Hello all 🙂
I was fortunate enough to go home to Iowa over fall break, which started last Friday and ended on Wednesday morning.
My first activity at home was going to my sister Priscilla’s high school football game on Friday night. She had told me earlier that there is a superstar player on the team. I was reluctant to trust her, but after he scored SIX touchdowns and helped the team to win 77-0, I had to believe it.
On Saturday night, I went with Priscilla, my brother Elijah, and my parents to a celebration for Uganda’s 51st independence day which was on October 9. My parents grew up in Uganda and lived there until 1991, so Ugandan culture is a big part of our lives. We spent the night in Ankeny, a suburb of Des Moines, talking and dancing with about 40 other Ugandans. Even though my family has lived in Iowa for only two years, I already feel like I have found a family in our Ugandan community.
On Sunday, I was blessed to participate in a volunteer activity with my church. Each year since 2009, we have set aside one day to bag 100,000 meals as a congregation for people in Zimbabwe, a country hit hard by poverty and AIDS. In Zimbabwe, there are 1,000,000 AIDS orphans under the age of 18, and 68% of the general population earns $1 a day. Using 1 John 3:18 as a guide, my church decided to show our love to the people there by feeding them.
Dear children, let us not love with our words or speech but with actions and in truth- 1 John 3:18
The meals we packaged contained rice with vitamins and spices. We poured the ingredients into little plastic bags and had to make sure that each bag weighed the same amount. After filling and weighing 36 bags, they went into a large cardboard box. Over the course of an hour, the group I was in filled six large boxes. Since each plastic bag held six meals, and a large box held 36 bags, my group made over 1,200 meals! All 100,000 meals will be shipped to an orphanage for children and adults who have lost parents to AIDS and/or have AIDS next month, along with clothes and books.
Break is always a great time to catch up with family and friends. I’m so glad I got to do that, and help out some people in Zimbabwe!
Rachael