Students Speak out about the Global Issues Internship!
FOCUS UGANDA STUDENTS
The best I can say about this mission is that it has been divinely purpose driven. it has made an irreversible turning point in my life that I am forever grateful to God Almighty. Seeing all the kids at CLD and the girls at CVI shows me of the things I had never seen although they happen within the boundaries of my own country.
I thank God for FOCUS and IV for helping youth like us to go through this and being part of this noble cause of transforming communities by not only word of mouth but with the practical love of Christ.
Jesus Christ our Savior was not crucified between two candles on the church alter but he was crucified at Calvary between two thieves so we need to take the same love to the whole world and spread it no matter the cost. matt 28:19.
Justin Olupot FOCUS Uganda,
Mackere University
He had experience before were they had much conflict with white and black
It affected his view of working with westerners
After the mission he led 150 from 3 campuses which he handled this one differently
Very productive
In Gulu he learned to do practical mission. Former child solder said thank you for coming and helping us to see God in a new way. This would be the only Jesus some would have access to. Just being there as the presence of God.
JACOB
NEW ENGLAND STUDENTS
Praise the Lord! This summer during a five-week pilgrimage in Uganda the Lord took down my blinders and revealed to me what it truly meant to be set free. In my own personal struggle to follow Jesus I needed to take down the idols that were hiding in my closet, set them before the Lord, ask him for forgiveness, and be reconciled with God our Father. The people of Uganda showed me what it meant to truly have faith, to let go of my desire to have control of my life, to seriously trust in Jesus Christ, and accept the grace of God. Through countless interactions with former street kids, child soldiers, university students, and NGO staff workers I was able to see the mighty hand of God at work in the restoration of Uganda. From witnessing how the establishment of a local church in Lukodi Village has grown in members to visiting local health clinics, I was awed in how ordinary people were having an extraordinary impact in their communities all in the name of Jesus. The Lord showed me that truly “the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” He placed in my heart how poor in spirit my own country actually is, and how it desperately needs to be restored and reconciled with Him. The compassion and love that God the father has for every living creature on this earth was calling out to me from every direction while I was in Uganda. As I walk the streets of my own town, I know that through faith and in the name of Jesus Christ we have the power and the authority to break down the chains of oppression that hold us captive. I look forward in using the new set of tools that the Lord presented me with in Uganda, and starting a new chapter in my ministry here at home.
Eveling G. Vasquez
Rhode Island College Nursing Student
In my church upbringing, God’s redemption was only spoken about like it was some kind of theory, but in Uganda God’s redemption is a complete reality. I have seen former child soldiers who have dealt with the horrors of war at far too young a age become some of most joyous people I have ever met in my life. It bewilders me to see how someone who have gone through so much trauma and suffering become such wonderful, kind, loving, and caring people. They’re answer was simple: Jesus saved them. It was through NGO’s like Child Voice International that Jesus became real to them. Jesus became a person that took them in, counseled them, prayed for them, cried with them, and gave them a sure new hope for an amazing future. They don’t just believe in a future in Heaven but also a blessed future here on this earth. They were becoming people who overcame the negative effects of war. They have become established and outstanding individuals in their communities and families. Seeing situations like these makes the Kingdom of God a reality; right here and now.
Overall, I felt that this trip really challenged the way I carried out my daily life. It also gave me such confidence for the hope I have in Jesus to not only save the lost and abandoned but to also shape me into a person that will change this world.
Benjamin Le
Mass College of Pharmacy Boston
This theme of good-from-evil (redemption) and restoration was also clear in Kampala. Kampala is the capital city of Uganda, and our destination after the two weeks in Lukodi. In Kampala, we operated through Come Let’s Dance (CLD), an NGO dedicated to sustainable community development. We spent time in the community, playing with street children who have found a home at Mercy House, working on the farm that provides food for the children and helping at Thread of Life, a sew-shop employing former prostitutes so that they can provide for their families. The key word in all this work is “empowerment”; we did not go to Uganda to distribute aid to unfortunate souls. No. The NGO was founded by Americans, but every step of the way is empowering Ugandans to take over caring for their own communities. The eventual goal of Come Let’s Dance is to work itself out of a job; basically, to be able to leave the organization in the hands of the Ugandan staff. Cool, huh? It’s definitely a reinvention of the term “missionary.” What I loved about CLD was seeing how Jesus would shine through the staff there, both American and Ugandan. They are doing amazing things in His name as God works through them.
