After giving her life to Jesus in 2007, Lauren had a dream that she was flying over the ocean and landed in Africa where there was a small boy all alone with a protruding belly. She had been praying and asking the Lord for a long time His will and instantly knew she was called to abandoned and orphaned children in Africa.

Lauren began to serve in her church doing office administration and volunteered with African missions working in Uganda, Kenya and South Sudan for 10 years. She sponsored a woman in Uganda, did website design for other ministries and financial book keeping for African missions.

In 2016, Lauren volunteered with a local community based organisation running a feeding program with street connected children in Kisenyi. She built up her fundrasing skills and in 2017 travelled to Kenya and Uganda for the first time where she fell in love with Uganda!

In 2019, the leader of that small organisation decided he didn’t want run his organisation anymore and closed down his ministry. Soon after covid hit the world and messages came from Uganda with desperate cries for help! People were starving in their homes. Lauren managed to hire a truck with the help of some local friends and distributed hundreds of bags of posho throughout the community. Lauren then picked up the families who were left behind after the organisation she was helping closed and she took to forming her own organisation. In 2020, Lauren began to do the paperwork required to become a registered charity in Australia and Umoya Ministries was born.

Since then, Umoya has continued to grow. Umoya is a registered charity in Australia and is currently in the process of setting up as an official NGO in Uganda (almost complete). The vision of Umoya is to is establish a child resettlement home to ensure that every child living on the street has a safe place to call home.