Better Late Than Never

It turned out that the day we spent in Nairobi because of the broken aircraft was a blessing in disguise. KLM put us up in a nice hotel about 10 miles from the airport. It actually gave me some time to process the trip. Normally when I return I immediately am immersed in getting caught up and all of the attendant busyness. There is little time to reflect on the experience and let it sink into my mind and heart. But this afforded some time to do exactly that and I am thankful for that. The two remaining flights went smoothly and the plane touched down at Logan around 1:00 p.m.

I want to thank everyone who prayed for the trip. I thought it went extremely well. I hope over the next week or so to post observations that other members of this Vision trip have made.

Marooned in Nairobi

I haven't talked with a lot of people, but the tragedy in Boston does not seem to show up on many people's radar probably because it is so far away. I have seen a few snipits from news programs which certainly includes it, but I feel kind of isolated. Patty and I talk about it with one another and are praying for those who have lost loved ones and those injured, but it's hard being so far away when something like this happens. I want to be home, which brings me to the subject of this blog.

We had a long and good day on Tuesday. Our day started in earnest at devotions at 8:00 am and finished when we arrived at Kilimanjaro Airport at 5:00 pm. Our flight took off at 7:30 pm and we landed in Nairobi an hour later. We immediately got in line to process through security for our KLM flight to Amsterdam. We're flying in a 747 and it was packed. We left about an hour late because (if understood the explanation) they were held up in bad traffic congestion trying to get to the airport. The flight was supposed to leave at 10:25 pm and I think we took off around 11:55 pm. About 1/2 hour into the flight the captain came on the public address system and told us that the wing flaps were not operating and we would have to return to Nairobi. Before we could do that we had to dump a lot of fuel because it was too heavy too land. We arrived back at the airport around 12:30 a.m. The captain was good about keeping us informed. He told us that someone from maintenance would check it out to see if it could be repaired in a timely manner. I estimate that we spent an additional half hour on the plane. He finally said that it couldn't be repaired in time so they cancelled the flight.

We had to disembark to the waiting room. When everyone had gathered, he told us that they would take us to several hotels and that the flight would be rescheduled for midnight today. In order to get to the hotel, we had to get a transit visa from Kenya. It wasn't hard, but we had to fill out a form and then they put the visa in our passports.

The chaotic part was after this. Someone told me there were 800 passengers on this aircraft. I don't know if that's true, but boy were there a lot of people. So after picking up our checked baggage we went out to the curbside. Business class and priority fliers were going to a different hotel, but it wasn't really clear where you were supposed to go. Instructions were as clear as mud, to use a trite phrase and we must have waited for 1-2 hours. Patty and I got the name of the hotel that the economy passengers were staying and took a taxi there. We got to the hotel around 4:00 am and had to stand in line again to get our rooms. The hotel is lovely and KLM is picking up the bill for lodging and food. I finally crashed at 4:30 am and awoke at 7:00. At 2:00 pm we are supposed to hear the status of the aircraft and the time of departure (hopefully) and when they will be transporting us back to the airport.

I have to say that as packed as the aircraft was an as tired and disappointed as everyone was, people behaved politely. I didn't observe or hear anyone being ugly with others.

I would ask you to pray that they will be able to repair the aircraft and that we can continue our journey home. I miss being with you. And I continue to pray for you.

With Heavy Hearts

Patty and I are at Kilimanjaro Airport awaiting a flight to Nairobi which takes off in about an hour and a half. Since they have a pretty strong wifi signal here, I thought I would take a moment and write my last blog while in Africa.

I led devotions at WVT headquarters this morning. After some inspiring singing, before I began to preach, I mentioned to the staff that Patty and I had heavy hearts because of what had happened in Boston. A lot of emotion whelmed up inside of me all of a sudden as I said this. Most people were unaware of the bombing. After my sermon, James, our host, got up and gave a wonderful prayer for UCC Medfield, for all of those who had been wounded and for the families of those who had died. It was heartfelt and I greatly appreciated his prayer.

