Roy Williams
Cincinnati Bengals
“From the moment I was asked about joining PROS FOR AFRICA, I knew I was signing up for a life-changing event. What can I say? The trip was amazing! From the generosity of Reggie Whitten to the hard work of the doctors and the help from the athletes. It was an awesome experience to see so many different personalities coming together and putting egos aside for one common goal, to serve and help the children of Africa. I enjoyed spending time and getting to know each person on our trip. Sister Rosemary’s school – what a job she is doing with those girls. I’ve never seen such an uplifting force. She gives them such joy and hope, while bringing them back to a life they thought they had lost. It was truly an honor for me to know I was responsible for so many smiles on those young ladies’ faces. From playing volleyball to Simon Says, every moment I spent with them was special. Learning about what they have been through and their trials was crazy. Those girls have real-life testimony. Since I’ve been back in the U.S., Africa is all I talk about. How lucky we are and how we shouldn’t be wasteful with the things we use or eat. Growing up I was always told that if I didn’t finish the food on my plate “there’s a child in Africa that would love to eat that.” Well, there is and I’ve seen them! Its real. There really is a need to help the people in Africa. We can’t expect to change everything right away, but we can definitely put our footprint in history and on the hearts, minds and lives of the people we meet and touch. That being said, I’m already looking forward to or next trip! God Bless PROS FOR AFRICA and Sister Rosemary! Her dedication to serve God and the girls at her school and the surrounding community is incredible!”
Bob Hunter
International Foundation
“The PROS FOR AFRICA trip to Gulu and Atiak was life affirming and a great faith encouragement me. Why? Because I personally witnessed many miracles, such as:
I saw great love trump great evil. It is astonishing to realize that beautiful, gentle Sister Rosemary is so much stronger than everything Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army can throw at her!
I saw great hope replace great despair. It is amazing to see so many returned abducted girls with babies of rape, who were once ready to commit suicide and kill their babies, now dancing, singing and smiling the warmest smiles I have ever seen.
I saw poverty (as I expected) but the greatest poverty I found was inside of me. The poverty of my spirit compared to the spirit of love and hope in Rosemary and her Sisters that is overcoming hate and fear and restoring dignity to 400 young women who have suffered indescribable pain and loss of innocence and youth. I am poor!
I saw my heart and the hearts of my companions opened to new things, new ways to think and feel. I saw “big shots” from America, leaders in various professions humbling themselves on a dusty, very bumpy road to Atiak, a place smack in the very middle of nowhere, just because of their love for hurting children in Africa. I saw the tears of Sr. Rosemary confirming the beauty and importance of these dirty, sweaty Americans making this extreme effort to be with these traumatized girls. I saw a College President fall in love with two young men and offer them scholarships. I saw doctors healing people and well diggers finding water and food providers giving food and all of that bringing new life and hope to many people in Northern Uganda.
And I saw how we all were committed to come back, even to Atiak! I saw how so many of us were changed deep inside. As I told one friend at the end of the trip, “This little joy and lightness of being we feel is like the little Impala we saw in the Kruger bush. Many lions and leopards will want to kill that Impala when we get back to America when pressures of work and life edge in. We have to protect that Impala by remembering what we experienced.” I pray that many of us remember what we saw and manage to keep the Impala alive…”
Dick Greenly
Water4 Foundation
“Water4 Foundation was asked to go on the 2010 PROS FOR AFRICA trip to Northern Uganda, Gulu district and I was fortunate enough to go as a volunteer. We were tasked to deliver hand water well drilling equipment to the country and train as many of the local young men as we could in just a matter of a few days. If we did our job well, we would have a team trained, equipped and able to continue drilling water wells as a vocation on into the future. As with each facet of the 2010 PROS FOR AFRICA adventure, all of our meager expectations were drastically exceeded. We were able to drill and complete a well for the Restore Academy on the site of their new 37 acre location and we trained 5 teams on the Water4 hand drilling methods. 5 teams trained instead of one and clean water for 250 kids!! Because PROS FOR AFRICA strongly encouraged us to ship two drilling kits instead of our normal one, now two teams will be drilling clean water wells each week! The immediate impact will be clean drinking water for around 600 people per week for the next several years…….this is literally “life” for tens of thousands of people. Thank you PROS FOR AFRICA!”
Stacee Foresee
Volunteer for PROS FOR AFRICA
Me: “Tell me all about it.”
Them: “It was life-changing.”… long pause… distant look that can only be interpreted as a moment of reflection… maybe an awkward silence and then… a smile.
Me: “I bet.” (This is said while nodding in approval but thinking “Yeah, thanks for all of those details.”)
Now that I am on the other side of that conversation, having returned from this incredible trip, I realize just how hard it is to put into words an experience that has touched my heart so deeply. I went into this trip prepared to see some really tough things – children that were malnourished, young girls that were forced to be sex slaves for the LRA, boys that were ripped from their homes to become child soldiers, parents that were bitter and broken from having their children taken from them with little hope of ever seeing them again. What I didn’t expect to find was a people who knew joy and mercy and grace and somehow, despite all they had witnessed and been through, had hope. Don’t get me wrong, the realities of what I prepared myself for were there, but these people refused to let their circumstances define them. They are proud and gentle and full of life. It is almost impossible to do them justice with words, which is fitting because – forgive the cliché – they are more about walking the walk than talking the talk. Here we might say to a group like ours, “Thanks for coming to help us out.” In Uganda, they showed their appreciation with embraces, linked arms, and kisses. I couldn’t bend down to talk to kids without instantly having one around my neck. If you left your arms at your sides, it was only a matter of seconds before you found two tiny hands enclosed in your own. Does life get any sweeter? I can’t imagine that it does. We could learn a lot from these people. I know my experience with them offered me some clarity that I didn’t even realize I was searching for. Every one of us on the trip experienced something different, but I think we can all agree that we are blessed to have had the opportunity and we are better off because of the people we met. What could be more “life-changing” than that?”
