We recieved the story below from Finlay Kirk, who headed out on a trip for the first time last September and is heading out again in August!

Before arriving in Tanzania I wasn't really sure what I was doing, I had signed up as my friend was going. I thought it sounded really cool as a trip like this was something that I had always wanted to do. I signed up and started to raise the funds when my friend had to pull out so I was left with the decision to go myself with a group of people who I did not know. Having already started to raise the funds I decided to just go for it and risk two week with people I didn't know. This turned out to be the best decision that I have ever made.

Upon arrival in Tanzania we met the lovely Ben and Elly and we headed to the hostel to get to a bed after being up for almost 24 hours, and, due to my excitement, I didn't get any sleep on the plane. When I woke up the next morning, it was bright outside, meaning I could see out and that I had woken in a whole new world. We were ushered straight to breakfast of pancakes, which I happily devoured after all the traveling the previous day.

We were then suddenly in a church, and listening to a traditional Tanzanian church service. Then the rest of the day we had a lesson in the native language, Swahili and we participated in a few small team building exercises to prepare us for the next two weeks of working together to help change people's lives.

After this, the next two weeks flew by, from digging out foundations on the first day to helping put the last few bricks on the last wall. It all happened so fast, but what seemed to slow time down again was when you got a chance to see the difference that the work each day had done for the families. With every day we worked, they could see their new house coming together, bringing them closer to a better place to live, to build a new more stable future for themselves and their families from the simple things such as, they will now have a dry place to sit and study in when the children return from school or a place to have a fire to cook in a shelter that isn't the same room as where they sleep.

The whole trip went by in a flash. The next thing that I remember is saying goodbye to the amazing friends that I had made over the last two weeks in the beautiful country of Tanzania.