2013 in Review

Hey, Everybody!

2013 has been quite an interesting year, filled with new places and

experiences. The biggest, most obvious thing that happened to me this

year is that I moved to Uganda, but I’d like to start at the beginning.

2013 started off with Dad in the hospital. That was a pretty scary

ordeal, but praise God, he recovered well, and is back to pastoring,

beekeeping, and being awesome.

Meanwhile, in December of 2012, I had started looking into opportunities

to do mission work in another country. In February, God opened a door

for me to go to Kaihura, Uganda, and work with the organization,

Know.Think.Act, and the Ugandan non-governmental organization,

Bringing Hope to the Family. BHTF works in the Kaihura, Uganda, area to

improve the local standard of living. By March, I had decided to move to Uganda

and began preparing to move halfway around the world.

On June 1, armed with my passport and a really overweight bag, I

headed to Uganda. About 24 hours later, I arrived at the Entebbe

airport outside the capital city of Kampala. June was a crazy month

of trying to get adjusted to life in Uganda, helping with volunteer

teams, and saying goodbye to the wonderful Sasser family (the

family that lived and worked in Kaihura before me for five years).

What I’m not sure I expected about living in Africa, and what most

people don’t seem to realize, is that life is life anywhere you live.

You fall into a routine. Days, weeks, and months pass. Of

course, exciting, out-of-the-ordinary things happen, but usually days

here are just regular days, like they would be anywhere, and that’s

okay. I’m perfectly happy for most of my days to be filled with work,

friends, and food.

However, everyday days aren’t very exciting to write about. So, I’ll

give you the highlight reel. The first two weeks of July a team of

four girls about my age came to Kaihura and we had a blast! We spent

our days working and a lot of evenings laughing and playing cards. Also, during

the summer, a team from Duke University was in Kaihura volunteering. They

unexpectedly blessed me with a much-needed computer (long story, but

amazing)!

In August, I was able to go on my first safari with my pastor’s family

(the Calhoons) and my friend, Alexa. Queen Elizabeth National Park,

the nearest safari park, is about three hours from where I live.

The roads to get there are horrible, but it is totally worth it! Queen

Elizabeth is home to lions, elephants, warthogs, cob (a type of antelope),

Cape buffalo, hippos, crocodiles, hyenas, leopards, as well as lots

of birds and lizards. (Uganda also has zebra and giraffe, but the giraffe live

farther north, and the zebra live farther south.) While on our safari,

we were able to see almost every type of animal in Queen Elizabeth,

except leopards. It was amazing to see the beauty of God’s

awesome creation.

September 1 was a sad day for me; it was the day my friend,

Alexa, left Uganda to go home to the States. My biggest fear

before coming to Uganda was that I wouldn’t make any good friends

or connect with the people around me. Thank God, my prayers for

friends were answered, and I have been blessed with many good friends.

Alexa was my first good friend in Uganda, and one of my best friends.

We had a great time my first three months here, running around together,

talking for hours, watching movies, and doing a little traveling.

The day after Alexa flew out of the Entebbe airport, a volunteer team

of nurses from UCLA flew in. This team stayed very busy, holding six

medical outreaches, and one mosquito net outreach. It was so great to

see Ugandan people who hadn’t received medical treatment in years

come to the clinics and receive care.

While September and October in North Carolina bring cooler weather and

falling leaves, in Uganda they bring rain, lots of rain.  Rainy season

peaks in the middle of October, with heavy rains every day that turn

the roads to mud. So when, in the middle of October, my pastor’s family

asked if I wanted to travel with them to the neighboring country of Rwanda,

I was happy to get away from the rain that plagued Kaihura. We spent a few

days on the banks of Lake Kivu in Gisenyi, Rwanda, taking time to rest.

I never expected how tiring it can be to live in a different culture, so it was

great to be able to take a few days to relax.

November brought more rain and a trip to Kampala. Faith Kunihira, the

founder of Bringing Hope to the Family, left for a month-long visit to the

US on November 13. We counted the days until she recently returned!

Also, in November I spent Thanksgiving with my pastor’s family and other

friends in Fort Portal, Uganda. Thanksgiving is not a Ugandan holiday, of

course, but my friend, Destiny Calhoon, made it a special holiday with an

amazing “American Thanksgiving” meal!

Now, it’s December, one year after I first began exploring mission opportunities.

What a difference a year can make! I’m now looking forward to a Ugandan

Christmas and all the festivities that come with it, as well as whatever exciting things God has in store for 2014.

Kate Aukerman

P.S. Although the focus of this newsletter is my personal life in 2013, there are

also many exciting things happening with Know.Think.Act and Bringing Hope

to the Family. To keep up with what is going on with KTA and BHTF, check out

the blog I write at knowthinkact.com. You can also subscribe to regular emails

from KTA by visiting knowthinkact.com.