Dear diary...

Celia Jenkins has read plenty of books about Christian missionaries and most of them left her somewhat bored. So when she signed up to join a Mission Direct team building a school in Rukungiri she decided to write an un-boring book about her mission experiences at the rate of one chapter a day.

In this extract from her soon to be published book, Celia is pondering how she will cope when she returns home to the UK and the materialistic culture all around her.

"Would I recommend a mission trip like this to my friends: always. No matter who you are, I think it has the power to change your life. Buying an orphaned child their first pair of shoes or building a well for a village without water will change you in the same way that visiting Auschwitz would. These experiences take you beyond the earthly routines of eating, working and sleeping; experiences that appeal to the growth of the soul, the heavenly concepts of wonder and awe. Plaster a wall as an act of charity and you are using not only your hands, but your heart.

But having your heart expanded can be hard work. How do I face my weekly shopping trip when I return; spoiled with aisle after aisle of goodies, when I know there are others with so little? How can I pay £3 for a fancy cup of coffee when I know the farmers earn 30p a day harvesting the beans? Right now I don’t know how I will cope. But I know that people do get up and carry on with their lives in spite of the terrible things they have seen.

If I am honest, I knew all of these uncomfortable facts before I came here; we all do. But now that I’ve seen this terrible inequality with my own eyes, I’m being forced to face up to it like never before. Life is a mystery; the best we can do is muddle by, making the best of it that we can. I want to learn something from both worlds that I have experienced; not to swing to one extreme or another. I don’t want to go home and sell all of my possessions, nor do I want to lavish myself with material goods just because I can. I want to carry with me all that I have learned in Africa; how to appreciate those things that I already have, to discern the things that I truly need and avoid coveting things that I merely want.

The future lies ahead for all of us; there are always new plans to be realised. But without the past to affect our future, where would we be? In a society constantly encouraging us to want more, that’s what I want: just to ‘be’."

To begin your own mission adventure in Rukungiri visit:  www.missiondirect.org/uganda