuemonia.

Besides helping out in the clinic occasionally, I have been helping teach preschool! Amani has a great person setting up preschool every morning. After about 45 minutes of playtime at stations, we break the kids off into small groups. In my group, I have Christopher, Brian, Charlie and Danvir :) These boys are so smart and very eager to learn new things.

After preschool, I am assigned to the girls room again!! There are a lot of familiar faces but a couple new ones too. It has been fun seeing the changes that have occurred in a years time. Since I am with the girls, this also means that I get to spend time with Mercy. Last summer, I fell in love with this little girl. If I could have adopted her, I would have :) She is so big now. She still has the same exact infectious giggle and big smile. Also, she is now talking! It is so much fun hearing her sweet little voice saying Auntie. She cant say Auntie Brooke yet, but I am working on it :)

I will upload some pictures of the kids for you now. This morning, another volunteer Sarah and I are going to help out at an organization called Sole Hope. A friend back home told me that one of her friend is interning with this group here in Jinja. We were able to connect and I am excited to see what kind of work they do in Jinja! We are heading out to one of the villages this morning for a three hour clinic. I know they work specifically with removing jiggers from their feet and providing education on jiggers and wearing shoes. I will write a specific blog post about it tomorrow.

Weekend Adventures

Hello everyone! It seems I am adjusting to Ugandan time very nicely. I have not had any trouble sleeping or waking up at odd times during the night! Thank goodness :) This weekend has been really busy which is the way I like it.

Saturday was my first full day here. Every Saturday morning, the volunteers have a half work day at Amani then the rest of the day off. I briefly saw the kids and they are SO big! I am so excited to start full time tomorrow and see how much they have changed. Saturday afternoon, a couple of us went to The James Place Kids Club. Tina Weir is a full time missionary here in Jinja through HEAL Ministries. She does a lot of outreach programs in the villages and nearby orphanages. Every Saturday, kids from town and local villages come for games and a bible study. We had over 300 kids! It is so much fun interacting with the kids. I remember sitting down and kids will just surround you. I had maybe three kids sitting in my lap, two girls braiding my hair and another one fascinated with my blue nail polish :) This is one of my favorite things about Uganda. The children are so welcoming and loving. For example, I could be walking around the compound and all of the sudden there is a little person holding my hand. Or two or three kids fighting over who gets to hold your hand :) After the bible study, we had  a local village team of dancers come. It was really fun!

Today (Sunday), I went to church at Worship Harvest. It was great because we were able to bring a couple of older kids from Amani to church. I brought Alima :) She was shy at first but by the time the service was over, she was either in my arms or sitting in my lap. Oh how I have missed her bubbly personality and infectious laugh!

Later in the afternoon, Becky (a volunteer I met last year and is back again) and I joined Tina's team and we drove to Canaan Children's Home. This is an orphanage that give orphans an opportunity to have a Christian education and safe place to live rather than begging and living on the streets. It gives them an opportunity to have a chance to thrive in the Ugandan community. These children are not adoptable. Unlike other orphanages I have visited, the ages are from three years old all the way to young adults in their early twenties. It was really fun socializing with the older kids. Right now, Tina has a creative arts team with her. So today I was with the older girls and played music and danced. My favorite moment however, was the praise and worship time we had. We all sat in a circle in the middle of the room where the girls sleep and sang worship songs. Last week at church back home, we sang the song 10,000 reasons. Today I sat among 20 Ugandan young women and sang the very same song. It was beautiful moment reflecting that worshipping God can be just as fulfilling sitting on a concrete floor surrounded by nothing but voices and an acoustic guitar.

At Canaan, I met this young boy who seemed automatically attached to me. His name is Gaster and he is 12 years old. He has the sweetest personality and would never let go of my hand :) He told me that he loves basketball and want to be a pilot. I had asked him if he had brothers or sisters and he said yes, but they do not live at Canaan. I can only imagine how hard it must be being away from them.

Overall, it was a great first weekend!

Greetings from Uganda!

