Uganda Summer 2024 - Kiah's Story
May 28, 2024
Before our trip to Uganda began, it was clear that this would not be a typical mission trip. It was important to each of us that this was not a trip where we were meant to do something for our Ugandan friends, but rather that we come with a posture ready to learn from them as we form meaningful, mutual relationships.
We entered into villages alongside our friends and hosts from the Kibo Group with a desire to learn from how they bring sustainable and holistic change to remote villages in Uganda. We watched as the Kibo staff brought real change through creating safe cooking procedures, addressing familial relations, bringing information regarding critical health conditions, planting trees to sustain the next generation, implementing sanitary practices, and so much more. To believe that Jesus loves each individual is to believe that he loves every aspect of their lives, and Kibo Group embodies this practice flawlessly. It was an honor to learn from their incredible compassion for others, commitment to sustainable care, and servant leadership.
In the mixed bag of experiences from everyone on our team, it is safe to say that mission trips have typically taught us primarily how to give. But our experience in Uganda taught us each something just as powerful: the art of learning to receive.
On one of our village days, we traveled together to a small village to see their safe cooking procedures and participate in making two stoves for families in the village. Before we could even step off of the bus we were met with music, cheering, and dancing. From a Westerner’s perspective, at first it seemed odd to accept that we were cause for celebration. After all, what did we do to deserve it? But as we all quickly learned, to receive guests is an immense honor for these villages. To be welcomed into a village as guests of honor, receive unnecessary celebrations, receive a full meal, and both work and dance alongside these people was an entirely surreal experience which challenges the idea that missional relationships can only be about giving and serving others.
This experience reminded me in many ways of the story of the prodigal son as he comes home begging to work for his father as a hired servant, but instead was met with an unexpected and unwarranted joy! Our new friends in Uganda taught us so much about the love of God through our interactions, even when we did not speak the same language.
It is easy to have a service-minded approach on any mission trip because that is our perceived missional calling as Christians (that should never be lost from the mission field!) But if there is anything we took from this experience, it was that only when we learn to receive can we truly begin to understand what mutual God-centered relationships look like.
Kiah Fisher
Not a Trip
Category: Student Life