UPDATE: At this time, with prayerful consideration, the trip has been postponed until 2016. Currently the focus is on continuing to strengthen and further train the leaders that are already established in the Kisoro region. After witnessing this effort last year, I am confident that God will continue to grow the ministry, even without a US team present this year. Thank you all for your support! 

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Hello! My name is Amy; welcome to my fundraising page. However you got yourself here, by clicking a link or tapping keys into that URL bar, thank you. Thank you for taking time out of your day to take a peak into my heart. I sincerely, sincerely appreciate it.

Here's the part where I get to take a few moments to express why I'm here on this Pure Charity site raising money. It's pretty simple, really. My life was quite literally turned inside out and upside down by the love of a man named Jesus Christ.

On January 1st, 2012, I lifted my arms up as high as they could reach and for the very first time, decided to believe the story that I had heard many, many times before. I decided to believe that there was a trustworthy God who desperately desired a relationship with little ol' me. I decided He deserved every piece of my heart, and every piece of my life. And things have never been the same.

Last year, I got myself on a plane (or rather, you guys did) and flew across the world to Kisoro, Uganda. I went with the mission of sharing the love that had so radically transformed my life. It turns out the transforming had only just begun.

My eyes filled with tears as I witnessed the relocation efforts going on with the Batwa pygmies, a previously unreached people group that was displaced from their Bwindi Impenetrable Forest home in the 1990s. As I heard one relocated pygmy family praise Jesus for transforming their lives, I saw something I regonized: restoration.

My tears weren't pity tears, not at all. They were tears of joy that flowed as I realized that the same God who transformed the life of a Southern California party girl was actively at work transforming the lives of homeless pygmy families. It was the same restoration, no matter how different the details appeared.

I spent the rest of my time in Uganda praising Jesus surrounded by rejoicing, beautiful, treasured children in the African mountain tops. And if you ask me why I'm going back, I would give you one answer: them.

I'm going back because I fell in love with those beautiful dark eyes. I'm going back because I want those very eyes to see the hand of God; I want those minds to know that they are His beloved children; and I want those hearts to tangibly feel the deepest, widest, biggest love this world will ever know.

I'm going back to love. Because He first loved me.