In Ubuntu, Malawi, last year, Charity Ramos of the Sandy Utah Hidden Valley Stake and her 17-year-old son Sam worked hard every day and loved it. Despite all the work, and without cell phones, they had real joy.
“We live the first two great commandments,” Ramos said. “We love God and we love our neighbor.”
They prayed, attended church meetings, studied the scriptures, shared Gospel messages with others, and built friendships while helping build a chicken farm for refugees living in the Dzaleka refugee camp in the southern nation of Africa.
“We share our talents, we serve with all our heart, soul, mind and strength,” he said.
A sign marks the entrance to the Dzaleka refugee camp in Ubuntu, Malawi, in late July 2022.
The Ramos mother and son duo were in Malawi with Humanitarian XP to help a non-profit organization called Fraternity Without Borders. Between July 25 and August 5, Ramos and her son helped lay bricks for the walls of a new chicken farm.
The nonprofit organization is working to create more services to help build self-reliance among the more than 52,000 refugees living inside the camp.
Fraternity Without Borders has also built a school, counseling services, a tailor shop, a soap shop, a carpentry and charcoal shop, a library and gardens to provide jobs and resources for refugees, many of them from the Democratic Republic of Congo, he said. bouquets. .
Describing the joy he felt during all the hard work, Ramos used the words of Elder Ronald A. Rasband of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in a talk he gave at BYU–Idaho last February: “When your love for God consumes your service, interests, priorities and affections, you are blessed and joy accompanies those blessings.
Charity and Sam Ramos stand near the new brick walls they helped build for a chicken farm at the Dzaleka refugee camp in Ubuntu, Malawi. They were there from July 25 to August 5, 2022.
He said he has a testimony that everyone can feel such joy in their daily lives, because as Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf taught in the April 2022 general conference, when people look to Christ in every thought, “everything else begins.” to line up. … Over time, everything becomes a single work. A joy. A Holy Purpose. It is the work of loving and serving God. It is loving and serving the children of God.”
On the way to Malawi, Ramos met an African woman at the airport who asked where Ramos and her son were going. When Ramos told him they were going to work in a refugee camp, he said the woman told him: “God bless you. Thank you for not forgetting the people of Africa.”
Ramos said that since the trip, several of the other Church members who were there have provided services and donations to help develop self-reliance and educational opportunities at the camp.
He said that he knows that Heavenly Father has not forgotten the people of Africa.
“He is aware of each one of them and we saw and felt this over and over again as we served with them, worked with them and spent time with our refugee and Malawian friends,” he said.
The view in Ubuntu, Malawi, taken in July 2022.
