Portrait of a Servant Leader
Kristen Oxley
Hometown:
Canton, Ohio
Class:
Junior
Major:
Communications with emphasis in Journalism
It takes a tremendous amount of courage to travel to an unknown country and culture to pursue a different way of life and learning. Kristen Oxley is a rare student from Milligan College who spent a semester studying abroad as a minority in a foreign culture.
Kristen spent the fall semester of 2007 at Uganda Christian University in Mukono, Uganda. Kristen had always wanted to study abroad yet it was still a personal challenge to willingly step into an unknown world.
“I saw a brochure from Uganda Christian University daring people to step out of their comfort zone and be a minority. It sounded very interesting and I prayed about it, yet when all the pieces came together, it was still unlike anything I had ever done.”
Kristen took sixteen hours of classes at UCC as a college student, yet she was one of very few American girls. Kristen was required to wear a skirt everyday and struggled to learn the Ugandan college culture.
“It was hard to understand accents and identify with people. It was frustrating to socialize, yet through time I made many friends and could communicate with others in broken English.”
Another interesting part of Kristen's time spent in Uganda was her opportunity to volunteer twenty hours a week at a school for the blind youth of Uganda. The blind school had seventy children in the facility, ranging from full to partial blindness.
Every week Kristen visited and interacted with the blind children and simply spent time with them. Kristen assisted with a weekly worship service for the children, and she even led the service one week. Kristen led worship songs in English and a teacher translated the songs in the Luganda language for the children.
Kristen also helped the blind children in everyday tasks that most people take for granted. The majority of people in Uganda must wash their clothes by hand, which was an overwhelming chore for the children; therefore Kristen helped them wash their clothes each week. She also helped with other chores like cleaning and mopping, which were tremendous tasks for the blind children, yet so easy for her to help with.
“It was a challenge because I had to figure out their limits; I didn't know what they could or could not do. However, after interacting with them for such a long time, I missed them when I left. Each blind child had become an individual name and personality to me.”
Kristen also had the opportunity to leave her dorm room at Uganda Christian University and spend a week with a family in a bush village of Uganda. She worked in the field picking beans, milked a cow by hand, and made orange juice from oranges picked fresh off the trees.
“It was a very relaxed and slow pace of life. It was very refreshing.”
 Kristen had an unforgettable time in Uganda, yet she would not have been personally ready to live in a foreign country without her experience at Milligan beforehand. She credits Milligan College for preparing her for her semester abroad in Uganda.
“Milligan forces students to learn things we would not normally choose to learn, such as Humanities. Milligan challenged me to think critically about the topics that I learned, ask questions, and incorporate what I learned into my everyday situations.”
All of Kristen's preparations from Milligan were extremely useful in a class she took called Faith and Action at Uganda Christian University. The class discussed theological practices and what it truly means to be a Christian. They studied compassion, discipline, and how to incorporate everything into becoming a stronger Christian.
“My faith has been widened by my experience. My perspective on faith is stronger, deeper, and wider.”
Kristen's experience in Uganda has also strengthened her desires to be a journalist, especially as she loves to travel and take challenges.
“The best way to be a good journalist is to know as much as possible about people and cultures. The more you know, the more you can write. After spending a semester in a foreign culture, not only have I grown as a person and in my faith, but I have become a stronger journalist.”
Kristen's internship was made possible through the Institute for Servant Leadership, a spiritual program at Milligan which helps students to discover their call in servant leadership and to help them discern their own vocation path through faith, service, and leadership.
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