On January 8th, my world will be turned upside down. Leaving everything behind (save a backpack full of essentials) I will embark on a plane headed to Kampala, Uganda.
Why exactly am I doing this?
Well, that’s something I’m still trying to figure out.
As if Res life here at Ambrose wasn’t enough of a culture shock, I’ve decided to spend my winter semester at Uganda Christian University (UCU) with a program called Best Semester. This is a program for North American students to spend a semester abroad learning about a different culture while taking classes that correlate with the programs that they’re in back home.
When my academic adviser handed me the brochure at the mention of my love for Uganda, God whispered in my heart “get ready for the adventure”, and I knew I had a wild ride ahead of me.
I guess I should start from the beginning. In junior high school, I felt the oh-so-stereotypical-Christian “calling” in my life to head to the missions field. With the idea of Uganda spinning in my head, I couldn’t think of doing anything else with my life, and believe me, I tried. While wrestling with this decision, I remember hearing sermons about surrendering fully to God – ‘but don’t worry, it’s not like God is going to call you to be a missionary in Africa’. If only they knew that’s exactly what He was doing. This thought that I tried to push to the back of my mind eventually became a passion, and I longed to travel to this place that I had so much love for, yet had never set foot in.
Fast forward to the summer of 2013. I got accepted by Best Semester. I am actually going to Uganda. With a shocked look on her face, my mom is hugging me and congratulating me and the realization hits my family. My parents are shipping their 20-year-old daughter to Africa for 4 months because she “feels like this is where God wants her”. If that doesn’t sound crazy, I don’t know what would. Yet we all put our faith in God, and start preparing for the year in front of us.
So what am I feeling? Well, to be perfectly honest I don’t even know the answer to that question. My best guess would be some sort of emotional cocktail of excitement, anxiousness, and wonder, and a sore arm from all the immunizations. Questions spinning around in my head range from “should I bother to bring a hair dryer?” to “how likely am I to get lost on my walk to and from school?”.
With very limited information about what exactly I will even be doing once I’m in Uganda, this journey is definitely what you would call a blind leap of faith. But I’m up for the challenge. Even if fear grips me for a short while, the one thing I am sure about is that this is where God wants me. And if there’s one thing God has taught me recently, it’s that there’s no better place to be than where God wants you to be, even if hardships come your way.
So I’m ready for the adventure. I don’t know what exactly the road looks like around this corner, but I know that God is my expert guide, and as long as I stick close to him, I’m golden.
- Courtney Hockaday, Behavioural Science Program
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