How This All Started.....

Kaitlyn Sipes
May 17, 2024

Hi Friends and Family,

Welcome to my first newsletter! Thank you for being here and taking the time to read more about what my summer will look like and the ways that God is working. I wanted to send this first newsletter out before I am even leaving to help give some background context and fill in some details of how this all even came to be. Some of you might know bits and pieces of this, but my hope is that through sharing more of the behind the scenes, you will be able to glimpse the Lord’s faithfulness that I have experienced in the past few months.

This is just part 1, setting the stage for the upcoming trip to Uganda, but stay tuned for part 2 which will be about all the background of my internship in Thailand!

The very beginning

For as long as I can remember I have been fascinated with the idea of missions and missionaries, that Christians will leave their families and their homes to go share Jesus’ love with the people who do not know Him yet. It’s funny to look back now and see that throughout my life there have been little stepping stones leading towards missions.

I remember being 8 or 9 and selling homemade friendship bracelets to raise money for sponsor children.
When I was 11 or 12 a woman who had been to Haiti after the earthquake spoke at church about the missionary work she did there and I had goosebumps the whole time.
When I was 14, my mom, sister and I all went on a short term (1 week) trip to the Dominican Republic, which was my first experience with cross-cultural missions. We did a variety of different things, but I especially loved the relational aspects- meeting members of the local community.
Within my first two weeks as a freshman at Grove City College I got involved with (and later became President of) a missions club on campus that partners with 3 East African mission organizations.

It was through my involvement with this club that I had the opportunity to go to Uganda in 2022 with the Ugandan Water Project and learn more about the water crisis and what UWP is doing to provide sustainable and life-changing solutions.

While this trip was more focused on learning about providing a practical solution than evangelizing and discipling, it taught me so much about what it looks like to slow down and to do missions from a place of relationship and humility. Some of my favorite moments in Uganda were just sitting down and getting to hear the stories of the Ugandans we interacted with.

The sunset from UWPs headquarters the night that we had this conversation. I remember sitting there with so much peace, and feeling so restored and renewed.

One night in particular we were asked “if you could share this experience with anyone, who would you want to share it with?” My immediate answer: my dad. I knew he would have loved the hands on aspect of building water solutions, but also he would have loved the relational parts of what we were doing, and he would have been such a great comfort to have there with me.

I came home after those two weeks more certain than ever that God was calling me to be involved in missions, in some capacity- whether that was on the field, or working at an organization’s headquarters in the States.

February 2023

Back on campus as a sophomore, I continued to reflect on the experiences I had in Uganda, and was praying for an opportunity to go back at some point. We continued working as a club to support the work of our partners in East Africa, which we do through planning fundraisers on campus to raise money and meeting over Zoom to hear updates and prayer requests.

It was on one of these Zoom calls with Kamwenge Secondary and Vocational School in Uganda, that the president of the school, Rev. John, threw out the idea of a group of students from the college visiting his school. It had been a while since the last group of students had come to visit, and he thought it would be a great way to further strengthen our partnership.

For a little background: Kamwenge Secondary and Vocational School (KSVS) was founded in 2007 with the backing of a US based organization, Partners in Mission (PIM). The school currently has over 450 students and offer a variety of programs to help equip students with employable and practical skills, and has partnered with Grove City for about 15 years.

I immediately jumped fully on board with this idea, and throughout the rest of the semester had many meetings with Rev. John and Barb (President of PIMs board) as well as the Grove City missions coordinator. This past fall I was able to get the trip approved by the College, find a faculty member to go along with us, and hold an informational meeting to start to build the team- comprised of 4 students and 1 professor.

Spring Semester 2024

When I got back to campus for this spring semester, two of the students came to me and let me know that they unfortunately could no longer participate on the trip. With only 3 people remaining on the trip now, we were at a crossroads of what to do- do we cancel the trip? Scramble and get more people? Postpone it?

Over the course of the next three weeks we had many meetings within our small team, spent lots of time in prayer and sought out guidance from many people. Throughout this whole time, Elise, the other student remaining on the trip, never waivered in her faith that this trip was supposed to happen, and it was supposed to be this summer.

As we were processing through this decision and talking through all the different options, an idea popped in my mind: “I wonder if dad would want to go.” The other members of the team thought the idea was worth a shot, so right after the meeting I called my dad. Before I even had a chance to ask about the trip, he told me that he had been looking at his calendar that day to figure out if he would have a time to maybe be in Uganda with us. Talk about God setting things in motion ahead of time, am I right? Safe to say, he was an easy sell, and suddenly we found ourselves with a team of 4, and we were all in.

For the past few months we have jumped the hurdles of getting all the needed paperwork, vaccines, purchasing our plane tickets, and preparing ourselves for what the week may hold. In recent weeks, I have just seen God’s hand in bringing all of these puzzle pieces together in ways I could have never have dreamed.

Having my dad be able to join this adventure is even more of blessing. Him going on a trip with me seemed so far fetched and unlikely, that I never even prayed for it, so the fact that the Lord placed it on his heart before I even talked to him is one of the sweetest gifts of this whole thing.

I know I will have plenty of updates, stories and photos to share from this experience, and so I am eager to continue these newsletters, and hopefully they serve as a bridge between my community back home, and the places where my feet are.

Prayer Requests

That we would continue to get all the logistical details completed in a timely manner and without stress or confusion
Safe travels, that we would feel well rested and prepared to be with the students at KSVS. We fly out May 20th, and should get to the school on May 21st!
Health, that through traveling and adjusting to a new climate and culture we would all stay healthy and full of energy
That the students at KSVS would be open and willing to share their stories, and that we would have humble hearts, ready to listen and learn.

That’s all for now (thank you to everyone who made it all the way through!) I am excited to continue sharing the stories behind these trips, and in doing so, I hope to make you feel like you are right there with me. Your support and prayers is a crucial part of this experience, and I could not be doing it without you, so thank you!

With love,

Kaitlyn