Change

Well, a friend of mine told me I need to write more about myself rather than just my experiences in Uganda, and that I should change the title of my blog. How can people be sick of hearing about me in Uganda?? I never talk about it! :P I haven't gotten to changing my blog title, but I'll write more about my own life in this post rather than Ugandan experiences. That should satisfy him. :)

So, it's been a period of life changing decisions for me. This coming fall semester will be my final semester at BYU. So unbelievably exciting seeing as I have never enjoyed school. But now I am experiencing the fear of "what next?!" I think that most girls can agree that growing up in Young Women's we all are subtly, or not so subtly, taught that we will just go to college and find the man of our dreams and get married before we graduate. We'll probably get our degree but won't really need to use it because our husband will provide for us while we raise our family in righteousness. It sounds great, but when reality hits, I'm graduating from BYU unmarried, with a degree and minor that I am going to have to use. It may sound like I am upset about the fact that I did not get married at age 19 or 20 while finishing school at BYU, but when I think about it, I really am not. I just turned 22, I'm graduating from college, and am still barely experiencing life. The experiences that have made me who I am today, I could never have had if I had gotten married young. I am incredibly grateful for the Lord's timing. I have been able to have experiences that have molded and shaped me into the person I am becoming. I'm by no means the person I hope to become in the future, but I'm on the right path and will continue that way through more life experiences.

Not only is there the fact that I'm leaving BYU unmarried, but now I need to find a job...a REAL job! I have always enjoyed working. And I truly love my field of work. I expected that I would be able to stay somewhat close the next few years. My dream job is in Salt Lake City with Church Headquarters working with Church Humanitarian Services. But they have the hiring freeze, thus no job there right now. Starting looking at the job market I had a huge shock realizing that my real job options are actually out in Washington D.C. I had never thought about living out there. I am not a big city person and the idea of living there completely scares me.

Currently I am looking for an internship position after graduation and am hoping to find one either with the Church in SLC or one in D.C. It will be a big life change either way. But I keep telling myself that change is good and everything will work out for the absolute best!
Change is just an opportunity for God to steer our lives in a better direction.

Musana Jewelry

"Musana"-Translated from Luganda means "light" or "sunlight." Musana Jewelry, an organization founded by myself, Kristen Daniels, and Melissa Sevy is an organization which focuses on empowering women in Uganda who are in the grasps of poverty, poor health, and illiteracy. As founders of Musana Jewelry we are on a mission to help others "Be a Light" to these women and help these women "Be a Light" to themselves through self-efficiency. Musana Jewelry has become larger than I expected much faster than I expected.

People often ask me why I am running a nonprofit organization while I'm in my senior year at BYU and working full time. I often wonder that myself. Then I also am asked if it is even making a difference. That question runs through my head at least ten times a day. Then I hear from the women who are employed by Musana and I realize why I work so hard and why it is all worth it.

Before working for Musana, Florence, a now single mother who just gave birth to her fourth child less than a month ago, struggled to provide enough food for her children and pay rent for her home. Recently I received this message from her, “i always thought of simple work that would enable me to look after my orphaned children with out straining and laboring very hard, am glad that am happy here and i can now afford to buy food, pay for my house rent, send my children to school and provide my personal basic needs”

The blessing of being able to see all the hard work paying off in individual lives is priceless. Florence recently was able to afford to give birth to her fourth child in the local hospital. I am happy to report that both she and the baby girl are doing well.

Sometimes I wonder what I am doing. I am not qualified to be doing this and I don't have all the skills needed to be running this organization. But there is one thing I have learned through all this. The Lord qualifies those whom He has chosen. I felt strongly that I was supposed to start Musana Jewelry along with Kristen and Melissa and now I can see how He has helped support us through other people's help, a great team who volunteer their time freely, and through other means I never thought possible. The Lord truly strengthens those who trust in Him.

www.musanajewelry.org

"All promises are empty here"

When I first arrived in Lugazi, Uganda I traveled to a village called Kawoto. This is possibly one my favorite places on earth. After speaking with the head woman of the village, Rose, I got ready to leave and began speaking with a group of young girls. They spoke English very well and I asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up. One said she wanted to be a secretary, another a doctor, and the last an engineer. These were such beautiful goals. These girls lived in a village who worked as laborers to a man named Mehta who owned almost all of the sugarcane fields of Lugazi. Their families lived on about 75 cents a day. They had a school in the village but no teacher due to a lack of funds to pay them. Without schooling, the dreams of these beautiful girls would never come true. As I said goodbye to these girls with my mind racing with thoughts of what work we could do with this village one asked if I was ever coming back. I said that I would like to very much. She stared into my eyes and boldly stated, "All promises are empty here."

For this young girl promises had been made and promises had been broken. This was a life changing moment for me. I vowed to myself that I would not break my promise to her.

I returned about a week later and began working with her village. By the end of the summer, our team and her village together had implemented a small jewelry making business and a income generating cabbage farm.

The projects were not what changed my life. It was the vow I made on Kawoto Hill. The people I met and came to love more than life itself. After meeting amazing people like the girls from Kawoto Hill I knew my life would never be the same. When I returned to the U.S. Kristen Daniels and Melissa Sevy got together and Co-Founded a nonprofit organization, Musana Jewelry. This has drastically changed my life as I am still a full time student, work as many hours as a student can, and try to run a nonprofit at the same time. People ask me all the time why I am doing this. It may not make sense to them, but they didn't meet the girls on Kawoto Hill, they didn't see the look in her eyes when she said, "All promises are empty here."

My promises can NEVER be empty.

Re-entering the blogging world

I created this blog to write about my adventures in Africa. When I got to Uganda I realized that emailing my family on the very slow internet was more important than trying to get blog posts to upload. Now that I'm back in the states I decided that I would try my hand at blogging again. We'll see how it goes. I've decided I'm not a very good blogger. Why did I come to this conclusion? This is attempt three at this blog post and it's still not very good. But, no one is really going to read this so it doesn't really matter. I basically want to write about what is going on in life, how one experience changed my entire life and how life is 100% different than what I ever though it would be. So, blogging world, here I go...