Monday, September 19th, 2011
Hello ALL!
 Wow.
That was the most amazing and indescribable trip of my life. However, I am going to do my best to describe all that I saw and experienced.Â
I wanted to thank you all again for the prayers and support. I asked for a lot of prayer and I definitely felt the effects of your prayers. No back pain whatsoever. I had the most patience I’ve ever had in my entire life (and trust me, there were circumstances that demanded patience.)Â
I’ll start with saying that God is SO GOOD. (to which you might reply “Amina” (AH-MEEN-AH) which is Amen in Ugandan.) Our first day in Uganda arrived and we walked off the plane with high hopes and tired eyes. We’d just gotten off the second of our two flights. But we were finally here! “Ah, Entebbe Airport!” I remember, my teammate and plane buddy, Linda Clemens announced. (I already loved her so much, she was always smiling.) We were warmly greeted with a HUGE smile by that of none other than Musumba (this is the Ugandan word for Pastor. Pastor Edward-but we all called him Musumba.) We then all piled into his small car and the safari-like van with our faithful driver, named Christoper, telling us of the sights. And let me tell you- it was a sight to see! Cars actually FLOWING with traffic. It’s a scary sight for an American- cars not stopping for other cars but somehow not hitting each other while centimeters away, trying to get into the “flow” of traffic along dirt roads with people everywhere. And where we were there was staring. I think they thought to themselves either, “Oh look, a white person!” or “Hah, good luck guys.”Â
When we first arrived at the compound (or Musumba’s house) we were greeted with maybe 30-40 little kids shouting/singing “muzungu! muzungu!”(which is Ugandan for traveler or person who is not native) I had never been so happy to see kids before in my life. There was no turning back after that. My heart instantly melted for these kids and for all of Uganda.Â
Let me tell you about “what we did” while there. The first days we went to a town called Mpunge ( the M is pretty much silent) where we were greeted with even more smiling/singing/dancing children. (Can I just say their classrooms are literally a few sticks and a chalkboard.) We take what we have for granted SO much. At least I do. There we taught them the wordless Bible using the ‘bracelet technique.’ (the five colors on a bracelet) We handed them out to each child and then asked some of them to come up and tell us what they learned. Which they did so well! We got to teach the younger women (mainly 19-25) all of whom had babies of their own. Steph (my best friend Stephanie Schwoebel, who I’ve known since Junior High got to go on the trip with me as well and it was a huge blessing!) I told them our testimonies with a translator and they were very eager to know all about it and even had many similarities and some of the same struggles. The next day we got to talk with the Elders and teachers of that particular village and share testimonies and even got to eat with them (homemade food!) Later on we even partook in football (soccer) with the young kids and some of the young girls followed us all around because they looked up to us so much.Â
I want to be specific in saying that I could go on for days and days talking about this and I will if you would like! But I’m going to try my best to be “brief.”  So we taught Vacation Bible School (or VBS) to about four different villages and got to make friendships with some of the kids and teachers while doing so. We even passed out lollipops to the kids and they were overjoyed. We also provided them with soccer balls and they went absolutely NUTS over them! Such a blessing to be even a tiny part of that. I took in a lot while I was there and a learned a lot even just through sitting back and observing. A big part of why we were there for a few of the days was to teach them simple things like “how to brush your teeth” and “how to wash your hands.” I demonstrated both and probably looked pretty silly, but I just wanted them to actually learn and also laugh. I think we accomplished that. We handed out toothbrushes and toothpaste everywhere we taught this (which was nearly every village)Â
Another big accomplishment for our small yet humble team (consisting of seven lovely women and one brave man:) ) was that we helped paint a local church (planted by Word in Deed). We painted nearly the whole church (what needed painting) one day and the next day we re-painted for a top coat. It turned out just great! They were all so very thankful and thanked us with an amazing meal of rice and chicken and sent us off with love and hugs. Their smiles were enough for me.Â
We also had three nurses on our team and in each village we took their blood pressure and helped them with any specific needs.Â
These people have many many needs and my eyes were opened to that even more from being there first hand. Even though we were there only a short time I think we made lasting impressions on these sweet people and I would love the opportunity to go back for a lot longer of a time next time!
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I don’t want to leave anything out but I also don’t want to write so much that this goes on forever. That is the gist of what we did. It was just a mind blowing experience that I wouldn’t trade anything for and I would trade EVERYTHING to go back. I wanted to thank everyone who made this possible but I really wanted to thank Jesus in opening the door for me to go after having Uganda on my heart since I was little. I’m already praying more doors will be opened and I will receive a “yes, Amy go..” from God to tell me to go back. Doing what?…helping who, exactly?.. I’m not sure yet. But I do feel this on my heart everyday even more so now.
I’m going to share with you and leave off with this letter I received from my dear friend Mark (who is like the little brother I never had)Â (keep in mind a lot of them thought my name was Emily or Emmy).
(written by a 10 year old amazing Ugandan boy)Â
Dear Eimmy,
How have you been since I first meant you  I think you have been great how can you not be great. I want to thank you for a good service you have given me you have been a good friend or like a sister you and Stephan (he is referring to my friend Steph) I will miss you when you go back to U.S.A but I have hope you will come back.
from Mark
THIS is what I went for! God is so good. AMINA!! (say it with me:) !!
SO MUCH THANKS and LOVE,
Amy DePoy
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