Sandra's Story

The decision that Denny and I made to move to Jinja, Uganda in January 2018, started with seeds that God planted in my life years ago.

Sandra, Denny, and the girls in about 2005

 I can look back to 2005 when the girls were in Vacation Bible School.  The theme was the diverse African ecosystem known as the Serengeti.  The format of the program called for the children to be divided by age into small groups then moved from station to station learning about Jesus. At the end of a session, when all of the children had moved through all of the stations, everyone gathered in the sanctuary, where skits were performed, loud music played, and the kids danced wildly.  The event lasted 5 days, and the stations and skits changed daily.

For one of the sessions, I was asked to “man” a station where the kids would receive a snack and watch a 15-minute video. At the end of the video, I was to lead a discussion about what they watched until the kids moved to their next station.  In the video, a chipmunk character helped a medical team in the Serengeti.  In the middle of the video, the chipmunk's actions occurred while a song called "Use Me" played in the background.  The room was dark.  The kids were watching.  The song started. The words to the song were very simple: “Jesus use me. Take this life of mine and use me.”  

As the video played, these words were so powerful to me that I started crying, almost sobbing during this song.  When the video ended, I quickly had to compose myself to begin the discussion. Discussion ended and the next group arrived. The same thing happened, I cried again. There were 4 or 5 groups and I cried in each one. I was a total wreck, completely embarrassed and, needless to say, the evening could not end fast enough.  The words to the song had such an impact on me that long after Vacation Bible School ended I prayed for Jesus to use me, to take this life of mine and use me.   

Karen Dorado gave Sandra the book "Kisses From Katie"

I remember in 2012 when I was given a book called Kisses From Katie, about an 18 year old named Katie Davis, who moved to Uganda after high school to teach kindergarten. I loved the book, signed up on Katie’s website, and ordered a bracelet made by Ugandan ladies. Katie set up the bracelet making program through her charitable organization called Amazima. The money from the bracelets helped feed the ladies' families. This program (still in existence today) is one of the many ministries that Katie’s nonprofit organization sponsors. Amazima means “truth” in Lugandan.

Since I was on the email list, I regularly received emails and looked at the site once in a while, but mostly I just deleted the emails. Even though I had not looked at any of the emails for about two years, last October, I opened an email from Amazima and it said: "Amazima Ministries is hiring." The questions immediately popped into my head. Amazima Ministries is hiring?  What could they possibly be hiring people to do?  I read further. Amazima was opening a Ugandan secondary boarding school in February of 2017 and they needed house parents to live at the school for two years. They were looking for Christian couples who would model a Christ-centered marriage to the students. They were recruiting for the 2018 school year as they already had a team in place for 2017.  

I loved this idea, but more questions popped into my head. Would Denny love it?  I was afraid of his reaction. He and I had talked before about possibly being missionaries and he was not keen on the idea of any long-term mission, let alone one in Africa. When Denny got home from work I asked him to look at the web site with me.  He said, "House parents?" We looked at the site together.  Without much discussion, after a few minutes of looking, he simply said, "Send in an application. See what happens." Really, he would really do this with me?  Even go to Africa? I cried. This was an answer to that prayer of mine. The prayer that God would use me; that God would use us. A prayer that Denny and I would some day serve together.

In Uganda, at the source of the Nile.

From there, we completed the application, interviewed several times with Kelly Miller, the head of the house parent program, video chatted to see what each of us looked like, and this past March visited the school. Once we began the process, the decision seemed to take care of itself. I am thrilled to be part of this new journey where God is taking this life of mine and using me. (The song "Use Me" is the background music to the still pictures in our video, which you can find under our "links" on the home page.)