Away from all of my family and friends.
Away from everything I have ever known.
Away from any "comfort zone" I have left.
And I'm completely OK with it.
It's 7,789 miles from Columbus, Georgia (my hometown), to Kampala, Uganda, which is where I am completing my Student Teaching for Fall 2014 at one of two international schools that partners with Kennesaw State's Student Teaching Abroad program. This is a map that shows just how far 7,789 miles is.
How it all came about:
Back in November, I received an email from Dr Sandra Bryan, the Director of Global Engagement, inviting me to a presentation by the students who student taught internationally during the Fall 2013 semester. The presentation was on a day when I did not have class or work, so I decided to go. Not knowing anyone or having any information about the program, I sat through the presentations, trying to take in as much as I could. During the presentations, someone placed in front of me an interest sheet for Fall 2014 Student Teaching, and on it were four countries: China, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Uganda. The China partnership is only for Early Childhood and Middle Grades majors, so I knew that country was out. I knew I did not want to go to Costa Rica, so I put checks next to Ecuador and Uganda, knowing I could pick between the two later if I decided to apply.
One of the major things holding me back from this experience was my recent interest in becoming a charter member of Sigma Nu fraternity at KSU. Sigma Nu had been planning to come to KSU during the Spring 2014 semester, and I had interest in becoming one of the men who would help that happen. During the Fall 2013 semester, I met with a few guys from Sigma Nu headquarters a couple of times, and all of the meetings went really well. I really thought this was something I wanted to pursue (even if a lot of my friends and family did not agree with me). However, God does this really cool thing where He looks at what I have planned for myself and says, "Nah, I've got something far better planned for you," and not even a week after the presentation meeting, He took away something that would have deterred me from the plans He had for me. KSU and Southern Polytechnic State University (SPSU - a university located in Marietta) had been working to merge the 2 universities into 1, and that finally became something that was going to for sure happen. SPSU already had a Sigma Nu chapter at its university. With this, SN headquarters did not want to colonize at KSU and then have to merge the two chapters when the university merged, so they decided to hold off on coming to KSU until this happened in Spring 2015, a semester after I was set to graduate. I was really bummed when I received this email, but I knew it served some purpose, so, with that, I was able to turn my focus to deciding if I wanted to go abroad for Student Teaching.
A new semester kicked off in January, and Dr. Bryan had been sending emails to those of us who attended the presentation meeting in December about meeting again. By this point, I decided that I was going to go, I just did not know where, so I went to the meeting. Dr. Bryan and others from her department talked with us about the 4 locations, about scholarships, about all of the benefits this would bring us and about all of the opportunities that we would have because of student teaching abroad. It all sounded really good and got me really excited for the fall. The only question that still remained was where I was going to go! I should have known that God was going to answer that question in a really cool way...and then reassure me a few days later that, yes, that is what He said the first time.
Echo is the college ministry of North Metro Church, the church I had been attending while at KSU, and it meets on Thursday nights. I was at one of these worship services in late January, and we were right in the middle of singing "Oceans." As we sang the line, "Spirit, lead me where my trust is without borders..." I heard the Lord say, very clearly, I might add, "Uganda." If I had not been praying about this situation and where I was to go, I would have thought the Lord was crazy for telling me the name of a random country. Instead, I froze and thought, "Whoa, the Lord is sending me to Uganda?" Although I knew that is what He wanted for me, I still went back and forth a few times on whether or not I understood Him correctly. However, He has a great way of putting our doubts to rest. That Sunday night, a friend of mine was having a worship night at his house. It was just a time for my community to gather together in a more intimate setting to worship the Lord. While there, the Lord made it very clear once again that, yes, Uganda is where He wanted me to go. After that, I knew there was nothing else I could do than to go!
Once I started telling my friends about where I was going, one of them said that her neighbor was currently in Uganda, and that she would work to set up a meeting when she returned so I could see pictures and hear about her experience. Talk about a God thing, right? When I met with her in February, I found out that she had just returned from supervising the two girls who were currently Student Teaching in Uganda. So not only did I get to hear about her experience in Uganda, but I also saw pictures of the school where the girls were teaching at and the guest house where they lived (housing had been a big concern for me)! It was such a great meeting, and, because of this, I connected with the two girls through email to hear directly from them about their experience.
Many months, many meetings, and one application later, I found out that there were enough placements for everyone who applied to Uganda to be able to go (but I had known since January where I was going)! Because of the high number of ST'ers going to Uganda (7), the KSU had to work out a partnership with a new school. While the seven of us do not know yet (we should be finding out within the next two weeks!) which school we will be at, we all know we are going to Uganda this fall from August-late November. Both schools are international (hosting students from over 70 different countries!), schools where English is spoken and are located in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, and one of the safest places in the country.
I will update readers on my placement in a few weeks!
You've probably heard a lot of people saying you are crazy, It's going to be so hard, it's expensive...etc. So what I'm going to say is, YOU SHOULD GO!!! If you are sure that it is a God thing and not a "wow, it would really be cool and different to do my student teaching in Uganda", thing, then you should definitely go. You're young, you'll probably not have many chances to do something like this, but none of that matters. If God called you there you should go. I have many regrets in life. Things I could have done and didn't, things I did do and shouldn't have, but the only regrets that linger are the ones where God was leading and I didn't follow. If God called you there, YOU SHOULD GO!!!
ReplyDelete