Uganda Team Update: 4 June

Travel Day 1: Grand Junction - Phoenix - Philadelphia

I couldn’t believe how long my son slept this morning. After a late evening of packing and getting a few things settled around our house, I was ready for Will to rock and roll around his now-normal time of 6:15am. I set the coffee for 6:05 and stumbled downstairs about 6:10. The magic hour rolled around and…nothing. I picked up the newspaper and pulled the sun shades on our south-facing front porch. Still nothing from the nursery. I poured myself a life-giving cup of coffee, opened my Bible and my journal at the dining table, and settled into my morning devotional. 6:30 rolled around, then 6:45. Still nothing.

My wife came downstairs right around the time I got Will’s bottle ready for him. “He’s not awake yet,” she asked, “is he?”

“Nope. Have a cup of coffee with me.”

About 30 minutes later, we heard him stir. We went into the nursery together and found him being goofy – as he usually is in the mornings. He’d stuffed his head under his pillow and waited until we both walked in to toss the pillow aside and jump up in his crib with a huge smile on his face.

“OK,” I said to Jill, “now I can get on a plane for Uganda.”

My family and I went to breakfast together at one of our favorite restaurants downtown. We played outside for a while, saw a friend and her two kiddos, then got in the car to drive across town to the airport. The Uganda mission team had already gathered at the airport, along with one of my good friends from my Thursday morning guys’ group. We all hugged our families and said goodbye, loaded up the eight foot-lockers filled with goodies for the kids and staff at Amani, and were lead in prayer by Karen Jensen – a member of last year’s Uganda team who had come to send us off in style. Several members of last year’s team came to pray with us before we left, which was really special.

We had a full and uneventful flight from Grand Junction to Phoenix. It felt a little funny to travel from one desert to another! At the Phoenix airport, our team sat down for a late lunch/early dinner, and one of our team members shared the story of his life and faith with us. One of our goals as a team is to truly connect and build each other up as we travel together, so during every meal on our journey to Uganda, we’ll spend time listening to one of our team members share their life story. It’s a powerful way to push past the logistics and fatigue of travel and remind ourselves that we are here for each other, demonstrating Christ’s presence to each other by being together.

Now we’re in Philadelphia. A few of us went on a field trip earlier this evening and enjoyed some fabulous local cheesesteaks. Sean's had Cheese-Whiz on it, while Beth and I went for the more traditional provolone topping. All were excellent.

We’ll stay the night at a hotel near the airport, have breakfast and hear at least one more team member’s story, then head back to the airport for our flight to Doha, Qatar. That will be the longest leg of our trip – 12.5 hours in the air. We have a short layover in Doha (in addition to a 9-hour time change) before fly to Entebbe, followed by a few hours in the car to Jinja.

Whew.

Everyone is doing well so far, and we’re all very grateful for this amazing opportunity to grow and serve together. I hope to post photos and updates regularly during our journey, so please check the blog often so you won’t miss anything.

Below are a couple of photos from our day in transit. A special thanks goes out to everyone who brought supplies for us to bring to the kids and staff at Amani. Thanks for helping us fill up the foot-lockers with everything our friends requested! Also, thanks to all of you who contributed support to purchase new mattresses for the mamas at Amani. We raised well over the amount needed for those special gifts – thank you for your generosity!