Brett's Story

I’ll admit, I didn’t have a heart for Africa.  I remember seeing the wall of pictures and locations of missionaries that my church supported while growing up and hearing their stories on their annual returns to our church.  The stories that I held on to were the stories of giant snakes and disease-carrying mosquitoes.  To me, Africa was a place rich with history but I had no mental or emotional connection to the continent.  My idea of spending time out of the country was going to an exotic island and swimming with sea turtles.  It certainly was not going to a place where I had to sleep under a tent just to avoid mosquitoes. 

That was, of course, until I met my beautiful wife.  At that point, she had already been to Africa on a number of occasions starting as a child.  She talked about Uganda with such love and compassion that it was eventually infectious.  It was an ingenious plan to change my heart:  she started with amazing memories and videos of her previous trips and then invited the leader, Pastor Dongo, of the Buyamba orphanage to stay with us on one of his trips back to the US three years ago.  He is an amazing man whose life’s mission is God’s mission, to care for the orphans as James 1:27 so directly lays it out.  It fueled my desire to give back, to serve those less fortunate and pour love into the lives of these young children and women.  Needless to say, through Talitha’s stories and the stories of many who have gone on missions trips and come back to talk about how wonderful their experiences have been, my heart has softened toward the people of Africa and for the orphans and widows that we have been called to serve.  There is a consistent theme among the people that return from these mission trips: they’ve all gone to care for and serve the African people and God changed their lives forever along the way.  

I am happy to have a tour guide on this mission in Talitha and to have my daughter there as well. Though she may not remember much about the trip, we certainly pray that this will begin to build a servant heart in her… and her daddy.