​​Although interacting with the children in the villages brought me joy, my experiences in Uganda were so awesome because of the people who went on the trip with me. As I said earlier, there were several people, similar in age to me, on the trip. Four of them, Paige, Preston, Will and Charlie, went to Lutheran High and I had seen them but never talked to them. These four people, plus my sister, really made my trip. They were so fun to spend time with and talk to. On our bus rides to each village, we jammed out to music on my sister’s speaker. We stayed up late playing card games like uno, one night werewolf and spoons, which got very competitive every time we played it. I normally go to bed early every night but I always wanted to stay up with them. We joked that no one wanted to go to bed even if we were tired because of FOMO. We went on a boat ride and had a DJ playing music for us. We had a major dance party and genuinely enjoyed being with them. All of these memories are so special because of them.

​Some other people that made my trip so memorable were the Ugandan Hearts and Hope staff. These people worked for the organization, but they lived in Uganda. One of my favorite people was Violet. Violet had many sayings like “trouble in the house” or “who does that”, but her thick accent made it funnier when she said these things. We taught her slang from America like “that’s cap” or “you popped off”. She also played games with us kids, but she liked to cheat, even if she didn’t think she was. Another person that influenced me was our bus driver, Julius.
He tried to teach me some words in Swahili, even though I don’t remember any of them now. He wasn’t a fan of the music we played on the bus, so he would turn on his music so that it overpowered ours. I enjoyed talking to Julius and Violet and can’t wait to see them again someday.

​Uganda is definitely one of my favorite trips I have ever been on and I would do anything to go back. Uganda brought me a kind of happiness that I had never felt before. It’s hard to explain my trip to others because they won’t actually understand what goes on there unless they experience it for themself. No matter the difference between my life and theirs, God is working in and through us. I am forever grateful for the relationships and memories I have because of my trip and I can’t wait to go back someday. I am so thankful I was a part of this trip and I hope I made an impact on the kids because they made an impact on me.

I am a member of Messiah Lutheran Church and have been for over 22 years.    I can remember when we first started talking about and supporting a village in Uganda.  We had Christmas offerings dedicated to them.     I also remembering rolling my eyes and thinking – we have our own “needy” people to take care of.   We have lots of people who need help in the US, in Missouri, even in our own county – why are we sending so much money to Uganda??    I did not want to be a part of it.    

​God had a different plan……..

As they started showing more and more videos of the kids and the poverty and their dirty little faces and shoeless feet, something started to stir in my heart.    I tried so hard to suppress it, but it just kept creeping up.   

Then, one night while sitting in the bar of a restaurant listening to the music and chatting with our Pastor I told him my feelings.    He pulled me to the hallway and we sat on a bench and he said, why don’t you go?  On a mission trip???? To Uganda????   No thanks.    He then said for me to list my top three reasons why I would not go.    As I firmly stated each one, he shot them down, one by one, sometimes with scripture, sometimes just with “Pastor Chuck” wisdom.  I promised him I would think and pray about it.

Of course the songs the next day at church really all seemed to be pointed right at me.

I get in the car and EVERY song I hear is about being the hands and feet of Jesus, or here I am Lord, send me.  It was maddening! 

The next Sunday the video was again about Uganda and I found myself almost sobbing.   My husband John was like – what is going on?    I told him my dilemma and he said – just go.

​So, I went.    I have never been the same.   Part of my heart was left in that hot, dirty village with those shoeless, smiling, happy kids.    

​The people were so joyous, the kids just wanted to hold my hand and sit on my lap.   The poverty I saw in every place we traveled is like nothing I had ever seen.  Yes, we have poverty in the US – but not like this, to this degree.    My heart broke for them, just as God had planned.  I realized they are God’s children, just like I am and my girls are and but by the Grace of God, I could be in the same situation. 

So, long story short – we have sponsored multiple students over the years and currently have two – one in high school and one just starting her school journey.   My extended family now sponsors students – 7 altogether plus our 2.  I have been to Uganda on 11 trips now.   I have many friends there that are near and dear to my heart.  

God didn’t stop there – I now work for Hearts & Hope for Uganda.   A nonprofit that helps coordinate partners here in the US with villages in Uganda to develop relationships and transforms lives of vulnerable communities.  We start a school sponsorship program, install wells, build schools, latrines, dormitories, fund small businesses, and take care of medical needs. We build relationships by taking mission trip teams over to let them experience what I did so many years ago. 

We are – with God leading us – creating hope for those who need it. 

​I have been at Hearts & Hope for almost 10 years now!   Been to Uganda 11 times and literally donated thousands of dollars to a place/mission that used to make me roll my eyes!  John has been to Uganda and I have even taken one of our daughters – with the next one planning to go also.

​So, be careful what you tell God that you want “no part of”  - it is his plan – not yours or mine and He certainly changed my plans.   

Toni Vogt

​When someone from a privileged country comes to Uganda, they become very aware of how blessed they are to have so much material wealth, but that is only the beginning. Access to healthcare is probably the most understated blessing we Americans possess. Sure, there are clinics on basically every corner in Uganda, but going further into the village and even affording to take a motorcycle taxi to that clinic and pay the fees for treatment becomes too big a burden. 

