How it all began:

My trip to Tanzania a year ago is at the top of the list for the "Most amazing adventures of all time." The title is a big one to live up to, but that trip changed my life.
Upon return to Portland, I received my degree in Community Health Education and immediately resumed the daily grind of pharmacy work. What does that have to do with health education you ask? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I felt lost. I had just returned from Africa and had the chance to put that big check mark on my list of lifetime goals. I graduated from college and life was supposed to fall into place. I was supposed to be an adult. Instead, I felt like I had nothing. My career never magically appeared, no job that piqued my interest was willing to pay a dime, my applications were rejected for volunteer work, and I missed my students back in Moshi terribly.
My mind often drifted back to my favorite student at Jiendeleze, Asia (ah-see-uh). I beat myself up for months feeling like I had abandoned her. I could have done more. I could have done something. I wanted to sponsor her so that she would be able to go to a government-run school and maybe one day escape the life that I felt she so desperately needed to get away from. When it came down to it, I had waited too long. How do you trace down a 5 year old girl in rural Tanzania, who only shows up to school occasionally, and does not have a street address? You can't and you don't. I have been holding out hope that since she had made it this far, that she was going to be ok.

Holding out hope only lasts so long, so when the opportunity arrived to make a change I jumped on it. My friend Jennifer (we met on our previous trip to Tanzania) had been hoping to sponsor a child from the orphanage where she had worked (Upendo) and had brought up the idea to sponsor all of the children. I said "Let's do it!" It was my chance to put to good use everything I learned in school, and to stay connected to a place that I had fallen in love with.