| Sara Fouts teaches a child about photography at the orphanage for children with HIV in Cape Town, South Africa. (Photo courtesy of Sara Fouts) |
Visiting children infected with HIV at orphanages, sleeping amidst poisonous snakes in the jungle and
listening to the stories of villagers plagued by drug addiction were all a part of a Bowling Green
woman’s recent mission trip.
Sara Fouts, 21, a senior at Bowling Green State University, traveled to Brazil and Africa this summer as
part of a mission trip through Launch Out Ministries.
The six-week trip was her third missionary trip. She has also traveled to Nicaragua in 2009 and Haiti in
2010.
"Just the idea of helping people in other cultures has always been very attractive to me," she
said.
The first leg of her most recent trip began in Brazil.
There, she visited with children who had HIV at an orphanage, stayed in huts in the Amazon Jungle, and
completed door-to-door evangelism.
"We got to see what plagues the people: poverty, loneliness and drug addiction," she said.
"The people that live in the jungle are very much rejected by society and by people living in the
city," she said.
"They take great joy in celebrations. They try to celebrate everything they can."
And the people were welcoming to the group.
"Even people who did not agree with our reasons for being there welcomed us," she said.
While meeting with villagers, the missionaries stayed in huts in the Amazon Jungle. They slept among
poisonous snakes, tarantulas, mosquitoes and fire ants.
After Brazil, Fouts joined a new group of missionaries in Africa.
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania was described by Fouts as "the dirtiest city I have ever seen.
"There were orphans everywhere and people missing limbs," she said. "It just looked like a
fallen city."
In Mikumi, Tanzania, the group again went door-to-door evangelizing in a community where most people are
Muslim
"I am open to disagree," Fouts said. "It was really cool to get to know people and why
they believe what they believe."
When the group crossed the border from Tanzania to Zambia, they stopped for a rest break and were
engulfed by a group of children.
"They were coated in layers and layers of dirt," she said. "It makes you very aware of how
hard accessing clean water is."
They played games with the children and Fouts took pictures of them.
"I’d take a picture of them and then show them and they would just burst out into a yell – so
joyful."
Part of her duties on the mission trip was to be a photographer. The photos were used by Launch Out
Ministries.
"Taking pictures was awesome. It was intimidating at times because you are in another culture,"
she said.
"I also just didn’t want to be seen as just another white tourist taking advantage of the culture
and taking pictures."
The mission group also visited an orphanage for children with HIV in Cape Town, South Africa.
"Not even all the kids understand what HIV is," Fouts said. "They have no idea, yet some
of them are still running around and smiling.
"You just wish you had more love to pour on them."
Traveling north to Namibia, the missionaries worked with a local church youth group.
During their time there, they handed out bubbles, coloring books, crayons and hair accessories.
"They didn’t know what bubbles were. You just assume they know."
Fouts, a liberal studies major, who attends Brookside Church on BGSU’s campus, said she is looking to go
to a refugee camp in Kenya on her next mission trip.
"Everyday I think about the people I encountered. Everyday I think of these people and they affect
my decisions," Fouts said.