In Kampala, we saw redemption similar to what we saw in Gulu. The home where the children live is a big compound with a large round stone in the back. Before the compound was bought by CLD, it was the home of a witch-doctor. Witch-doctors call upon dark supernatural beings for the power to perform supernatural deeds (which, more often than not, fail; darkness cannot overwhelm the light!) Often times, they do this by performing child sacrifice. The grounds where Mercy House is now functioning was once the site of numerous child sacrifices, upon the round stone that the Mercy children today play on and around. What?! I’m still amazed by that. We saw the kids dance and sing praise songs to Jesus ten feet away from this former alter. Talk about restoration. Seeing that reminded me that while there is a lot of pain, poverty and brokenness in Uganda today, Jesus is moving there and drawing the vulnerable to Himself, just as He promised.
Samantha Asker
St Michaels College, Vermont
Before coming to Uganda, I prayed and asked God to see his redemption at work. I have seen a lot of pain and brokenness in the world and asked myself if God could truly redeem people’s lives. I thought about the people in Uganda I was about to meet - people who had suffered through 20 years of civil war. The girls at Child Voice had been abducted at a young age, forced to kill people in their village and taken as wives to army commanders. Somehow they had escaped with their children and made their way back home. But upon returning home, they were not welcomed and could not reintegrate. They had seen too much and done too much. Their children were children of terrorists. Their families rejected them. What man would want to marry a girl who had been defiled? What hope do these girls have?
I asked myself: Is redemption possible? Is there really hope for these girls and others whose lives have been destroyed? Does Jesus really have anything to offer them?
During my time in Uganda, God showed me that yes, redemption is possible in a very tangible and real sense. I saw God’s redemption in the lives of individuals, in communities and even in the land itself. In Jeremiah 31:13b, God promises: “I will turn your mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow.” The women at CVI came in completely rejected and broken with little hope for their lives or their children. They had nothing. But they had met Jesus. And Jesus had taken their mourning and turned it into gladness. They were free to sing and dance, to love their children and even to take care of the other children on the compound. Something had changed for them. Jesus was in the process of redeeming them.
And not only that, but the community had changed. Only a few years earlier people would have been afraid to meet together in the dark for fear that the rebels would come. But now the community was free to gather under the starts to watch the Jesus film. They gathered in the spot right next to the trench that the LRA used to occupy. And they laughed (watching the Jesus film no less). To me that was a picture of the beginning of God’s redemption of a community.
And God is also redeeming the land, just like he promised he would in Isaiah 41:17-20. God promises to “make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys… [and to] turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs.” I saw this most clearly during our visit to Aware Hill. The hill was considered to be a very dark place. It was where Joseph Kony would go to get his spiritual power. Child sacrifices were committed there. I imagined it to be somewhat of a desert wasteland, like the elephant graveyard in the Lion King. But pastors and church leaders had gone to this hill and prayed over it and now it had become a different kind of place. When we went to visit we saw families living around the hill and farming. There was maise growing in the fields around the hill and the hill itself was now just a bald-faced rock with a pleasant view from the summit. Seeing the transformation at Aware Hill was another picture of God’s redemption. God can indeed turn the desert into pools of water and literally redeem the land.
But God also showed me that his redemption is not limited to Uganda. The same redemption of individuals, communities and land that I saw in Uganda is something that God desires to see happen in my own community and on the campus where I serve. During our time at Prayer Mountain, God invited me to consider this possibility, that maybe my view of Tufts and Boston was too small. What would it look like for my community to experience God’s redemption? And that is the message that I bring home with me. I have seen God’s redemption in real time in a country far from home. Now God’s invitation for me is to have greater faith that this same redemption can come to my community to Tufts, to Boston and even to campuses around New England. It is an invitation to be like Anna and Simeon and to wait in faith and great expectation for God’s redemption to come. Redemption is possible.
