Here is a picture of N and Q having a BLAST with new team friends at the ARA ( American Recreation Association i.e. embassy hotel) . . . . They are loving life under the care of their awesome Father God who is just as close in Uganda as He was in Annapolis.

We are two days into our Ugandan adventure. God has blessed us with tremendous prayer support. Our flight was VERY smooth. Our biggest worry was out luggage which we frantically reshuffled at the last moment before heading for the airport because it was all coming in just overweight (which would cost us, we were told, a mere $450/piece!) When we got to the airport we praised God when the attendent who checked us in said, “well, if we don’t weigh them, then they can’t come in overweight, can they??” and waved us through with NO weighing at all, not even charging us the small surcharge for the weight we had reserved. We were quite a sight at the airport with all of our baggage and carry ons. The carry ons weighed a TON. Because I am still sick, all the running through the airport (we arrived JUST in time after waiting through lines, etc. to board our plane) caused paroxysms of coughing. It was pretty miserable. But once we boarded the plane, we all got four good hours of sleep, and four more restful hours before arriving in Amsterdam. Again, we slept for three hours in a sleeping chair there, and then reboarded for Entebbe. More sleep on the plane followed by fun playtime. We were on the same plane with a mission team of 24 young people all wearing red T-shirts as well as a flight attendant with a WWJD pin on her uniform. It was a nice feeling.

One more nice God-sighting, though I know this is getting very long. My friend had given us some goodies to use on the plane. All of them ended up being EXACTLY what we needed during the flight, despite the fact that they are not things we normally use!! Thanks Dana, for being led by the Holy Spirit and acting on it!

The last two days in Kamapala have been full. We have seen our new vehicle which is GORGEOUS and exactly what we need. Pics coming soon. We have been shopping and are beginning to figure out the process of stocking up eight to ten weeks at a time with many of our goods. We have gotten Ugandan shillings for our dollars and have started the process of work visas and dependent documents, etc.

Kamapala is really an extraordinary place. We will take pictures as we are out and about tomorrow, our last full day here before heading for “the district” (Bundibugyo) and our village. Driving here is an amazing test of courage and wits. IN one short drive here I saw more near fatalaties than I have seen in a lifetime in the U.S. The amount of traffic, including mopeds with perhaps a driver, a mother, and her three children including a baby (yes, all on the same moped!) weave in and out of traffic at breakneck speeds. At every stop Ugandans run up to your vehicle peddling goods. They are not easily discouraged and keep at it! Pedestrians cross the street at the slightest gap in traffic, risking life and limb each time, often with many goods on their heads (if they are women!)

Well, all for now. Must conserve our batteries a bit. Kampala is having freqent blackouts and we are in one now. Our internet connection here is quite good, we are at the American embassy hotel, once we get into Bundibugyo it may be harder to send photos, but we will still update you all!

Please continue to send us email, it’s such an encouragement. God has shown us again and again that His people are praying, that He is orchestrating ALL.

Pray on Tuesday for safety as we learn to drive here in one fell eight hour swoop into Bundibugyo!!

Or maybe Uganda AND bust! Here’s a picture of our total luggage (keep in mind we did not ship anything yet, so this is all our worldly goods.) Pretty impressive, huh? All that stuff adds up eventually to a whole lot of trunks.

This morning was craziness as we finished up our packing to discover that we were about five pound overweight on almost every trunk. Lots of shifting and repacking. Fun. It’s done now, praise God.

We head to our church at 1:30 for prayer till 2:30 then to Dulles by 3:30 and our flight is at 5:40. We fly about eight hours into Amsterdam, with a four hour layover, and then another eight hours into Entebbe. There we will go through customs and be met by one of the guys from our team who will drive us into Kampala (about thirty miles.) We will be in Kampala three to four days getting work permits, visas, new mattreses, our vehicle, etc. August 1st is when we’re scheduled to arrive in our village.

Please pray for:

1)GRACE, GRACE, GRACE! with each other, with our circumstances, and asking God for grace moment by moment

2) That we would live in weakness and depend on His strength

3) For the kids to have a supernatural degree of patience and flexibility especially as they reach the point of exhaustion

4) for all our bags to make it to Uganda and through customs

Here is a picture of our new home in Uganda!! What a beautiful sight, don’t you think? This is all the more special because it is an incredible provision from God. When most of the team members first went they lived in tents, so you can see how thankful we are for this house. It belonged to Wycliffe missionaries who no longer live there and have offered it’s use to us, rent free! We also were able to buy their furniture, so rather than sleeping on mattresses on the floor for months while waiting for our furniture to be hand cut, dried, and built by locals, we have an established place to go to. Our team leaders, Scott and Jennifer, have been hard at work organizing the cleanup of the house which has not been occupied for several years and had been taken over by animals (happens quickly there!) They had it cleaned, painted inside and out, fixed all the leaks in the roof, got our water tanks working and hooked up for us, etc. They have been such a blessing.

It’s definitely not fancy, but it sure looks incredible to us.

Today we leave for our two weeks of “mandatory vacation”. World Harvest Mission, our agency, requires us to take this family time before deployment. This surprised us, but it makes an awful lot of sense. Especially now that we are in the thick of transition and notice how easy it is for our marriage and parenting relationships to get shortchanged significantly. So we are off; first to visit David’s parents in Pinehurst, North Carolina, then down to Tampa to see David’s grandmother, then over to Orlando for some “just us” time. God provided through a friend’s sister, the opportunity to take a four day Disney vacation!! The amazing story that goes with this is that a close friend of mine has been praying for months about this “mandatory vacation” and for God to provide for it. And for the first month or so she was actually praying that God would provide a Disney vacation. Then she mentioned that to me and I told her we’re not really Disney people, so she prayed less specifically. Nevertheless, her prayers both paved the way for this beautiful gift and for our hearts to be open to it. What a blessing for our kids to experience this slice of hardcore American life before heading to the jungles of Africa. Once again, God provides more than they give up (who would have thought that WE would take them to Disneyland EVER!). Of course the experience of Disney completely pales next to the experience of living in Africa, but it will still be really cool.

Perhaps I will be blogging more as we are away, or perhaps not at all. I have so many thoughts in my head that I’d like to get down here. . . .