Alumni Blog Series

We are welcoming some guest bloggers this semester in celebration of 10 years of USP at Uganda Christian University!

And those guest bloggers are you! Many USP alumni have kindly volunteered to share some of their stories and we’re looking forward to collective narrative of how Uganda has shaped and formed us.  We hope that social media can be a bit of our USP Ubuntu (“I am because we are”).

To kick it off, I’ll have to go back to one of our favorite defining lines of the Bartels in Uganda, "Africans believe that presence is the debt they owe one another." (John Taylor, The Primal Vision, pg 135) Visit the blog regularly over the next few months and hear the stories of those who have walked in your shoes one semester in Uganda! 

And like you, they are sorting out how this semester and the lessons learned continue to inform their journey onwards and upwards! J

By the end of this series, I hope to give a slightly more thorough response to the impact of USP on me personally. As a teaser, I’m including a video of Daniel in Soroti learning to dance with Margaret Opol and her oldest daughter Janice.

post by: Abby Bartels, pictured below with Mark and their three kids, Daniel, Mary and Rachel 

We're off and running!

The Spring 2014 semester is officially rolling!  Our group of 18 students, from 6 different countries, have been here for a little over a week and have already jumped into a variety of experiences.  Before coming, students choose their primary context for engagement -- the semester-long homestay, on-campus or social work.  Although students are involved in a variety of overlapping activities and in relationship with a variety of people, our program sees these three categories as the main area for students to engage.  Homestay students have moved in with their families and are learning about family life in Uganda.  On-campus students are living in the dorms and are learning about University life at Uganda Christian University.  Social work students (also living on campus) have begun their practicums and are learning about social work in the Ugandan context.  

We're thankful for their safe arrival and excited about a new semester!  Stay tuned.