When Kathy McGinnis first heard of a contest on her local Christian radio during one morning commute, she probably had no idea her life was about to change.

But God was about to fulfill one of Kathy’s deepest desires: to see His work first-hand in Africa.

After tuning in to her local K-LOVE radio station through the week-long “Where in the Kingdom” contest and coming up with the three correct answers to the trivia questions, Kathy employed both her mother and daughter to get on the phone and be the 100^th caller.

Squeals of joy echoed through their house as Kathy was announced the winner, realizing she’d won a trip for two to see Food for the Hungry’s programs in Uganda, followed by a 3-day safari in Kenya.

Kathy, a sales associate for a mortgage company in Berlin, N.J., chose her 16-year-old daughter, Sarah Godsil, to accompany her on the trip. In October 2007, they traveled with Food for the Hungry staff to several Ugandan communities where real transformation at the hands of God is taking place.

Barkalo, a community with nearly 350 children sponsored through Food for the Hungry, is bursting with enthusiasm, thanks to devoted parents. With a little help from Food for the Hungry, these parents have built classrooms for their children and have provided living quarters so teachers can live closer to school, eliminating a long walk twice a day.

Kathy and Sarah visited one of these classrooms, where the children greeted them in song: “He Has the Whole World in His Hands.”

“As the children sang the words to that song, it became evident to me that God truly does have the whole world in His hands, and these children are a part of the whole world,” says Kathy. “They are in His hands, and what a great place to be!”

Traveling north to Kitgum, a place wrecked by decades of a still-active, brutal war, Kathy saw more of how God heals his creation through the hands and feet of his servants.

“I began to see the work of God in action,” she says. “I found the citizens of Uganda to be very warm, welcoming and anxious to share with us the marvelous things God has been doing in their lives. The laborers were hard at work, and the Scriptures were being lived out in some of the worst places you can imagine.”

These “worst places” are the internally displaced persons camps: government-imposed settlements that were meant to be temporary but which often serve as one’s home for several years. Here, there is little or no infrastructure like electricity, schools, health services or law enforcement aside from the military. One’s regular diet might consist mainly of millet, sorghum and nuts. Disease is the liveliest entity in these camps and thrives on the absence of cleanliness.

Yet more than 60 dedicated Food for the Hungry staff venture into this environment daily, bringing Christ’s redemption to the communities one person at a time.

Kathy and the team also visited the New Life Center in Kitgum, a haven where 20 of the most battered victims of this war receive Christian counseling, basic education, medical attentions and skills training to earn a livable wage. Participants are young women between ages 16 and 30, and they live at the Center for three months before returning to the camps to exercise the training they received.

By the end of the three months, most of the women are truly new creations, thanks to the healing power of our God.

“We serve a God that restores and rebuilds,” says Kathy. “His love knows no boundaries.”

Now, Kathy looks forward to being a voice for those she met in Uganda – a megaphone for the lives now changed. She is exploring ways to get her church involved in God’s restoration around the world.

“Our God is merciful, and He calls us into the field because the harvest is ripe,” she says. “Food for the Hungry is sending the laborers into the field and is equipping God’s people with the tools they need to accomplish the task.”