Alexandra Nesbeda
InterVarsity Staff, Tufts University
Over the course of going to Uganda with the NEGII, I have learned many things, not only about Uganda and America, but more importantly about myself, my faith, and God. The most important thing that I learned was how to make God the center of everything in my life. I learned to trust in Him for everything, and that the things that should matter in my life are Him and His plan for my life—what I do should be what He wants me to do.
Another important aspect of the Uganda project is that it introduced me to a community of Christians that are passionate about making a difference in the world. I have been able to form meaningful and lasting relationships with people who are dedicated to following Christ and doing His work in the world. Not only will these relationships last, but they will also form a stable support for me as I prepare to go back to campus and continue with everyday life. I always wished that I had a group of close, Christian friends that I could confide in and discuss issues with, and now I have one.
My new understanding of global issues, paired with my personal revival in my faith, will factor into our execution of our on-campus integration of what we have learned over the course of our month in Uganda.
Kelsey Hammond
UVM
It sounds so simple and so obvious, but the insights that I gained about the present global issues impacting Uganda came from seeing the global issues in their reality rather than in newspapers and magazine articles. Reading a book about a former child soldier can teach you a lot about the experiences those children have gone through but gives you little insight into the actual heart and life of the child. Seeing and being with girls who were abducted and are now trying to reclaim and restore their lives is a completely different learning experience. Reading books about the horrors they went through really allows you to visualize their pasts, but upon meeting and getting to know them, the images instantly flee your mind. While watching the girls at ChildVoice International crochet, cook, sew, play netball, fix hair, take care of their children or praise God, you cannot imagine the scenes in those books. The nameless, faceless child that you placed in those horrific scenes in your mind could not possibly be that young woman at the bore hole laughing with her friends. Putting names, faces and places to these distant and grave global issues allows you to see the issue as it truly is and not from the perspective of your imagination. Knowing the facts and seeing the reality gives you a much more holistic view of the issue and it gives you the ability to discuss and raise awareness in a much more effective way.
Not only does experiential learning allow you to see the issue more clearly, but you are also able to see how God is working in that issue much more openly. In Uganda, I learned that God is needed in various ways across different cultures. In the U.S., which has a very individualistic society in which demonic powers portray themselves much more subtly and often personally, we have a way of connecting with God that, consequently, is very individual and personal. However, in Uganda, a society that is based around community and has evil displayed in such open ways, worshipping, praising and calling upon God is a very communal act. Before this trip, I had only known my own personal God, but the God that I know now is a God of a diverse people, of diverse needs and of a diverse and endless love.
Lina Smith
Wheaton College, MA
There isn’t a summary statement that’s an adequate way of expressing all the ways that God used (and is still using) Uganda to change me. I can start by saying with confidence that I will never be the same again. I can honestly say that this has been one of the most defining months of my life, and here’s why.
In Uganda, I came face-to-face with complex, interrelated global issues. Poverty, HIV/AIDS, the effects of an unconventional war that ate up two decades with barely a blink from the rest of humanity. The list of ways that this world is broken is overwhelming. In Uganda, though, I didn’t witness people who are hopeless. I found people who are hardworking and who draw their strength from the Lord. I found people who are incredibly joyful. I found beautiful souls.
Uganda’s story is a story of radical transformation, the kind that’s a work in progress. I got to see this throughout the month, but especially when we were in Lukodi, living at CVI. The way that Jesus is so radically transforming the girls completely blew my mind. He’s giving them back their voices, which they now use to sing His praises. The healing of the Lord is washing over Lukodi. He is reclaiming His land and His children, and it was a joy and an honor for me to see and to be a small part of.
Now that I’m back in the US (for the time being, at least), I want to tell everyone I know about how God is working in Uganda, especially at CVI. Jesus is the reason that I can tell Uganda’s story with, as Dan Haseltine writes in the introduction of Girl Soldier, Gloriously disproportionate amounts of hope. It’s such a joy to be able to cling onto the fact that we’ve got a risen Savior who loves us enough to have fought for this broken world with His life. I want everyone to know.
