A New Journey

It's a new journey for 11 people on their way to Uganda, East Africa.  Not everyone is pictured above, but please remember each person named as they travel and adjust to new faces, new cultures,
new languages, new food, new transportation, new time zone, new climate, new friends, etc.  I'm so glad the Lord promises that His mercies are new every morning!

Thursday, August 16, 2012
Eight large bags were not going to fit inside the SUV with seven passengers, including Paul Swanson, the driver, to San Francisco.  So, eight bags to check, plus each person’s carry-on was loaded into the back of the F350 truck.  At about 6:15 a.m. Thursday morning the team drove out of the driveway – 4 in the back seat of the cab (getting a head start on traveling Uganda style – 2 people needed to “double-buckle”), and 3 in the front seat.  About two minutes later the phone rang with a request to check and make sure the flight was “on time”.  Yes, the flight was “on schedule”, so everything was a “GO”!  Kelsey met up with the rest of the team at the airport, and the long process of checking in at the United counter began.  Everyone made it through security on time, boarded the plane and got settled in their seats – just to sit on the tarmac for an hour and a half, until they were cleared for take-off.  The layover in Chicago was 2 hours, so they knew it was going to be close.  A quick phone call informed me that they were on the flight to Brussels – they made it in time! In Brussels, they needed to run from their landing terminal in order to arrive just in time to board their plane headed to Entebbe.  It seemed that an hour and 20 minutes was plenty of time to change planes in Brussels …  After a “quick” stop in Rwanda to board and de-board passengers, the final climb to Entebbe began, landing in Entebbe at about 10:00 p.m. Uganda time, (about noon our time on Friday – just 30 hours after leaving Orangevale, California).  Numb from lack of sleep and lack of movement, they waited like robots in line for their visas, collected ALL their bags (a miracle – they were all there!), and loaded into a vehicle headed for Kampala.  Just one more hour of bobbing heads trying to sleep in an upright position before lying down in a bed to sleep!