I decided to study International Development at Calvin University to prepare me to be more useful in my mission work. I didn’t want to just show up with no skills and no plan and be more of a burden than anything. I’ve learned and grown so much at Calvin through my classes and interactions with professors and classmates, and especially during my time in Ghana. A requirement for my major is that we spend a semester abroad, so I spent the first 5 months of 2018 at the University of Ghana in Accra. Talk about a learning experience!
I feel much more equipped to do more meaningful work abroad than I would have been able to 3 years ago, although I still don’t know what specific kind of work I will end up focusing in. Hopefully this internship will help me figure some more of that out.
I will be spending the next 4 months in Kabale, Uganda for an internship with World Renew. This organization works in over 30 different countries and has a unique model in that they partner in the work that local churches are doing so as to work through the church, not undermine it. I will be interning with the Pentecostal Assemblies of God church in Kabale in their Community Development Department (CDD). The CDD and World Renew are working on a variety of projects in Kabale, so the first part of my internship will be exposing me to the various projects, then I will be allowed to pick an area or two to focus in for the second half.
I hope to get a better idea of where my skills and passions best fit within development work. If it works out that I only learn what I really don’t want to do in the future, I’d still consider the internship a success.
Lindy in Kabale 