Our dreams are changing, and it's all for His glory.

Beautiful daughters of God. He has big plans for these two.

Three years ago, when I first set foot in Uganda, I fell in love with a country that was 7,000 miles away from where I had grown up. I loved everything about it - I loved the red dirt roads, the lush fields of green; I even loved the Sunday afternoons spent hand-washing our clothes and the dinners we had by candlelight whenever the electricity would go out, which was a lot. But most of all, I loved the orphanage. I loved running there at any time of day to find a hundred beautiful children eager to play and learn and dance with their Auntie Jane. I loved reading stories in the open grassy fields while thirty children would gather around to listen. And most of all, I loved our times of worship where the echoes of the children's voices and drumming would carry far into the streets...

Timothy lost in worship <3

Sunday afternoon laundry with my amazing little sis....by the way, Ugandans can wash in 15 minutes what we could wash in an hour!

Long before Abbi and I met and decided to become partners in missions and ministry, we each felt Him calling us to make this foreign country our future home. As our hearts for Uganda grew, so did our desires for opening up an orphanage. Personally, I remember dreaming of a day when I could wake up in an orphanage full of a hundred beautiful children. I'd imagine a big building with bright painted walls and cribs full of irresistibly adorable kids. There would be days full of joy and days full of sorrow, but ultimately, I imagined it to be like a never-ending, beautiful mess of a sleepover party. I was hardly 21 and thought I had it all figured out. Little did I know back then how much God was planning to transform my heart. 

This photo was taken a few days before Abbi and I decided to partner as missionaries

Over the years, God has directed both Abbi's and my heart towards a different and far more beautiful vision for a future ministry. There is something wonderful to be said about the way God has moved our hearts in the same direction at the same time!

And here it is. 

It's not enough to be full of passion. 

God has been teaching me that passion must come hand in hand with knowledge, wisdom, and understanding in order for it to look like justice. Justice that is love. Justice that will set people free. 

I love what Gary Haughen, President of IJM, has to say about it. 

"Love is not so much about being affectionate as it is about advancing a person's good." 

I know a lot of people that like to criticize, theorize, and talk about what it means to bring forth justice. Ever since I felt the call to move to Uganda, I've asked Him to show me what justice in action really looks like. Because I don't want to reach the end of my life knowing that I talked a lot about justice. I want to have spent my life bringing God's heart for justice here - on earth as it is in heaven. 

So what does it mean to live out justice? 

It means being willing to recognize that passion by itself is not enough. Passion needs to meet with the unglamorous, yet necessary work of seeking education. The more we have educated ourselves as missionaries-in-training, spent time in the field, and taken the time to listen, the more we have come to understand that the last thing Uganda needs right now is a new orphanage. In Uganda today, families that are struggling to provide for their children go to the local government offices for help. They are either sent away without help, or referred to a local orphanage to leave the children they love. God has moved our hearts to step into this gap, and offer an alternative solution for families to keep their God-given children.

It means saying "enough" to seeing parents being advised to leave their children in orphanages due to poverty. Because out of the 60,000 children growing up in orphanages across Uganda today, it's been estimated that 4 out of 5 of these little ones have family members that love them. Statistics like this are not only heart breaking, but preventable. 

It means saying "Yes" to fighting for every child's right to grow up in a family rather than an orphanage. The solution to bringing forth justice for families that are too poor to raise their own children isn't to build more orphanages, but to build centers for the entire family. 

It means mobilizing parents to thrive, not just survive, while their precious sons and daughters get to learn in school regardless of their disabilities or inabilities to pay. Because on this broken side of heaven we've created orphanages for children but our Heavenly Father's heart rings loud on true on this one - God created families for children. 

It means making the hard choice not to move to Uganda without a degree in special education or teaching, and spending 3 incredibly tough years receiving education so that I can teach from a place of experience. 

It means taking 7 exams to become a certified teacher because the children in Uganda deserve the absolute best, and if it wouldn't be allowed in America, it shouldn't be allowed in Uganda either. 

For Abbi and I, it means taking an extra year to work under Ekisa Ministries as volunteer special education teachers in order to learn everything we can about how to run a successful and culturally sensitive disability ministry. Because trusting God means we can take the extra time to learn from the ones that know more than we do, rather than jumping into things for the sake of seeing our dreams unfold more quickly. 

The more that Abbi and I seek God's direction and purpose for our future ministry, the more he moves our hearts away from wanting to open an orphanage. The more we press in to the heart and desires of Jesus, the more He increases our desires to see children growing up in families, rather than in orphanages that, no matter how brightly painted or filled to the brim with the newest toys and the newest books, still remain institutions at the end of the day. 

As we prepare to move to Uganda in September, we are coming in one with a small, but powerful movement of organizations and individuals who are passionate about keeping children out of orphanages, and in families. Two of these incredible organizations include Ekisa Ministries and Abide Family Center. 

Photo credits: Ekisa Ministries

Our dreams have changed, and it's all for His glory. 

We no longer want to open a new orphanage. 

We want to come alongside families facing disability and see families restored and empowered, the way our Heavenly Father always intended them to be. 

Our long-term dream is to open a center for children and families facing disability in Mbale, a more unreached area of Uganda. 

We dream of a place where no parent or family with a disabled child EVER has to give up their child due to poverty, or lack of societal support. 

We envision a place where families facing disability can come to receive education, medical care, physical and behavioral therapy, parenting & business training, emergency housing, a supportive community, but most of all...the love of a God that calls every person with disabilities "fearfully and wonderfully made." A precious creation of God. 

We want to invite you to be a part of this story of redemption, grace, and reconciliation that God is writing in Uganda. 

Please consider making a donation to support Abbi and I as missionaries to Uganda beginning in September of 2015. We praise God for a Savior who has loved us enough to uproot our own dreams and replace them with ones that are far more beautiful. 

Thank you, Jesus.

Photo credits: Abide Family Center