Alie
Mt Holyoke College
Shalom. It means being whole, complete, finished, paid in full, rewarded. What I knew in my head made its way to my heart on my trip to Uganda; our God is a God of Shalom. He is in the business of restoring individual lives, whole communities and entire nations to Himself. Our world is broken and I have witnessed human efforts to band-aid these wounds, but God showed me in Uganda that he is the only answer that fully redeems. He is the only power that can convict man and help him turn from sin. Only God can answer the cries of a child living on the streets and bend his heart from stealing and drug addiction to praising and preaching. Only God can dig so deeply into the heart of a woman, once abducted and forced to murder, now healing and raising her children, singing and praising her Creator. Uganda held up a mirror to my own life and the ways in which I contribute to the suffering of others unconsciously. Step by step I am letting God into areas of my life that he wants me to surrender. The good news is that our God is also a God of immense grace. His grace covers me and it also covers Joseph Kony. It's the same grace and that blows my mind. I am so thankful for the opportunity to meet God in a new way, to understand that I serve a global God who is powerfully moving everywhere, not just in what I see around me.
Erin Kole
Wheaton College, MAThe people of Uganda have a faith in the Lord that I myself have never had. By living in a world where security is not an option, people learn to depend on the Lord for everything in their lives. I am learning to live with this same kind of faith. I am also learning to live with the same joy and thankfulness that I saw in Uganda. I long to be so consumed with my love for Christ and the beautiful journey He has sent me on that I do not look back nor look at what is ahead, that I may be living day by day, joyful, fulfilled, and thankful for the world around me.
Rachel Styers
UVM
I thank God for FOCUS and IV for helping youth like us to go through this and being part of this noble cause of transforming communities by not only word of mouth but with the practical love of Christ.
Jesus Christ our Savior was not crucified between two candles on the church alter but he was crucified at Calvary between two thieves so we need to take the same love to the whole world and spread it no matter the cost. matt 28:19.
It affected his view of working with westerners
After the mission he led 150 from 3 campuses which he handled this one differently
Very productive
In Gulu he learned to do practical mission. Former child solder said thank you for coming and helping us to see God in a new way. This would be the only Jesus some would have access to. Just being there as the presence of God.
JACOB
Rhode Island College Nursing Student
In my church upbringing, God’s redemption was only spoken about like it was some kind of theory, but in Uganda God’s redemption is a complete reality. I have seen former child soldiers who have dealt with the horrors of war at far too young a age become some of most joyous people I have ever met in my life. It bewilders me to see how someone who have gone through so much trauma and suffering become such wonderful, kind, loving, and caring people. They’re answer was simple: Jesus saved them. It was through NGO’s like Child Voice International that Jesus became real to them. Jesus became a person that took them in, counseled them, prayed for them, cried with them, and gave them a sure new hope for an amazing future. They don’t just believe in a future in Heaven but also a blessed future here on this earth. They were becoming people who overcame the negative effects of war. They have become established and outstanding individuals in their communities and families. Seeing situations like these makes the Kingdom of God a reality; right here and now.
Overall, I felt that this trip really challenged the way I carried out my daily life. It also gave me such confidence for the hope I have in Jesus to not only save the lost and abandoned but to also shape me into a person that will change this world.
Benjamin Le
This theme of good-from-evil (redemption) and restoration was also clear in Kampala. Kampala is the capital city of Uganda, and our destination after the two weeks in Lukodi. In Kampala, we operated through Come Let’s Dance (CLD), an NGO dedicated to sustainable community development. We spent time in the community, playing with street children who have found a home at Mercy House, working on the farm that provides food for the children and helping at Thread of Life, a sew-shop employing former prostitutes so that they can provide for their families. The key word in all this work is “empowerment”; we did not go to Uganda to distribute aid to unfortunate souls. No. The NGO was founded by Americans, but every step of the way is empowering Ugandans to take over caring for their own communities. The eventual goal of Come Let’s Dance is to work itself out of a job; basically, to be able to leave the organization in the hands of the Ugandan staff. Cool, huh? It’s definitely a reinvention of the term “missionary.” What I loved about CLD was seeing how Jesus would shine through the staff there, both American and Ugandan. They are doing amazing things in His name as God works through them.
