Pursuing God’s Dream for My Life

My name is Alissa Cooper Sande, and I am a missionary to Uganda, Africa. I have a Master’s Degree in Reading from Clarion-University and was formerly an elementary teacher at Clarion Limestone School District in Strattanville, Pennsylvania. I resigned from my teaching job in Spring 2007 to pursue a dream that has been in my heart from the time I was a small child. In February 2009 I moved to a town called Kyenjojo, Uganda, where I am now currently ministering with my husband, a Ugandan Pastor named Victor Sande. My primary ministry aspiration is to establish a Children’s Village in Kyenjojo District for the orphans and vulnerable children.

When I was nine years old, I began to dream dreams for the orphans of Africa. I was deeply burdened as I saw pictures of African children. I would often shed tears as I looked at their lonely, desperate faces. As I listened to missionaries from Africa share their stories, a candle ignited within me, and I knew that I wanted to grow up and become a missionary to Africa. After each service, I would always run down and talk to the missionaries-trying to find out as much as I could about being a missionary to another country. I also remember dressing up in my snowsuit during the summer months and walking through the forest-pretending that I was preaching the gospel in the jungles of Africa. (The snowsuit was to protect me from snakes and big insects that I might encounter.)

My second trip to Africa was in the summer of 2007. I spent eight weeks in Uganda, volunteering at an orphanage and teaching at two of the local schools. During this trip, it was again confirmed to me that serving in Africa is my destiny. Although time had passed by, my love and passion for Africa had not diminished at all. It had only intensified. I was filled with an inexpressible joy as I was given the opportunity to teach, play, and minister to African adults and children. My inborn love for the African people was very evident—not only to me, but also to the Africans around me. They told me that they were amazed at how easily I adapted to the African culture. They said, “We have never met a white like you. You truly do have an African heart.” Some even called me a white African. It was during this trip that I realized God truly has given me a special ability to adapt to the African culture and relate to the people there.

As a result of this summer trip, my heart became deeply troubled for the millions of orphans living in Uganda. Plagued by disease, political unrest, famine, economic hardship, and other afflictions, many of these children have been abandoned, neglected, and left to die alone. These children are not only physically dying, but every opportunity for them to develop a better future is dying. (Every day in Uganda, more than 375 children under the age of 5 die.) The children’s sad and hopeless faces, as well as their destitute situation, left a permanent mark on my heart and mind that could not be erased. I came back to America fully determined to pursue this childhood dream and make it a reality.

In the summer of 2008, I returned to Uganda after spending two months in Mozambique and two weeks in Sudan. During this four month trip to Africa, I was given many opportunities to minister to children and show them love. I enjoyed all of my experiences in the African countries that I visited, but I loved being in Uganda the most. I found that no other place felt like home to me, and my heart yearned to be in Uganda even when I was in the other African nations.

I know that my destiny in life is to bring love to the abandoned, joy to the despairing, and hope to the hopeless. I am here to respond to the cries of the orphans in Uganda because I know that every day a child dies because his cry for help is not heard. I have personally heard their cries and have seen their desperate faces. I have witnessed orphaned children raising themselves and their siblings. I have held children suffering from malnutrition and starvation. I have felt their tiny bodies and seen their skeletal figures. I have held dying children in my arms. I have heard the sobs of suffering children and have been unable to remove their cries and their faces from my head and from my heart. I passionately desire to dedicate my life to meeting the needs of the African children and showing them the love of Jesus. I am fully convinced that God has restored my life so that I can restore the lives of others. I have willingly chosen to surrender my life to God and sacrifice it for others.