STORY & GALLERY: First Global Builders team in Uganda comes away impressed
CLINTON, New Jersey — As a registered nurse, Kaitlyn Reper is used to spending her days — and some nights — helping others. So, when she has time to get away from the medical facility, she chooses to spend her free time … helping even more people.
She has helped many families through the years build simple, decent places to live as a volunteer. When Covid paused international service trips at another housing nonprofit, she found her way to The Fuller Center for Housing and its Global Builders program. Through the years, she has helped families build simple, decent places to live in at least 10 countries — the latest service trip taking her to Uganda.
“I just love it,” Reper said of helping others being both her job and a personal mission. “I have a huge passion for helping others and for traveling. And I like to show that not everybody in America is out for themselves. There needs to be more of that in this world — helping others and being kind to our neighbors. Plus, I don’t think we know how good we have it until you see other countries and see how those people live.”
A few years ago, Reper volunteered on the very first Fuller Center Global Builders trip to Portugal, a place where she also had led a volunteer trip under the other nonprofit. She prefers visiting new countries, and that’s why she joined the first Global Builders trip to Uganda a couple of weeks ago, a trip led by experienced team leader Tricia Vos.
“I love Tricia,” Reper explained about why she chose to join this first-ever Global Builders trip to Uganda. “She’s a really good team leader, and I was up for the challenge. I just like exploring new places, and she said we were going to be the trial team. I thought that sounded exciting.”
They expected a few hiccups. International travel — especially off the well-trodden tourists paths — usually presents an array of challenges and detours. Add to that the challenges of building a home in a foreign country and building alongside strangers, and you understand why a first Global Builders experience might feel like a trial run. Instead, they found a well-oiled machine.
“For their first time, they did a great job,” Reper said. “You couldn’t tell it was their first time hosting a team because they were so good. They were really receptive to learning and knowing what they needed to do.”
As Fuller Center for Housing Vice President Ryan Iagifliola saw during a tour of Uganda’s operations in February 2024 (story, video & photo gallery here), the team there hit the ground running a few years ago with strong church connections, effective local builders and innovative ways to raise funds for their work — including a car wash, barber shop, hardware store and more.
“We got to visit their gym, their car wash and their hardware store,” Reper said. “Now, they have the vision to build a diner and already have the building on the site of the car wash. They want to have pictures of the partner families and have their customers when they buy coffee be able to round up and donate the rest of their money to The Fuller Center. They have so many creative ways to get fundraising done.”
It was also the first Global Builders experience for the Ugandan community of Bugiri where they worked. Reper noted that her team members definitely stood out at the start of the build week.
“At the beginning of the week, I don’t think the people we met had seen many white people before and were a little nervous,” Reper said. “But by the end of the week, they really had embraced us. The people that we were working with were so nice and joked with us and tried to practice their English. On the last day when we had a celebration, the community was so thankful and gave us a round of applause and were so happy that we were there. I had an amazing trip. It was really good. I would definitely recommend it.”
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