Greetings from Uganda! My African adventure started before I reached Uganda.This time around I have gotten a taste of delayed flights, missed connections...you name it. Once I landed in Detroit, I discovered that my next connecting flight to Amsterdam was delayed by 2 1/2 hours! This also meant that I would be missing my connection flight to Entebbe Uganda. In other words, I was temporarily stranded in Amsterdam. This was a little nerve wrecking for me, especially traveling by myself. It seems that God is already using this trip to stretch me and pull me out of those comfort zones I love so much.

After spending three hours waiting in line to rebook my flight, I had to keep reminding myself that God is in control and everything happens for a reason. Instead of arriving in Entebbe at 10:15pm last night, I was hopping on a plane to Kenya last night and arriving in Entebbe at 9:15am this morning. I was just happy that I didnt have to camp out in the airport. :)

So, despite the unexpected chaos life sometimes brings us, today was a nice reminder that He's got me and all is well. I now get to arrive in Uganda during the day and I get to make a quick pit stop in Kenya! It wasn't the itinerary I was expecting, but sometimes you just have to let go and go along for the ride :)

I arrived safely in Entebbe despite another hour delay and got to the guesthouse in Jinja around 3pm. It feels so good to be back! I was welcomed by Mama Josephine ( one of my favorite mamas from last summer)! After taking a little nap, I joined the other volunteers for dinner. It seems like a really nice group of girls and I am excited to get to know them better.

Tomorrow is a work day at Amani. I am so excited to see the kids! I also found out that I was assigned to the girls again :) Hopefully after tomorrow I will have some new pictures to share!

Uganda here I come!

Just wanted to write a quick, short post before I leave! The next time I will be updating, my feet will have landed on that red soil I've missed so much. All the suitcases are packed ( which i've discovered not going over the 50 lb limit is truly a fine art) and ready to go! Please pray for smooth travels and that myself and my two suitcases all end up safely in Entebbe :) My flight leaves Orlando at 4pm and then I will be arriving in Entebbe on Thursday at 10:15pm Ugandan time.

I know my time over there is going to fly by and I am SO excited to see what God has in store during this trip!  I will do my absolute best to update with stories and pictures as often as I can.

Faith and Miracles

I apologize that I have not updated my blog in such a long time. Life has been very crazy lately :)

My first set of news... I graduated nursing school in May! I am officially a graduate nurse and am sitting for my huge state license exam next Tuesday. Fingers crossed I will pass and be able to put RN behind my name :) Its been a long past two years of studying, studying and more studying. I know in the end I have chosen such a rewarding career path. 

My second topic is Africa. For the past few months, it has been an emotional roller coaster. In my previous blog post, I had mentioned that both my sister Baylee and I were planning on returning to Uganda to volunteer at the orphanage, Amani Baby Cottage that I fell in love with last summer. Raising the money this time around has been more difficult than what we were expecting. Unfortunately, we did not raise enough for my sister to join me. She would need to raise $3,500 in order to accompany me. I wish there was a way that she could still come and experience such an rewarding, life altering opportunity.

For the past few weeks, I wasn't even sure if I would be able to return to Uganda. I had raised enough money for my plane ticket, but not enough for my room & board, visa and living expenses. We had figured that I needed to come up with $1,000 within the next few weeks in order to go. This amount would just barely cover me, but it would be just enough to get me over there. Basically, I needed a miracle. Even with all these road blocks, I still felt that I needed to be going back to serve at Amani.

Last Sunday, I placed the financial situation into God's hands. If God still wanted to use me in Uganda, He would make it happen. I reminded myself of the scripture Matthew 17:20 He replied, "Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ' Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."

With just a small amount of faith, God can move mountains and make miracles happen. Coming up with $1,000 in two weeks seemed impossible, but with God, the impossible can become possible.

