In Country!

I am happy to report that Robinson and I have made it to country.

I waited a while to make an official update on our situation with Uganda as I truly did not know what the plan was. As we continued to pray on our adventure over the last year there were many conversations that took place between myself and the leaders at church as well as the leaders of Develop Sustainability (DS). We ultimately decided that I did not need to do a solo visit because my calling included my son, he would be just as involved as me so we planned a trip together.

We decided on a 6 week trial trip so that we could get enough time to adjust to the time difference as well as get sufficient time working with Develop Sustainability seeing what exactly it would be like for both of us if we were to officially move here full time.

So far we have been in country now for 10 days. We left Portland around 1:30pm on the 5th of November, we arrived in country around 11pm on the 6th of November in Uganda. There is a an 11 hour time difference between Oregon, USA and Uganda. We arrived in Entebbe and drove to the hotel in Kampala for the night. From the hotel in the morning we caught a taxi boat from a friend of DS to a docking area an a peninsula about 30 minutes away. From there we rode back in a taxi van (which in normal circumstance would be a BodaBoda (Motorcycle taxi) but since we had many bags and the other interns came to greet us at the dock in Kampala we took two taxis back.

We took the day to get settled by unpacking and orientating ourselves with the property that we are staying at for the trip. We blew the soccer, excuse me, fútbol up and kicked it around a little. The other interns cooked us dinner. We played some card games and attempted to go to bed that night...that was pretty much the routine for a few days. We walked over to Bethany Christian Community to see the school and visit with the kids, play soccer with them. We took it easy as the time change and of course 24 hours of travel can be hard on a body, but especially hard on a little 6 year old who is also missing his Oma & Opa at the same time.

After about a week of adjusting we are now on Ugandan time. I am waking up at 6 am just like I did back in Oregon. I have been trying to capture the sunset every night. Some times its raining so I skip those ones but the thirst from those mosquitos is real, and at this point those sunsets take a little back seat to all the bites I have been receiving! haha There have been some amazing sites though let me tell you. Mornings and Evenings are simply magical over Lake Victoria. There are monkeys, chickens, dogs, and a TON of different kinds of birds. We got frogs, probably toads...and there are some bats that live in the awning part of the house. We leave the geckos alone as they like to eat fruit flies and mosquitos, so that's a new concept when sitting at the dinner table and you see a gecko crawling across the wall and instead of getting freaked out you think "awesome couple less mosquitos tonight" haha

Just last night when making hot cocoa for Robinson (helps to get him to calm down) there was a tiny little gecko on top of the stove burner and I barely saw him and almost lit that burner and could have killed him haha but thankfully I startled him enough that he moved a little and I stopped. So I made hot cocoa on a burner next to a gecko on a burner haha life.

I could literally write for pages about these first ten days. so for now this is where I will stop. There will be more to come of course. I ask that you join us in prayer as Robinson continues to go to a brand new school that is entering the end of their year so he feels behind, and for myself who is riding her place in a new place and understanding what that looks like. It's a lot to take in but I feel at home here, and that is a comforting feeling.

Thank God for video calling!