In Kampala, we saw redemption similar to what we saw in Gulu. The home where the children live is a big compound with a large round stone in the back. Before the compound was bought by CLD, it was the home of a witch-doctor. Witch-doctors call upon dark supernatural beings for the power to perform supernatural deeds (which, more often than not, fail; darkness cannot overwhelm the light!) Often times, they do this by performing child sacrifice. The grounds where Mercy House is now functioning was once the site of numerous child sacrifices, upon the round stone that the Mercy children today play on and around. What?! I’m still amazed by that. We saw the kids dance and sing praise songs to Jesus ten feet away from this former alter. Talk about restoration. Seeing that reminded me that while there is a lot of pain, poverty and brokenness in Uganda today, Jesus is moving there and drawing the vulnerable to Himself, just as He promised.
Samantha Asker
Before coming to Uganda, I prayed and asked God to see his redemption at work. I have seen a lot of pain and brokenness in the world and asked myself if God could truly redeem people’s lives. I thought about the people in Uganda I was about to meet - people who had suffered through 20 years of civil war. The girls at Child Voice had been abducted at a young age, forced to kill people in their village and taken as wives to army commanders. Somehow they had escaped with their children and made their way back home. But upon returning home, they were not welcomed and could not reintegrate. They had seen too much and done too much. Their children were children of terrorists. Their families rejected them. What man would want to marry a girl who had been defiled? What hope do these girls have?
I asked myself: Is redemption possible? Is there really hope for these girls and others whose lives have been destroyed? Does Jesus really have anything to offer them?
During my time in Uganda, God showed me that yes, redemption is possible in a very tangible and real sense. I saw God’s redemption in the lives of individuals, in communities and even in the land itself. In Jeremiah 31:13b, God promises: “I will turn your mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow.” The women at CVI came in completely rejected and broken with little hope for their lives or their children. They had nothing. But they had met Jesus. And Jesus had taken their mourning and turned it into gladness. They were free to sing and dance, to love their children and even to take care of the other children on the compound. Something had changed for them. Jesus was in the process of redeeming them.
And not only that, but the community had changed. Only a few years earlier people would have been afraid to meet together in the dark for fear that the rebels would come. But now the community was free to gather under the starts to watch the Jesus film. They gathered in the spot right next to the trench that the LRA used to occupy. And they laughed (watching the Jesus film no less). To me that was a picture of the beginning of God’s redemption of a community.
And God is also redeeming the land, just like he promised he would in Isaiah 41:17-20. God promises to “make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys… [and to] turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs.” I saw this most clearly during our visit to Aware Hill. The hill was considered to be a very dark place. It was where Joseph Kony would go to get his spiritual power. Child sacrifices were committed there. I imagined it to be somewhat of a desert wasteland, like the elephant graveyard in the Lion King. But pastors and church leaders had gone to this hill and prayed over it and now it had become a different kind of place. When we went to visit we saw families living around the hill and farming. There was maise growing in the fields around the hill and the hill itself was now just a bald-faced rock with a pleasant view from the summit. Seeing the transformation at Aware Hill was another picture of God’s redemption. God can indeed turn the desert into pools of water and literally redeem the land.
But God also showed me that his redemption is not limited to Uganda. The same redemption of individuals, communities and land that I saw in Uganda is something that God desires to see happen in my own community and on the campus where I serve. During our time at Prayer Mountain, God invited me to consider this possibility, that maybe my view of Tufts and Boston was too small. What would it look like for my community to experience God’s redemption? And that is the message that I bring home with me. I have seen God’s redemption in real time in a country far from home. Now God’s invitation for me is to have greater faith that this same redemption can come to my community to Tufts, to Boston and even to campuses around New England. It is an invitation to be like Anna and Simeon and to wait in faith and great expectation for God’s redemption to come. Redemption is possible.
