Editor’s Note
The following reflection was written by an AMH donor and partner, sharing her personal journey and experiences with African Mission Healthcare across Kenya and Uganda. We are grateful for her voice, her heart, and her continued commitment to AMH’s mission of treating patients today, training doctors for tomorrow, and transforming hospitals for the future.
A Year of Purpose
by Margarete Cassalina, AMH Donor
As promised, here is my update on the 11th of every month for the 11 countries African Mission Healthcare serves.
December felt like the right time to look back, gather the moments that changed me, and share the story of how this mission worked its way straight into my heart.
If you had told me ten years ago that Africa would become one of the deepest callings of my life, I would’ve laughed, patted you on the shoulder, and said, “Sweetheart, I’m already spoken for.”
For more than three decades, my heart, my time, and my soul belonged to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. It’s literally in my blood. I honestly didn’t think I had room or capacity for another mission.
Then in 2022, something shifted—without me even realizing it.
I hosted a women’s workshop in my home for the executive women of African Mission Healthcare (AMH), three extraordinary Kenyan executive leaders who filled my living room with wisdom, courage, laughter, and strength. They walked in as guests and walked out carrying pieces of my heart. ❤️
In 2024, Marc and I spent two weeks in Kenya. That trip changed the way I see resilience, compassion, leadership, and what “showing up” truly looks like.
And then came this past July in Uganda—two weeks standing shoulder-to-shoulder with clinicians, mothers, students, surgeons, and communities who redefined what it means to serve.
In the middle of it all, I met Dr. Sister Priscilla. This woman is a force of nature, and she instantly became my distant best friend.
What began as a connection in Uganda turned into WhatsApp messages flying across the ocean almost every day. We checked in on one another, shared the highs and lows, and cheered each other on from two different worlds that suddenly didn’t feel very far apart.
She is grace and steel, leadership and love, all wrapped into one extraordinary human being—a changemaker in a habit and the first person who ever made me rethink everything I thought I knew about what a nun could do, the power of a voice, and the force of quiet strength. This woman could move mountains.
She didn’t just broaden my understanding of what AMH can do; she expanded the way I see strength, service, and what one woman can do in this world.
Uganda is where Africa stopped being a place on a map and became a place in my soul. Kenya took my heart, and Uganda kept it.
AMH opened my eyes to things most of the world never sees.
- Africa holds 24% of the world’s disease burden—but only 3% of the health workers to care for it.
- Only 5% of people can access safe surgery.
Those numbers can feel distant across an ocean, but up close, they look like a mother walking ten miles while in labor. They look like a hospital in need of basic supplies. They look like a young medical student who just needs one chance to change her entire community.
That’s where African Mission Healthcare steps in.
I saw firsthand AMH doing what they do best:
Treating patients today — providing expert, compassionate medical care for those who would otherwise go without, from lifesaving surgeries to obstetrics to HIV and TB treatment.
Training doctors for tomorrow — addressing the greatest challenge in African healthcare by equipping and supporting the next generation of medical professionals and building strength from within.
Transforming hospitals for the future — strengthening infrastructure, equipment, and leadership so mission hospitals can grow, endure, and serve more people long after we’re gone.
African Mission Healthcare has taught me something simple but life-changing: your heart doesn’t have to have just one mission. It has room for whatever love asks of it. Mine expanded in ways I never saw coming, and I’m grateful it did.
As December settles in, I keep thinking about the words from Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas?—a reminder that, in a world of plenty, compassion can still reach across oceans.
That’s what African Mission Healthcare is doing every single day: giving the gift of life where it is needed most. 🙏
So as we celebrate, as we gather, as we hold the people we love close, maybe we also remember to say a prayer for the other ones. And we keep showing up with our time, our hearts, and our compassion—for the people whose lives are forever changed by this mission.
I don’t know if they know it’s Christmas time at all. But they know when hope arrives. They know when healing comes. They know when someone, somewhere, chose to care.
And that, to me, is the heart of this season.
As this year comes to a close, here’s my truth: I didn’t go looking for African Mission Healthcare. Somehow, it found me. And now I can’t imagine my purpose without it.
If you’ve followed these posts all year, thank you.
Awareness is action.
Curiosity is action.
Compassion is action.
Here’s to another year of treating, training, and transforming—together.
Asante Sana (thank you)