Simone is the Founder and President of Simone's Kids, a nonprofit and ministry she launched in 2010 that now provides education, nutrition, and holistic support to hundreds of children in Uganda. Her leadership is shaped not only by her cross‑cultural work, but also by her personal story — walking through chronic illness since childhood, navigating the long and demanding road of medical school and residency alongside her husband, who is now a surgeon, and becoming a mother through the adoption of her two children after a long journey with infertility. Simone brings a rare blend of faith‑driven purpose, resilience, and practical leadership insight. She speaks with warmth, clarity, and honesty about building sustainable programs, empowering local leaders, and leading with dignity across cultures, all while balancing family, health, and calling.

Simone Puccinelli's Website

Welcome to 12 Minute Converse with Jesus Believers.

God chose first to have a conversation with us, his creation.

Our prayer is that this listening space brings growth and transforms your life forever.

Praise God for you, Simone.

It's a great pleasure to connect with you.

What part of the world are you in today?

I am in the southeast of the United States in Alabama.

How fun.

Were you born there?

No, I was actually born next door in Georgia and I've lived a couple places since then in my adulthood and we think we've landed in Alabama.

We're gonna try to build some roots here, but I've lived quite a few places in the Are you close to the coast?

An hour and a half.

Okay.

You said we though, when you say we, who are you speaking about?

Well, my husband, I've been following him around on his journey of becoming a doctor.

So we met freshman year of college.

So I've been with him his entire undergrad, grad, med school, residency, and I am highly adaptable.

So I think it's, it worked well that I was able to just follow along him and meet different people and live different places.

So that's the we is me and my husband.

That's amazing.

No children.

We have two kids.

We have a 10 year old and six year old, but they don't have very much say on where we go.

Have you gotten the opportunity to visit any other country but the United States?

Yes, I have visited many countries.

As a child, my dad actually took us to Jamaica on a mission trip.

My dad was a pastor and he loved missions.

So he instilled that in us as a young kid.

So it was one of five.

He took all of us to Jamaica one time to see some friends there that lived there and had a base.

And then I went to Mexico on a mission trip.

And then in high school, I actually went to Africa.

I went to Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda for three weeks before my senior year of high school.

I've gotten more travel than I think most people, but there, I know there's a lot of people beating me at the same time.

It's been a lot more places than me.

Which is your favorite so far?

I loved them all in unique ways.

I don't think I have a favorite.

I just have really good memories from each place.

Tell me about missions work.

And what is your favorite part of missionary work?

I am a highly relational person.

And the way I came to Christ was in the relationship manner, friendship manner.

As a very young child, that was my first understanding of a relationship that I was a friend of God.

That's where my salvation story began.

And so I feel like that's what I bring to the mission fields.

I started a nonprofit when I was 20, a nonprofit ministry in Uganda.

And just being in relationship with the students and the staff on the ground, encouraging them in the faith.

And so I feel like that's the hard part of ministry for me, is being called to so much of the administrative work.

I'm gifted administratively, business oriented wise.

And sometimes I wish I could just hang out with the kids all the time on the mission field.

I wish that was just the whole job.

You need finances to run things, to buy foods, to pay teachers.

So just really learning everyone's unique story and connecting heart to heart of just everybody at the end of the day is looking for that love of Christ, whether you're an orphan or you're not.

Our ministry is in particular to orphaned or children with a single mother or a single grandmother.

But you can see more clearly in their lives because nobody wants to take care of them.

And so they feel rejected from an early age and that Christ offers that acceptance.

And watching kids realize that they are loved and seeing that transformation of their soul just through the way they act.

You can almost see it in their eyes when they go from being like not taken care of to being taken care of.

So my favorite part of ministry is seeing that transformation in kids.

When did you realize that this is your life's purpose?

It wasn't until I was 20 that God really showed me, I'm opening this door and I want you to walk through it.

And that still felt pretty young.

And it also wasn't fully my plan.

My plan was to work for another ministry.

It wasn't to start a ministry.

From the ages of 12 to 20, I can see how God was preparing me so that when that opportunity came at 20 to help this group of kids, there had been confirmation all the way.

I think if he just came to me at 20 and I had no prior experiences with the Lord and calling to that type of ministry, I don't think I would have said yes, because that's such a big thing to just fly to Africa and meet kids and say, okay, I'm going to buy land and build a school.

Really the calling started at a young age.

And I'd like to tell this story sometimes to people I meet that when I was a little kid, our church had children they sponsored through another ministry.

And so I learned about orphans and I was just like a little girl, like seven, six years old.

I played orphanage because I wanted those kids to have someone taking care of them.

I like to say that I feel like God gave me a tiny, tiny piece of his heart because we wouldn't be able to care for everything like God cares for everything.

And so that really was deposited into my heart at a young age to take care of kids that didn't have anyone to take care of them.

What are the things you actively do or doing to foster your relationship to be able to hear the voice of God clearly?

Definitely the practice of solitude and silence, I find is critical to my relationship with the Lord.

And when I go without it, I just start to feel more and more frazzled and more and more stress.

Five years from today, you're listening to this conversation.

You hear the things you say, the things you desire.

What's a message you'd leave for future you?

I hope that you learn to just be content and really enjoy it and not.

I hope Simone over the next five years, because I can be such a visionary that I'm always in like, what's next?

What's tomorrow?

Let's build another building.

And I find myself not like looking back at what God has done or what God is doing right now.

And so I hope over the next five years, I've learned to just take in what the Lord has done and is doing right now.

Hey, this has been a great pleasure.

I can understand how you sit and there's no strangers anywhere you go.

I'm thankful that your father did what he did by planting that seed and introducing you to the Caribbean as his first trip here and then the world by extension.

Again, a pleasure.

I treasure amazing audience links are in the show notes.

Thank you, Simone, for being on what is Inspired.

Great to have you on the conference.