This reality was presented recently when we were told by one of our sponsorship coordinators that a little boy named Akram had injured his foot and wasn’t healing. He was playing with a bicycle and his foot got stuck in the spokes and was badly injured. 

Little Akram is a special little boy who melts the heart of everyone he meets with his timid smile and playful demeanor. He lives with his ailing grandmother who tries to care for him but is not always well suited for this energized 6 year old. We were very worried for him since we were told it had been 2 weeks since the injury happened and the grandmother was treating the wound with “local herbs”. Being a nurse I knew immediately that his wound would be badly infected, however, seeing the rotting black flesh on this little limping angel boy was almost too much to bear. 

We immediately took him to the medical clinic (only a 20-minute drive) and the doctor said he could have become septic any day. The wound had to be debrided, cleansed and he was to receive IV antibiotics for a week. I took Akram's little hand and headed to the room where his wound would be treated, unfortunately without any kind of pain medication. As his tears streamed down my arm, I had to hold back my own tears as his cries echoed throughout the entire clinic. What settled my heart was the knowledge that this care was possibly saving his foot, if not his life. 

Once the wound was cleansed and dressed, we paid the bill (only around $30) and bought him clean, new socks and shoes to wear to protect his foot. 

Upon returning to the village he became happy little Akram again and I even caught him dancing later that day when music was playing. The joy in this boy's heart is extremely special and contagious. He faced so much pain over 2 weeks and suffered greatly at the clinic, yet still danced with glee a few hours later. Akram is my hero. He proves that no matter the hardships, no matter the pain, at the end of the day, life is worth dancing for! ​

Butogonha dedication day - a day that will be memorable for a long time in the minds of all who were present for the school dedication. This village was in a dilapidated state just 2 years ago, roof collapsed in after a storm and students unable to afford even a pencil. That is now juxtaposed by the beautiful, new school compound and hordes of students who greeted us with a parade before the school dedication – with full brass band and an acrobatics team included!

​The whole community came together to say thank you to the Hearts & Hope team and we want to extend that thank you to all who made this possible in just 2 years. Thank you to Kim Salls for having a vision for these students and enabling that vision to be fulfilled. Thank you to Messiah Lutheran for coming together and sponsoring so many sweet students that now fill the classrooms! What a joy and blessing it was to witness this whole experience.
 
To give you all a better idea of the “before” story of Butogonha, formally known as Namwendwa, here is an excerpt from a journal entry that one of our US staff members wrote on her very first trip to Butogonha (and Uganda!). 

​The people of Namwendwa are strong, beautiful, intelligent and resilient people. The other villages I'm coming to love have overcome similar difficulties and continue to develop and improve. While I don't know whether or not I will get to see Namwendwa develop in the next few years, I am thankful to bear witness to even this moment.

Looking through my western eyes, it's easy to get stuck on what is missing. I forget to revel in how MUCH of the most important things are already here - love, compassion, community, intentionality, deep relationships, resourcefulness, creativity, spiritual depth, generosity and natural beauty. Things that some of my American friends have only dreamt of and never fully experienced. Depth even I've only dreamt of having in my own life. Thanks to the progress in the other Hearts & Hope villages, I’ve seen what can happen when you place even the smallest resources into the hands of those who are eager to use them. The investment is amazing.

There's no real way to tell what will happen in Namwendwa or many of the villages just like it, but I have hope that change is coming, that transformation is already taking place.”

Indeed, the seeds of transformation were planted, and have now bloomed into something beautiful for these beautiful children and the future of the whole Butogonha community. 

After the team experienced the first 4 villages in the Jinja region and Eastern region, it was time to move North to the Kamuli district. This is where we have the villages of Kamuli, Mbulamuti, and the newest partnered village - Butogonha!

Kamuli and Mbulamuti impressed us with their obviously higher enrollment since the lockdown ended. There were SO many bright, smiling faces who greeted us when we arrived to deliver the packets. It was such a contrast to the “covid days” when the few staff who could travel to Uganda would show up to sparsely populated classrooms and would have to track down many students who had temporarily moved during covid. Those dark days were over and the schools were back to business as usual, with a much higher number of students! This is in large part due to the home based learning that Hearts & Hope was able to fund thanks to the sponsors support! Many surrounding primary schools completely shut down and did not offer any options to continue learning. It was obvious through what we saw that our goal was a success - the goal being to keep the minds of the students working and open even while the doors of the physical classroom were locked.

The new dormitory is another shining element of Butangala that has attracted many students from the surrounding area. Which means enrollment is up and the school is being supported by their own community. The girls who live there couldn’t wait to show us their beds, which they had all decorated and even had a competition to see who had the “best” made bed! It was hard to choose for sure, but in a possibly biased move, we chose the bed with photos of their sponsor prominently displayed. 

​:-)

​
​It has been raining every day in the villages and this meant the speeches were cut short, but it didn’t stop the packet process.

Two of our team members, Heather and Teresa, were so excited to finally meet their students face to face!

