"It is an opportunity to come back and report to the community. I'm like a roving reporter checking up on our investment," she said.
That investment included teaching local women to sew when Shelley first ventured to Uganda. They were now manufacturing dolls (like the one she is pictured holding), she said, which the Watoto Children's Choir was selling as it travelled the world.
Meanwhile, this three-week trip, beginning on April 11, will be her first after completing three years of teacher training, which she will be putting to good use, teaching English to Ugandan teachers.
"It's quite a scary task but I'm looking forward to it very much," she said.
She will be travelling with the organisation Hope Global, the only New Zealander in a party comprising teachers, trauma counsellors and paediatricians. It is all self-funded, Shelley having saved her share of the cost, but she would be very grateful for any contributions of resources ("basic stuff - card, paper") that she could take with her for the schools she will visit.
And while a great deal of time, effort and expense was involved in this form of mission work, Shelley said the pleasure was all hers.
"I feel that it's a calling," she said.
"When I am there I feel I am in the right place at the right time. The people over there have been through so much trauma, yet they are still so happy. I come back here to Kaitaia and I am so grateful for what we have, and I try to teach that to the children here.
"If I can share my experiences with others, maybe it will open up the world to them, and hopefully it adds to me as a person."
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The Watoto Children's Choir will perform in Kaitaia, for the third time, on July 16, while three women, one of whom runs a home for disabled children in Uganda, will speak at the Virtue Church in Kaitaia on Sunday, March 30, all welcome.