Life as a Young Adult on a Catholic Mission Trip

A lot of us dream of going on a mission. Especially as young people, we're enraptured with the idea of travel, seeing new places, meeting new people, learning so many new things. So we dream and dream, then ten years later we realize we accomplished so little of what we wanted to do. So many of us never made it to Africa, and a lot still wonder what it would be like.

Part of CARITAS For Children's mission is to help people accomplish their dreams of serving in an overseas mission. We want to help you encounter your faith. Sometimes serving in a mission doesn't necessarily mean going to preach and evangelize, or accomplish as much as is physically possible in the short time you are there. It's about deepening your faith, and standing together with the people you came to serve. We hear it time and time again from our ministry partners, just how much it means that people come. We are brothers and sisters united by our faith from all corners of the world. It matters not so much what you do while you are there, but that you do it. It's being there that matters.

I was privileged to serve as a young adult on a Catholic mission trip with CARITAS For Children. I worked in Nkokonjeru, Uganda with the Little Sisters of Saint Francis, our ministry partners-an amazing group of women who work tirelessly to better the lives of men, women, and children in East Africa.

I expected to find starving people, people dying of AIDS, filthy children with no one to care for them, people hardened by suffering and unhappy twists of fate. And those things were there, sometimes in abundance, but not in the way I had expected.

Uganda is rich with beauty. In the south central region where Nkokonjeru is harbored between a multitude of hills, there are forests of lush banana trees and sugar canes that often look like jungles, there are dirt roads of vibrant red clay, a brilliant blue sky that stretches endlessly overhead and the smell of all of it reeks of earth, rain, and an abundance of growth that masks the sickly sweet scent of decay. Uganda is beautiful.

Children roam the streets, often barefoot, chasing tires they use as toys. They have laughing eyes and wide, bright smiles. They run up to me to touch me, hold my hands, and pull on my long skirts. If I dance, they dance, and people gather to clap their hands and laugh and dance with me. They shout from porches where their mothers are hard at work, two or three young children often playing at their feet.

"Muzungu!" they cry. Their voices are high and sweet, and they often keep waving, shouting until I shout back. There are two little girls in town that are extra special-their mother runs a shop I often buy potatoes, rice, and cooking oil from. Their father drives a truck and will give me a ride to Mukono. The girls are students at the nursery school where I taught, and every time I stop by the shop they scream with joy and leap into my arms.

"Nantongo Kirabo!" they yell, hanging on my arms and legs. It is my Ugandan name, denoting my clan (which was assigned to me by a man in a taxi who decided spur of the moment that I would belong to his clan). Nantongo is a name that belong to the monkey clan, but Kirabo means "Gift" or more literally "Gift from God." I'm still not entirely clear on why they chose to give me such a beloved name, but it has something to do with being joyful. People who like to smile, laugh, and dance, are a gift from God to others, and God has also given them a gift of joy. Whether or not I am a gift to the people of Uganda, I don't know, but I do know that God has blessed me with the opportunity to work among them. When you work with people who are always joyful despite their suffering, it is almost impossible to be unhappy.

There is an older woman in town, Jia Jia (grandmother), who always walks up to me, swaying on unsteady feet. She wears the traditional dress, a Gomez. She takes my arm and walks with me for a ways, talking endlessly in Luganda, most of which I don't understand, but I can see the smile on her face and the joy in her eyes and I know that she is glad to see me. And I am glad to see her.

To live in Uganda, day by day, dependent on the grace of God you have to have three things. You need these three things no matter where you live, but these people acknowledge and embrace it in a way the western world is afraid to do.

Faith.

Hope.

Love.

You need faith that God has not abandoned you, that He is watching over you‚ that He. Will. Provide.

You need hope in Heaven, and in the future of your children and those you love. It won't always be this way. You have to have hope that they won't suffer without cause.

And you need love. CARITAS literally means love. Love for children. Love begets faith, love begets hope. Your love is often what helps others keep their faith or gives them hope. Your love for your sponsored child is what gives them hope for their future, and cements their faith that God will and has provided for them.

To serve in Uganda, you need all these things as well. Otherwise it would be impossible to look at the suffering around you and not despair. But I looked around, and the people I know who have also served, looked around‚ and we didn't despair. Instead we found faith, hope, and love in this community. We found joy here, and received far more than we ever imagined. We received when we came to give.

Maybe you're bumping along a dirt road hoping you don't fall off the back of a motorcycle, maybe you're walking through a maze of sugar canes looking for a small hut, maybe you're holding a crying child, dancing with a classroom of happy kids, struggling to converse with a man or woman who only speaks Luganda when you know a total of two dozen basic words. Not matter where you are or what you are doing, you are receiving so much from these people. Knowledge, experience, and the faith, hope, and love that are an all-important part of living.

But you're also giving. Just by standing there, you are giving these people so much because you tell them that they are not alone.

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Building Relationships Globally; Impacting Faith Locally