Two days later, I received a slip in the mailbox to pick up an envelope at the post office. I applied for a RN-BSN program at UCF for the fall and figured it was related to that. Once I got back in my car from picking up the envelope, I opened it. The large envelope did not contain an acceptance letter. Instead, inside was a donation for $600 towards Africa! I just started crying. God is so good. Apparently, the person thought they had mailed the check weeks ago and discovered that he hadn't. He was worried that his donation was too late. Instead, it came in God's timing and became the miracle I was praying for. I now only needed $400! Later that day, I found out that my grandma was donating $150 and then my friend told me that God had laid it on his heart to donate $100 towards my trip to Uganda. I had also set aside $150 of my own from various babysitting jobs. In one day, God had provided the $1,000 I needed in order to return to Africa!! I was in complete awe.

Yesterday I was able to purchase my plane ticket :) I will be leaving July 17th, arriving in Entebbe on the 18th. I will be staying for a month and leaving August 16th, returning to FL on the 17th. Of course, I will be continuing this blog while I am over there. Words can not express how grateful I am to be returning to the kids and women at Amani. I also wanted to take the time and ask that if you feel led to contribute financially towards this journey back to Uganda and Amani, there is a way for you to help. Located on this blog is a donation button through paypal. You will be able to enter your own contribution amount.

Thank you so much for following this blog and hopefully being blessed as much as I have been by these incredible children. 

Blessings,

Brooke

Photo Credit: Amani Baby Cottage

One year later

 It is hard to believe that this time a year ago I was receiving my acceptance letter to volunteer at Amani. One year ago, I made the decision to step out in faith and travel halfway across the world all by myself to be Gods servant in beautiful Uganda, Africa. It was probably the best decision I have made in my life so far. Since then, Uganda and its beautiful people have inhabited my heart. There is not a day that goes by that I do not think about or pray for the mama’s and children there at Amani.

I miss holding and kissing the sweet, little babies. I miss being called “Auntie Brooke” and bedtime prayers, hugs and kisses with the girls. I miss spending time with the mama’s and listening to their stories. Being part of something larger than yourself is such an incredible blessing.

Since returning to FL, it has been amazing seeing that this blog has continued to be viewed from all around the world! I have even had the opportunity to talk with a family that has chosen to adopt from the orphanage I volunteered at. It was a blessing to be able to share pictures and videos with them J

I am SO excited to say that I will be returning this summer to Uganda! They say that once you have experienced Africa, it will not be your last. After lots of prayer, my desire to go back to Africa has never gone away. This time though, it will be different. Not only will I be going back, but my little sister will be joining me. I cannot wait to share this experience with her! I look forward to seeing how this opportunity will open her eyes and allow her to perhaps step outside of her comfort zone. I also hope that our relationship will grow and strengthen as sisters. Because I am in my last semester of nursing school, we will be leaving the last week of June and staying to the first week of August. I have to take my boards exam for my RN license before leaving!  It will be another step of faith to raise money for the two of us, but I know that we serve an awesome God who knows the desires of our hearts. It would be wonderful and much appreciated for any prayers!

And of course while we are there, I will continue to post updates from both myself and Baylee!

Home Sweet Home

Well, I made it through the 18 hour flight home back to sunny Florida! After going through a 7 hr time difference and only 3 hours of sleep, seeing my family holding a Welcome Home sign was definitely a sight for sore eyes. Although it has been amazing being back home with my friends and family, I cant help but already start planning my trip back to beautiful Uganda for next summer! I find myself counting seven hours ahead now instead of backwards, trying to guess what everyone is doing back in Jinja. I just wish Uganda and Florida were a lot closer in distance!

It feels almost humanly impossible to put into words an accurate description of my summer in Africa. I have had so many people ask me " What was it like living in Africa?". Hah, where do I even begin? Saying goodbye to the girls, the mamas, Mercy and the other volunteers was so much harder than I anticipated. All I can say is thank goodness for waterproof mascara :) I went into this trip specifically praying to God for Him to break my heart for what breaks His... and He did. Being in Uganda on my own taught me so many things. I feel that I grew both spiritually and as an individual. It was the most incredible experience and I am looking forward to what this year holds until I can return next summer!