A celebration of life: Turning 21, college student discovers herself and her place in the world

During her volunteer efforts in the slums of Kampala, the largest city in Uganda, Jenna Knapp taught literacy and provided basic health care for children who lived in the streets. Left, the University of Notre Dame student from Indianapolis poses with two boys she met during her volunteer work. Right, she hugs a child she met in Uganda during 2008, the year when she split her time between studying and volunteering in that African country and in El Salvador. Both experiences solidified her belief that she wants to commit her life to service to others at home and around the world. (Submitted photo)

(Editor’s note: “Stewards Abroad” is an occasional series that reports on the efforts of Catholics from the Archdiocese of Indianapolis throughout the world.)

By John Shaughnessy

Jenna Knapp savored the rare gift on her 21st birthday, part of a celebration that was far different than the way many college students mark that milestone.

No one asked to check her ID, bought her an alcoholic drink or even wished her “Happy birthday.”

Instead, the University of Notre Dame student from Indianapolis celebrated her birthday in Uganda, the African country where she had come to volunteer—teaching literacy and providing basic health care in a city slum during the day, and being a “mother” in a group home for 11 street children, all boys, at night.

“The night before my birthday, I was at my house with all of the boys and we sat in our circle on the floor and ate beans and posho with our hands like any other night,” Jenna recalled in an e-mail she sent to family and friends. “I sang them to sleep and went out to bathe under the stars, laughing because it was so fitting that as I turned 21 I’d be in the middle of nowhere but so content to be there with my boys.

“I went to bed at 9:30 and woke up to a beautifully misty morning. I didn’t tell my boys or anyone it was my birthday because they don’t have birthdays and that would have seemed odd to celebrate me but not them. But it was such a beautiful day. I went into the slum and came back to my kids at night and it was really, really beautiful.”

A different kind of education

Consider Jenna’s story as a “coming of age” tale, one of those times in a young person’s life that change forever their view of the world and themselves.

For nearly all of 2008, Jenna lived and volunteered in El Salvador and Uganda, in two settings marked by extreme poverty and desperation. It was a time when her faith and values were tested, a time when her faith and values also led her to clearly see herself—and her place in the world.

“It was a different kind of education, one that is much more in touch with reality,” says Jenna, a graduate of

St. Pius X School and Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School, both in Indianapolis. “It’s made me realize how I want to continue living the rest of my life. I feel I’m more alive when I’m living in service and not removed from it. With what I’ve been given in life, I feel I owe so much back. I want to listen and love in a way that I hope I can sustain all through my life.”

Jenna started her life-changing year by spending the first five months in El Salvador, a country where she has traveled six times since she was 16.

During her most recent visit, she studied theology at a university there and also volunteered in a poor mountain village called Guarjila.

“My first trip to Guarjila was in my junior year of high school,” she recalls. “I saw their sense of hospitality and openness. I also witnessed their immense suffering. After my freshman year in college, I spent the summer there. I taught 15 classes in English a week. It let me become more invested in the community. When I was in El Salvador the last time, I spent the first four months working in an urban slum in San Salvador. I was teaching English to children.”

Lessons in humility, love and parenting

She began her six months in Uganda by volunteering for a group that builds elementary schools in Africa. Later, she joined an organization that allowed her to teach and provide basic health care in the slums of Kampala, Uganda’s capital and largest city.

During that time, she became emotionally connected to a 4-year-old girl who had been severely burned. Jenna helped the child get treatment in a Ugandan hospital, but the girl died.

“I lived that experience with her mom,” Jenna recalls. “It taught me a lot of humility to feel the pain of her family and feel the suffering all around me. For once, I couldn’t change the situation, but I could be there for the family.”

Her most defining experience in Uganda involved being a “house mom” to 11 boys—ages 4 to 13—who had been rescued from the streets. When she first met them, she viewed them as “incredibly thin, usually high, extremely dirty boys who couldn’t handle physical contact and trusted no one,” boys who searched dumpsters for food.

The four months they spent together transformed the boys and Jenna.

“Sometimes, it freaks me out when I realize how much of a mom I’ve become, but I really love it,” she wrote in December, a few days before she returned to the United States. “They all call me Mommy Nakyanzi (my Ugandan name). I’m the one to pull the annoying ‘mom card’ and wipe their faces with my spit in the mornings. I can tell which one is tugging on my arm from behind just by the way they’re pulling me.

“I break up their fights, put them in ‘time out,’ and tell them I love them when it’s all said and done. I know each of their unique dance styles, and have taught a few of them to swing dance with me. I know which ones just need to snuggle up with me at times. Each of them is a miracle. In a few months, those boys went from being sickly and high to being transformed. Now, every one of them says they want to grow up and help street kids. They are amazing. I love them so much.”

A sense of communion and community

That love is the essence of Jenna, her friends say.

“She’s such a fun person to be around and she has so much energy,” says her friend, Emma Cordes, a member of St. Monica Parish in Indianapolis who attends Xavier University in Cincinnati. “She’s passionate about her friends and she’s passionate about serving the poor.”

Her passion for the poor also leads Jenna to serve others locally. She volunteers to help the Latino community near Notre Dame. Since high school, she has also continued a commitment to Miracle Place, an inner-city, multi-service center run by the Sisters of Providence in Indianapolis.

“She still comes whenever she’s home,” says Providence Sister Rita Ann Wade. “She meets the needs of many people, especially the young children. She makes the children feel she loves them very much and they respond to that.”

Jenna has returned this semester to Notre Dame, focusing on her double major in Peace Studies and anthropology. In the midst of another snowy, bone-chilling winter in South Bend, she sometimes fondly recalls those African mornings when she watched the sun rise above the tall grass.

The scenery has changed, yet one element stays constant for her. Whether at home or abroad, she believes she needs to put her faith into action.

“It’s important to go out and encounter the poor, whether they’re in your own city or another country, and just listen to them,” Jenna says. “It’s in that communion and that community that solidarity can grow in a way that’s similar to Christ’s message to serve the poor.” †