Hello, my name is Nicole Kunczewski and I am one of 18 team members who are traveling on mission to Uganda in 19 days. Let me start with a big disclaimer: I have never blogged before and I don't even read a whole lot of blogs, so this should be interesting. I am a big journaler (is that a word?), and a huge advocate of capturing life's moments in writing, which is why I signed up to be the blogger for our trip.
I would like to give a big shout-out to my team members: Dan Autry, Cindi Bearden, Jessica Bearden, Susanna Cipolla, Katie Firth, Tim Fraumann (my dad), Glen Jackson, Barry Mann, Robyn Mann, Lisa Morgan, Nick Nehring, Kevin Payne, Pam Rogers (aka Mela), Darryl Taunton, Kylie Taunton, Taylor Whitlow, and Winston Whitlow. Y'all: I apologize in advance because I do not even begin to know how to represent the feelings and experiences of an entire group of people, let alone my own. All of your input is needed & appreciated.
To the rest of you peeps reading right now, please allow me to take this opportunity to tell you a little bit about our trip: On July 15th at 3:15AM (that's right, AM!) we start our extremely long & no doubt exhausting journey to Uganda to work at Agape Total Child Care, a private orphanage started by William Nsubuga that hosts 39 children who have lost both parents to AIDS (see http://www.agape4kids.org/). The Uganda mission team is based at Western Heights Baptist Church, but includes members of other churches and denominations. The team's primary project will be to participate in building a new orphanage facility, but we will also have the pleasure of loving on some precious children! SIFAT (Servants in Faith & Technology - see http://www.sifat.org/) is the missionary organization that trained William. SIFAT also sends short term mission teams to aid the missionaries who have graduated from their program. We are the very first team being sent to Uganda.
I will leave you with our team's mission statement: "For GOD to be glorified through our humble obedience and trust in HIM. To show HIS transforming love and be transformed by it." I hope and pray that this blog will be one of the ways that this mission is accomplished.
Hi Nicole,
ReplyDeleteI like this blog.This is Pastor Greg. My name on my google account is Moderator, because I moderate a lot of blogs. Trying to change it for this one so as not to cause confusion. Great start on the blog.
Here is a prayer Jenna prayed for Ukraine. I think it fits all mission trips:This time tomorrow I will be on a plane.
We leave for Ukraine at 4:30pm. I'm beyond excited.
I've prepared all that I can. I've packed, and re-packed, then packed some more. We just finished packing all the supplies at the church tonight. I've hung out with as many people as I possibly can. 10 people now have power-of-attorney over me, "just in case." I've prepared, I've prayed, I've planned.
So now I'm giving it to God. Giving the trip, giving the traveling, giving the language confusion, and everything else to Him. Because really, I think he'd do a better job than I ever could.
Please pray for us. Pray for safe travels, health, language issues, lost luggage issues, the orphans, the translators, us... but most of all pray that His will be done. And that His Name will be glorified.
See you in two weeks. :)