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Welcome to the Pursuit of Calling podcast, pursuers, where my goal and purpose is to

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provide you with the strategies and tools needed to successfully discover and pursue

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your God-given calling.

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I'm your host, Thomas Carney, and today we're talking about what happened on my trip in

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Uganda.

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Okay, so let's dive in.

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The mission trip to Uganda was honestly the best experience of my life to date.

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And that might sound like a dramatic statement.

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And it is.

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But it's not an understatement or an overstatement.

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I mean, it's not an overstatement.

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I learned so much on this trip.

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I learned more than I actually expected to.

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I didn't really have any expectations on what I was going to learn.

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I just knew some things that we were going to do on this trip.

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I knew potentially only one person whom I might meet.

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And I did.

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I'm not going to get into that.

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I'm not going to get into that first.

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Well, first I want to say I went down to Uganda.

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You might know this already from the last episode.

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But went there with Amplify, who partnered with Compassion International.

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Compassion International is a non-profit Christian organization whose goal is to end child poverty.

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And so everybody has the opportunity to sponsor a child anywhere in the globe.

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I sponsor right now one child in Uganda.

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And I previously sponsored another child, Aaron, who passed away from sickle cell when

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he was 10.

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Well, he passed away last January.

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And something cool happened on this trip with that as well.

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So on this trip, I did actually get to meet Shafik.

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He's my current sponsored child.

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And I've been sponsoring him for the last about seven months.

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And I wasn't sure if I was meeting him or not when I went.

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But that was OK.

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I wanted to go and see the experience.

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I wanted to experience really the goal of going was to experience the faith of those

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who don't have all the distractions that we have here today and have here in America.

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I mean, and well, and that's what I got.

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But meeting Shafik when I met Shafik, he's eight years old.

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And what I got to experience with him was friendship.

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Friendship with somebody on the other side of the globe, somebody that I wouldn't have

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even.

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Otherwise would not have met.

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We never have seen.

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I knew he existed because I sponsored him.

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We had some minor communication in our letters that we can do through compassion.

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Besides that, though, besides knowing what each other looks like, we didn't know much

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about each other.

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Now whenever we got to meet, he was a little he was a little stiff at first.

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And I mean, he's eight years old and I'm a stranger.

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As far as he's concerned.

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And we also don't speak the same language.

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So we had a translator.

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I was able to have some good conversation with him.

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I got him a basketball that we ended up playing soccer with, but because soccer is big over

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there, I didn't think about that.

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I would.

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That wasn't my thought when I bought it.

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I just like I'm going to buy a ball and maybe we can play with it.

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And we did.

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We had a lot of fun.

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And you probably maybe you're wondering why I'm bringing this up on the pursuit of calling

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podcasts.

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Besides that, it's just a big part of my life.

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There's there's a big reason why I wanted to meet and go there.

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I already mentioned that.

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But what I got out of it, and I've already mentioned that before, was I was going to

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this is actually a way down the bottom of my notes, but it was a humbling experience

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to see people live their lives in a way that we would consider.

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If anybody lived their lives here in America, if I like we might consider it a failure.

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We might consider that life failing, a failing life, somebody that isn't doing well in their

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lives.

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And there, it's very common for some people to live in mud huts.

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It's very common to not have a lot of personal possessions.

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And it was very humbling to me to see that whenever I another thing I got to do there

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was I got to meet Aaron's family.

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I mentioned him before he was my compassion child that passed away.

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And that was the most surreal experience of the whole trip.

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I was able to give them my personal condolences.

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And the father there, he actually came, we had to visit their home and in their home

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sitting in a chair in their home.

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And it's honestly a mud hut with a thatch.

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I think that's what it's called, a thatch roof.

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And he told me, he said, we're going to pray for you for your heart to heal.

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And later he said, we consider you the son for the one that we lost.

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And I don't have words to describe what that means.

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I don't have words to describe how it feels to have that make that much of an impact on

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a family on a different continent.

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In knowing that it's possible.

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We talk about the pursuit of calling on this podcast.

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And I talked about my calling being providing people with the tools they need to successfully

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pursue their God given calling.

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And maybe that all I, maybe in these certain instances, all I can do is provide finances

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through a donation through Compassion International.

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Maybe that's the only thing I can do to bless these people besides pray.

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Maybe I can also pray.

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Yes.

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And that's huge.

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There's power in prayer.

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However, if I can provide the funds for that can then be directed to help these to help

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a child, whether that was Aaron or Shafik, or maybe hopefully maybe one day when an Aaron

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sibling, one of Aaron siblings provide the finances for the tools, for the resources

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that they need to pursue their God given calling.

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That's a blessing.

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And I didn't realize how much of a blessing it was until I got to see these people where

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they're at until I met them where they were at.

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I didn't know where my money was.

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I didn't really know exactly.

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I didn't understand where my money was going.

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Really whenever I whenever I tithed to the church, I just trust amplify.

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I trust God with my finances and I trusted amplify to steward that resource well.

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The finances went.

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Some of the finances go directly to compassion and we got to see how those are being used.

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And now I want to encourage others to sponsor children to tie to their church to tie to

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amplify or their church, their local church and trust God with their finances.

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If God will do great things.

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I would say if you have a sponsored child, I want to encourage you to go on a trip.

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I want to encourage you, whether it be to Uganda or somewhere else in the world.

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You know, it's not an easy decision, but it's a life changing one.

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I want to encourage you to go on a missions trip to wherever this is at.

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You can go there with compassion through compassion.

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The next opportunity you get, I want to encourage you to take that jump, take that leap to meet

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your compassion child if that's possible because it changes your perspective on their situation.

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And I believe doesn't just change your perspective and it strengthens the reality between you

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and them.

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I was we were told there on the trip that sometimes the kids even the kids even have

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doubts of whether their sponsors are real people.

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And that's completely understandable.

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Because they never meet them, all they get is all they see is letters.

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They think that maybe somebody else wrote it.

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Maybe there's maybe the adults there are just telling them that somebody on the other side

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of the world loves them just to make them feel better and to motivate them.

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And whenever you go and visit them, now they know that they know for a fact that the person

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in the pictures that you sent them are real.

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That the person is real and that you do love them and that Jesus does love them enough

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to send somebody to send somebody on the other side of the world to just go and play soccer

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with them.

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To hug them, to pray with them.

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So with all of that said, I want to say leave you with a final question, some final questions

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or just one final question.

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What can you do today to better the life of a total stranger?

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How do you want whenever you whenever you enter into an interaction with a stranger,

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how do you want to leave them after that interaction?

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How do you want to do what is what way do you want to impact them?

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I want you to write that I want you to write that down so that the next time you interact

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with your bank teller, next time you interact with a cashier at the cashier at the grocery

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store, you know how you want to leave them after that interaction.

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The reason I bring that up because you never know how much it matters to interact with

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people in a way that will positively impact them and not just treat them as a means to

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an end.

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So guys, on that note, thank you for listening to the this episode of the procedural calling

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podcast.

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If you enjoyed it, I'd love it if you would share this episode on Facebook and Instagram.

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Let's get the word out.

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And don't forget to leave the podcast a five star review wherever you listen.

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It really helps.

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All right, keep on pursuing your calling and I'll see you in the next episode.