Karen VanDyke

Karen VanDyke found God in Uganda. 

She’s always considered herself a woman of faith, a regular church-goer and a follower of Christ, but when she heard God’s voice ring out, it came from an unexpected place. 

His calling didn’t come from the familiar churches of stone and glass of her Nebraskan home. God’s plan for Karen was revealed through the faces of children and the story of a young Ugandan schoolgirl and her one and only dress.

“Your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” Isaiah 30:21.

She has a slender frame, short, wiry black hair that brushes her shoulders and a face full of angel kisses(freckles). She has a smile so bright she can no longer hide the gentle crinkles around her eyes or the laugh lines on her cheeks. She has led a joyous life.

Faith has been central in her life ever since she was a young girl growing up in what she calls a “typical midwestern childhood.” Like most in the Catholic faith, it was rooted in the tradition of her parents and eventually passed on to her. 

Going to church always gave Karen a sense of peace growing up — the great stone walls adorned with intricate images of Christ and the multicolored light spilling from stained glass windows to the familiar scent of incense hanging in the air. “It was always like a warm safety blanket for me,” Karen said.

However, it wasn’t until Karen took the 8,058-mile journey to the African country of Uganda, where the luxuries of her home were foreign, did she did she learn to be still and listen to what God was trying to tell her. 

“I don't know that I would necessarily have said prior to Educate Uganda if I was really a good listener because I do think God talks to us throughout the day, but I didn't know how to be still long enough to hear that, and I think that's something that Uganda really taught me,” Karen said. 

Nearly 13 years ago Greg VanDyke surprised his wife with a mission trip to Uganda for her birthday. Shortly after, Karen found herself in Africa with a small group of ambassadors for an agricultural program. “At first I thought we were going to be working in the classroom, what I didn’t realize was that God’s plan was so much better and so much more detailed and thought out,” Karen said. 

For about two weeks Karen saw and learned so much about the culture of Uganda, and the faith that binds its people. She especially fell in love with the school children—so much so that she wanted to find a way to give back. She agreed to find two kids to sponsor and pay their school fees for a year. “I learned so much about this country, and we started formulating where we could help the most and what's going to make the biggest impact and through that contemplation… we decided to start this primary school sponsorship,” Karen said. 

Karen chose two young girls from a school they had visited. When one of Karen’s sponsorship recipients failed to show up on time to the ceremony the priest ridiculed the young girl in front of the school and revoked her sponsorship. The young girl named Winifred, had been waiting all morning for her dress to dry; she had washed it that day because she wanted to be presentable for the visitors.

“It was just such a clear like oh my gosh, it's not that her favorite dress was wet. It's not that what the dress she chose her that day didn't work. She didn't have a closet to open and pick something else. That was her only dress. And so if I sponsor her and she gets a uniform now, she has two sets of clothing,” Karen said.

There were so many compelling stories from Karen’s time in Uganda, but the one that inspired her the most was that of Winifred. She was the one that made Karen believe that a sponsorship program could be possible. 

“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it,” Mark 10:13-16.

Karen didn’t realize that God’s plan had already set in motion until she returned home. “I brought back the pictures of Kevin and Winifred to show my kids and my oldest, who was 12 at the time, said, ‘Mom I want to sponsor someone how do I do it?’” Karen said. “It just continued to grow from a few of his friends and my kids then my sisters got involved, pretty soon our parish at St. Wenceslaus and it just exploded into this beautiful community of caring about a country 8,000 miles away.”  

The work is not without challenges, especially in the beginning. “It was kind of overwhelming at the beginning I realized that the problems are as deep as the ocean and I threw one bucket of water in there and it was a little overwhelming but to see that other people are doing things and helping and I didn't have to have all the responsibility was key,” Karen said.

Seeing all the poverty and struggle was especially difficult for Karen when she came back to her comfortable American life. “I would come home, and I would be kind of a little bit I think hard to live with, and I would have to catch myself. The kids would want to go to McDonald's, and I would be doing the math like that would almost be one kid we could sponsor rather than go to McDonald's, but I had to remind myself that this was my journey and not the family’s although they're willing to support me and help me. I can't make their lives miserable because they'll just be bitter and hate it rather than embrace it and love it and want to be part of it,” Karen said.  

Even through all the challenges that starting a nonprofit for a foreign country presented, Karen had a support system. From her family that supported her and her passion, to the people that she met in Uganda that carry on her mission when she’s not there, she’s never alone in her work. 

“I don't ever do it all on my own. I asked our contractor, I asked Joseph Dumba, Benna, Father Michael and there are a few other people I turn to and I want their input because if it's all just my decision it's not going to be as you know, fully satisfying and as well thought out as it could be,” Karen said. 

One of Karen’s key aspects of her mission is sustainability. The hope that when the children in her program grow up, they will give back and help another child have the opportunity to learn. “In my dreams, I would love for each school to become self-sustainable. But in reality that that's not the case here. They're going to always need some sort of help, but you know just to be a little bit more of a problem solver and not to just accept their fate as what it is,” Karen said.

Through Educate Uganda, Karen has had the opportunity to carry out God’s plan for her, and allowed her to be the face of Christ to so many. “I think when you're doing things for others and you're serving others, there's just a real joy that you feel and I think unless you allow that into your heart maybe you go through life missing a really key component,” Karen said. “It’s kind of like God saying, you know, he's the Everlasting water for us, he's the water that will quench our thirst and that's what I think joy really is.”

It’s been 12 years and Karen had lost contact with her first two sponsors, they had moved or been picked up by another sponsorship program; Karen wasn’t sure where they ended up. Until about a month ago Karen received a notification on Facebook: It was a friend request from Winifred, the young girl she had sponsored all those years ago.

It had been years since Karen had seen her, but the joy she felt to see how beautiful she had become brought back so many emotions from the day she first met her in her little wet dress. Winifred was finishing her education at a teacher’s college in Uganda and planning to become a teacher herself.

“Winifred reached out to me and she didn't ask me for anything. She wrote me this beautiful note about how when I helped her it gave her hope and I thought it was so interesting because she just gave that gift right back to me of hope. She’s been kind of my icon through so much of it because it I feel like there was so many lessons that I learned just from her story,” Karen said.

“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me,” Matthew 25:40-45.

SIDEBAR

Educate Uganda is a nonprofit organization focused on helping improve the education of children of Uganda by providing school fees for children and improving their learning environment. Their mission is to help those who struggle to attend school because they simply cannot afford the school fees. Through their sponsorship program and donations, Educate Uganda is able to provide for the annual school fees, which are approximately $35 per year, for nearly 1,500 kids, giving them the hope of a better life. 

Families in Uganda are not the only ones facing the problem of obtaining basic needs. The schools are also faced with the difficulty of providing a good learning environment for the students. In addition to assisting the students with their school fees, Educate Uganda is also working to improve the environment in which they learn and the materials the educators have available. Since 2006, Educate Uganda has provided scholastic material and has even constructed several school buildings including classrooms, staff housing, student dormitories, water tanks and latrines throughout Uganda. 

To find out more visit their website at: http://educateuganda.org/index.html