Many college students spend their summer break working a part-time job, relaxing at the beach, or just taking advantage of the time off from class. This summer, UNH junior Andrea Blodgett decided to do something a little different with her time.
“How did I end up in Uganda this summer?” laughs Blodgett. “That’s a really good question.”
At 20 years old, Andrea Blodgett hadn’t done much travelling, and never strayed far from her small hometown of Scarborough, Maine. “When I found out I was going to go,” Blodgett said, “I immediately started crying. It was terrifying.”
At UNH, Blodgett is an occupational therapy major, and an active member of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF), Christian Impact, and YoungLife Leadership. After class, she drives to Dover for her job as a teacher’s aide in a kindergarten classroom. For Blodgett, devoting herself to others comes second-nature.
Blodgett had heard about the chance to make a five-week mission trip to Uganda during her freshman year. The more she looked into it, the more she realized she wanted to be a part of it.
“I was shocked to read about some the issues facing Uganda right now,” Blodgett said. “I decided I wanted to do something to help if I could, so I just signed up and a couple months later, I was there. I never expected that I would ever do something like that.”
Blodgett admittedly also didn’t expect what she was getting herself into. In the middle of the spring semester of her sophomore year, she began reading books and attending seminars about Ugandan child soldiers and prisoners of war. “They really opened my eyes to a lot of social justice issues that were happening,” said Blodgett, “which was never something I expected to get so worked up about, but it’s just so unfair what’s happening over there.”
On June 2, Blodgett arrived in Kampala with a group of 20 other students from colleges around New England, who were all a part of their schools’ IVCF chapter. From there, the IVCF team paired up with a group of 12 student representatives from Fellowship of Christian Unions (FOCUS) Uganda to begin work.
“Working with the Ugandan students was a great opportunity,” said Blodgett. “They were all college students or they had just graduated, and they were so welcoming and friendly. They really cared about us.”
FOCUS Uganda is an evangelical ministry movement spearheaded by college students. The organization not only leads Christianity talks in high schools and college, but also in the surrounding slums of Mulago, Kalerwe, Katanga and Kavule. Their goal is to bring education, support, and empowerment to the community.
Blodgett’s work with FOCUS Uganda began in the slums of Kampala, doing community outreach through door-to-door evangelism. “The first day was the hardest,” Blodgett said. “I was walking around wondering why I was there, thinking I had no right to be there telling these people they need Jesus in their lives because I don’t know what it’s like for them. Why would they want some rich white girl telling them how to live?”
Fortunately for Blodgett, her fears were calmed by the receptive community she found in Kampala. “The people there were surprisingly welcoming,” she said. “They understood that we were also learning, and trying to understand what they were going through by experiencing it first-hand.”
After three weeks in Kampala, the IVCF team moved north to Gulu to work with former prisoners of war in a sports outreach ministry. The team helped with medical clinics, and with teaching life skills, such as farming, agriculture, and sports. “We did a lot of therapy through soccer,” said Blodgett light-heartedly, “which I was absolutely terrible at.”
In Gulu, Blodgett was introduced to an environment unlike any she had ever experienced. “We met a lot of people who were in some hard situations,” she said. “Severe poverty, no clean water, healthcare or healthy food. There’s still a lot of joy there, even with all the suffering. We met former child soldiers who were so affected by the war, it was hard to hear their stories and fully realize they lived through that.”
Blodgett’s mission didn’t end in Uganda. Upon returning to UNH, she created a university chapter for ChildVoice, a Christian organization aimed at helping children affected by war. As president of the chapter, Blodgett is in charge of recruiting members, fundraising, and educating others about the ongoing suffering in Uganda. “When you’re a child abducted into a war environment,” said Blodgett, “your development is interrupted. When you spend ages eight to 15 fighting for your life, you grow up in a different way. ChildVoice gives them spiritual, emotional, and vocational counseling basically to rehabilitate them after that.”
Looking back on her experience this summer, Blodgett is thankful she didn’t let her small-town cold-feet get to her. “I realized I had an opportunity to go and love these people,” she said, “and I wasn’t about to turn that down. I felt like God was calling me towards it, and doors were opening for me.”
Doors keep opening, and opportunities keep coming for Blodgett, who has recently been offered the chance to return to Uganda this upcoming summer for an occupational therapy internship. “I never imagined I’d be going there once,” she said, “and now, to be able to go back again, it’s more than I could ask for.”
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