Next, Mary was able to visit the home of her sponsored student named Jolly. We try to always visit the homes of some students during our visits and when we’re able to take the sponsor to see where their student sleeps at night, it is even more impactful. ​

The difference between seeing the happy faces at the school to then seeing where the child spends the rest of their day can be a stark contrast yet is significant for the team and sponsor to witness the reality of poverty and why we do what we do to help these children rise up with education. 


Jolly and his mother were so happy to see Mary that she gave her a special gift - a live chicken! This is a token of their gratitude and is oftentimes one of the most valuable possessions that the family owns. 

​The gift of sponsorship and its reciprocal transformative nature was demonstrated so clearly in Nalwire!  ​Everyone left with content hearts and a motivation to continue working alongside Nalwire to ensure their continued expansion and future success for the sake of those children and the entire community. ​

How can we explain the feeling of the final packing night before a mission trip - nervous butterflies, sheer panic, and utter glee seem to sum it up nicely. 

Hearts & Hope is taking their FIRST team in 2 years back to see the students and people in Uganda that we serve. It has been a LONG time coming, but there is no doubt that it will be worth all the struggle it takes to fly 8,000 miles away during an ongoing pandemic - the FORMS, the TESTS, the MASKS, oh my!

once we arrive, we will be visiting 7 villages and delivering sponsorship packets to nearly 1,000 of our sponsored students! The team is ready to go and the students are (more than) ready to receive us! 

With schools reopening again after 2 years of lockdown, the first mission team on their way in mere hours, the launch of a new website experience for our sponsors, and the extended trip for our US staff, 2022 is looking to be the most exciting year yet!

Stay tuned for updates from the field, mission team, and from YOUR student when the team returns home! Thank you for your ongoing support and we appreciate prayers for a safe journey!

As we woke up on day one, we couldn’t believe we were in Uganda again. After 2 years of unknowns, canceled flights, and two lockdowns from the pandemic, the US team had safely arrived back to our second home.

The week was full of very important meetings with the Hearts & Hope staff (US and Ugandan) and the staff from the Lutheran Church of Uganda (LCU). The LCU are charged with running the schools, implementing projects and, more importantly, sharing the love of Christ with our students. As Hearts & Hope continues to grow, It is always so vital to hear updates from the field and envision improvements for the coming year.

We also had a few days of village visits in between long meeting days. This refreshed our spirits as we were reminded of the “why” we were all here in the first place - the children. Our “why” was especially evident in the village of Butogonha.

Butogonha has been visited by Hearts & Hope many times in the past. In 2016, Hearts & Hope installed a clean water well for the community after visiting and seeing them gathering water from local ponds shared with livestock. We also visited them several times on mission trips and it was always a favorite village for the team members due to the incredible energy and hospitality shown to the teams. During the last mission trip we took there, in February 2020, the village and school had deteriorated as students could not even afford pencils and the structure had collapsed in a storm. One mission team member was devastated by what she witnessed and became determined to help this village in any way possible to get them back on their feet. It was discussed with the LCU that if this school was going to survive, it needed a solid permanent structure. The team member graciously agreed to fund this project. In partnership with Messiah Lutheran Church in Weldon Springs, MO, who further committed to sponsoring the children to go to the school, the village of Butogonha was instilled with hope for their future once again.

Flash forward to April 2021 and Hearts & Hope held 2 sponsorship drives at Messiah, hoping to get some of the very first kids sponsored. We were elated when in just 2 weekends, over 90 kids had been sponsored by members of the congregation at Messiah. Without the incredible hearts of the mission team member who funded the school and all the people who felt called to sponsor a child there, this village and school community would have been victims of poverty and ultimately met their demise.

With this fact ingrained in our minds, we visited the school last week to distribute sponsorship packets to the children there for the first time! We knew it would be an exciting day for everyone. What we didn’t anticipate, however, is the immense transformation we witnessed as soon as we pulled up to the school. The whole team simultaneously yelled “woooooow” as what once was a dilapidated, half fallen structure made of sticks, was now a brick structure with 3 classrooms for the nursery students and the completed foundation of the larger, primary school structures. In addition, from what was about 10 children present in 2020, came HUNDREDS of children and parents to celebrate the day and share gratitude for the school, singing and dancing loudly all the way.

To say we were moved is an understatement….but wait, it gets even BETTER!

After the sponsorship packet distribution was through for the 100 sponsored students, something amazing happened that made all of the team fill with emotions. It started with one, a child came up to a team member and gave her some eggs, as a thank you gift for her sponsorship. This often happens as the parents want to show their appreciation, and share some gifts, even with what little they have. It truly demonstrates how grateful these people are for the gift of education. While this might happen with one or two students, in Butogonha, the gifts never stopped! From the time packets were over until we boarded the bus to leave, we all received bag after bag of avocados, oranges, cabbage, corn, jack fruit, bananas, cassava, and even a live chicken! Boy do these children appreciate their sponsors! We were overwhelmed at their generosity and upon leaving the village, both our hearts and hands were quite literally FULL.