Alexandra Nesbeda
InterVarsity Staff, Tufts University
Over the course of going to Uganda with the NEGII, I have learned many things, not only about Uganda and America, but more importantly about myself, my faith, and God. The most important thing that I learned was how to make God the center of everything in my life. I learned to trust in Him for everything, and that the things that should matter in my life are Him and His plan for my life—what I do should be what He wants me to do.
Another important aspect of the Uganda project is that it introduced me to a community of Christians that are passionate about making a difference in the world. I have been able to form meaningful and lasting relationships with people who are dedicated to following Christ and doing His work in the world. Not only will these relationships last, but they will also form a stable support for me as I prepare to go back to campus and continue with everyday life. I always wished that I had a group of close, Christian friends that I could confide in and discuss issues with, and now I have one.
My new understanding of global issues, paired with my personal revival in my faith, will factor into our execution of our on-campus integration of what we have learned over the course of our month in Uganda.
Kelsey Hammond
Not only does experiential learning allow you to see the issue more clearly, but you are also able to see how God is working in that issue much more openly. In Uganda, I learned that God is needed in various ways across different cultures. In the U.S., which has a very individualistic society in which demonic powers portray themselves much more subtly and often personally, we have a way of connecting with God that, consequently, is very individual and personal. However, in Uganda, a society that is based around community and has evil displayed in such open ways, worshipping, praising and calling upon God is a very communal act. Before this trip, I had only known my own personal God, but the God that I know now is a God of a diverse people, of diverse needs and of a diverse and endless love.
Lina Smith
There isn’t a summary statement that’s an adequate way of expressing all the ways that God used (and is still using) Uganda to change me. I can start by saying with confidence that I will never be the same again. I can honestly say that this has been one of the most defining months of my life, and here’s why.
In Uganda, I came face-to-face with complex, interrelated global issues. Poverty, HIV/AIDS, the effects of an unconventional war that ate up two decades with barely a blink from the rest of humanity. The list of ways that this world is broken is overwhelming. In Uganda, though, I didn’t witness people who are hopeless. I found people who are hardworking and who draw their strength from the Lord. I found people who are incredibly joyful. I found beautiful souls.
Uganda’s story is a story of radical transformation, the kind that’s a work in progress. I got to see this throughout the month, but especially when we were in Lukodi, living at CVI. The way that Jesus is so radically transforming the girls completely blew my mind. He’s giving them back their voices, which they now use to sing His praises. The healing of the Lord is washing over Lukodi. He is reclaiming His land and His children, and it was a joy and an honor for me to see and to be a small part of.
Now that I’m back in the US (for the time being, at least), I want to tell everyone I know about how God is working in Uganda, especially at CVI. Jesus is the reason that I can tell Uganda’s story with, as Dan Haseltine writes in the introduction of Girl Soldier, Gloriously disproportionate amounts of hope. It’s such a joy to be able to cling onto the fact that we’ve got a risen Savior who loves us enough to have fought for this broken world with His life. I want everyone to know.
Alie
Shalom. It means being whole, complete, finished, paid in full, rewarded. What I knew in my head made its way to my heart on my trip to Uganda; our God is a God of Shalom. He is in the business of restoring individual lives, whole communities and entire nations to Himself. Our world is broken and I have witnessed human efforts to band-aid these wounds, but God showed me in Uganda that he is the only answer that fully redeems. He is the only power that can convict man and help him turn from sin. Only God can answer the cries of a child living on the streets and bend his heart from stealing and drug addiction to praising and preaching. Only God can dig so deeply into the heart of a woman, once abducted and forced to murder, now healing and raising her children, singing and praising her Creator. Uganda held up a mirror to my own life and the ways in which I contribute to the suffering of others unconsciously. Step by step I am letting God into areas of my life that he wants me to surrender. The good news is that our God is also a God of immense grace. His grace covers me and it also covers Joseph Kony. It's the same grace and that blows my mind. I am so thankful for the opportunity to meet God in a new way, to understand that I serve a global God who is powerfully moving everywhere, not just in what I see around me.
Erin Kole
Rachel Styers
