Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Uganda Cont.

So let not make the continuation of my Uganda experience too long, like the last post... Sorry it took SOOO stinkin long to get this posted. it's been way too long..... ANYWAYS... So I arrive, get settled in, and train a little bit mnore. then the hard work begins.... But it was fun hard work =] playing with the Children, loving them so much! The Hut to hut evengelism was really fun, because we litterally went from hut to hut telling people about God and how amazing he is! Praying for every need they mentioned, like the rain! We were in Gulu, and they had been going through a drought so their crops weren't growing well, and they were so hungry. We prayed for rain and by golly we got rain!!! And teaching the Children in the school about abstinance, it was such a blessing for them, you couldn't belive how many pledged to abstain from sex till marriage! it was soooo moving! I got close to so many people there, that I never get to see sadly, but pray to see again soon, if not I know I will ee them in a better place one day =] aaahhhh, everything was so great, why can't my everyday life be that way?
one can only wish...

Monday, November 9, 2009

Hey! I'm sitting here bored with nothing to do, and it is night time, and there is nothing else for me left to do.... So I decided I'd tell you all about my missions trip to Uganda this past summer. I love talking about it, because I miss it so much, and when i talk about it my mind replays the whole thng over. I will never forget.... This was the best experience of my entire life so far!



so where to begin??? lets start with me finding out I'm going on the trip... So it's about the end of may, and I'm at home just relaxing after a long (and hot) summers day and I recieve a phone call from Global Expeditions. They called and asked me if I wanted to go on a missions trip with them that summer... thought for about half a second and said yeah, sure! I was more than willing to do something better than sit around, hang around and sit by the pool sippin' lemonade. No, I was ready for something BIG. Some thing to change my life forever. So the girl on the phone asked me, "where would you like to go?" now my best friend was already going on a missions trip to Uganda (which I had beed helping her fundraise a bit for), and well of course I knew it was in Africa, and it's been my lifelong dream to go to Africa, so I sad "I'm going to Uganda." haha. So I said it was about the end of May, and I was supposed to leave in July. Well I had about $4,500 to raise in that month. And boy did it go by fast! And praise God I raised it all! Thanks to my good friends, and family, and amazing church, I raised all the money I needed. And by golly I went on that trip, no fear, no looking back, no regrets! Although the night before I leave I'm trying ever so hard to get my bag packed right, so that it wasn't overweight. I never knew how hard it would be. I was up until 1 am trying to get it to the right weight. Then have to wake up at 3am to leave for the airport, and I tried to sleep in the car but I was too excited too. Then the hard part came... Saying goodbye to my parents. But I think it was harder on them, being the loving and caring parents, of course they were worried about me, I mean ccome on, I was going to AFRICA! ahaha. But I held back the tears and made it through security, and found were I needed to be. I saw some grey t-shirts, exactly the same as mine, so I sat down next to them, and we talked for a little bit. So long story short I flew to texas and got to Teen Mania, and got trained, and met some of the people going on the trip, and all that. So then comes the long flight to Uganda. Our first stop was Dubai, which was still a 15-17 hour flight, we stay in Dubai for one night, then fly to Uganda the next day. We finally make it to Uganda!!! and BOY was it a good feeling to finally be there! =] I thought I was going to explode, I was so pumped, and the only words I could manage to get out of my mouth were "We're in Africa!" So we had another hour of traveling [via, bus] to get to our hostel (hotel, type place) and we were greeted by about 25-ish teens ranging from the ages of 16 to 29-ish(?). We were ambushed with silly string, welcome signs, and SCREAMING lol. Along with the C trippers there were some of the Children that lived nearby, there for their usual visit, but got to meet new friends. To be continued....

About me =]

Hello people!!! =] As you should know (if you're reading this I would hope) my name is Victoria Costabile. Although I have quite a few nicknames, which some of you reading may know of. I have a nice long list of them, which maybe we can talk about some other time. ahaha. But I would like to share right now my favorite of them all, (whitch most know as) my Afrcan name, Aminat. It means most loved, especially the youngest sibling. The story behind this is short, I was on a missions trip to Uganda summer 09, and everyone was getting African names from one of our translators/friends. I asked Susan for one, she thought a moment and said, "HAH! You shall be called Aminat!" Of course I had no idea what that meant so of course I asked, and I sat there for a while trying to figure out why I would be most loved, youngin' because back at home I was the middle child, so it made no sence. I thought about it for a week, and FINALLY I realised, "OH! I'm on of the youngest on my team!" So that's enough of that story... haha. Back to talking about ME. Well the first thing you should know is I hate talking about myself... But let's see..... You probably can't get me to do anything absolutely crazy, but I do random crazy stuff on my own. So that obviously makes no sence I guess... I like to have fun, but without getting in trouble (by my parents) of course, except it is fun to get kicked out of stores... =] I like to spend my free time taking pictures of really anything. Photography it my favorite passtime, so if I have nothing to do, then you might have a hard time finding me, as I may be outside looking for something to take pictures of. =] Another thing you might want to know about me is I love to play sports. I will play any sport I can. So far I've played softball (9 years!), Soccer (2 seasons), and Volleyball (1 season). and I plan on playing basketball here soon. Also I am a relection of where I came from so you should know about my family. I have 7 siblings, give or take, ahaha, My family does foster care for children in our county, so sometimes we have extra kids in the house. We love it and sometimes we get amazing kids, and sometimes we end up with the harder to deal with ones, but before they leave they ALWAYS change it's quite amazing what disipline and love can do to a child, it really is. Umm... My dad goes to school in PA, he's going to be a PA (Physicians Assistant). And I plan on following his footsteps one day. And whike he is there, we are still stuck in MD trying to sell our house so we can move to PA with our dad. But it's hard to sell such a big house when the market's this bad. So we're here holding up the fort. My mom is amazing! Right now she has 5 of her own PLUS 2 foster kids runnin' around the place! And she is such a good mother, especially with the lil-uns'. I've got incredible siblings man! I got luckyyy! I can't say much about them all cause theres so many and I don't have enough time to say too too much about them, I'll have to post a blog about my family sometime actually, but we have Chrissy (Steven- the brother-in-law), Brett, Alison, Holly, Ryan, Joy, and Jack. Then I have amazing friends which I will also have to talk about some other time, but my bestest friends are Meghan Bonner, Jesse Shahan, Becca Oakley, James Campbell, And Josh Bonner. They're all quite amazing. =] That's really all I can thiink of.... I think I kinda side-tracked there a bit..... but oh well =P more posts to come soon!