We set out immediately after devotions for the Kosinga ADP north of Arusha. It took us about an hour and a half to reach the ADP building there. It was the first time that we had a chance to see the countryside and it was beautiful. I would call the land we saw savannah. Closer to Arusha we passed coffee trees and further out it was almost all corn. We also saw many cattle herds.

This area is home to the Masai tribe and herding cattle and goats is there main "business" and wealth. Geofrey, the WVT staff person who accompanied us said that they have now begun to raise corn. We visited a Masai village which was an amazing experience. They are like no other tribe that I have seen so far in Africa. They dress differently and wear their traditional shukas, brightly woven material--mostly red some of which are plaid. There villages are very different than anything that I have observed, as well. This village had over 2000 people and the animals--cows and goats--are kept in the center of the village. They have fences made of tree limbs about 5 feet high interwoven with vines of thorns. It looks pretty formidible. All of the women wear white, black, and silver earings in such a way that their ear lobe have large holes in them. Actually, the chief, had holes in his ear lobes as well.

The chief wanted us to stay and was prepared to slaughter a goat for a feast, but fortunately our WVT staff (Geofrey, Joyce, the ADP manager, and another ADP staff person whose name I never got) persuaded him not to do that because we didn't have enough time to stay. He had 47 children and 147 grandchildren and estimated that he had 10 wives. There also were flies everywhere. The two young children that were with the group constantly had files crawling on their faces and they seemed pretty immune to them. I really can't adequately describe the experience and will be processing it for a while.

The last thing we did was visit a pastors conference in the ADP area. WVT paid for this week long conference and I would estimate there were 60 to 70 pastors, and a significant number of women in the group. I suspected that I would be asked to speak, and sure enough I delivered a half hour sermon. There are so many pastors here that have little to know training and they are so appreciative when a trained pastor can share with them.

Now on to Nairobi and home!

My Prayers Are with You

I awoke about an hour ago and when I checked my email had one from Pastor Karen telling me about the bombings at the Boston Marathon. It feels very strange to be so very far away when a tragedy like this strikes at home. My prayers are with you as you all grieve this terrible event and will be with you in a couple of days. I take comfort in God's promise, "I will never leave you or forsake you."

I am heading out in five minutes and won't have another opportunity to write a blog until I return.

Sunday Worship

Wow. James took Patty and me to Zion City Church, a Pentecostal Church, for worship this morning. The music was great, but the whole service lasted 15 minutes shy of 5 (yes, five) hours. Worship began at 9:00 a.m. and we walked out at 1:45 p.m. The first two hours were mostly music which was very good. It must have been Children's Sunday because they invited all the children to come forward and some of the congregation came forward to lay hands on them for prayer. James and I were invited to come forward for this. I actually liked this part and there were many, many children. But the introduction of the guest preacher from Dar es Salaam (The capital city) took about 1/2 hour. I lost tract for how long the preacher preached, but it was well over an hour. The whole service had a translator who would translate either from English into Swahili or Swahili into English. I was actually very impressed with the translator. The preacher would shift from English to Swahili and back off and on, and the translator didn't miss a beat. After the service was over, James apologized to us because the service went much, much longer than normal. His church generally goes about 2 hours and this was way too long for him. He said he didn't know what to do but felt we couldn't leave. Patty and I were the only two Anglos in the service and we were sitting toward the front center, so it would have been pretty obvious if we had left. We told him it was OK, it was a new experience for us. I actually felt relaxed during the whole service and chalked it up to another learning experience. However, I hope not to attend that long of a service again. :-)

We went for lunch at the hotel where we are staying and had a nice leisurely time. Afterward James agreed to walk us to the Masai Market about a mile down the road where Patty and I bought a few souvenirs.  After a cup of African tea, we went to our respective room to relax for the remainder of the evening.

Tomorrow A vehicle will pick us up at the hotel and 7:30 a.m. for a day of meetings. I'm really looking forward to it. On Tuesday I will lead chapel at 8:00 a.m. at the end of which we will head out to an ADP about an hour's drive northwest of Arusha where we will spend the rest our time here. We will head for the airport for a 7:40 p.m. flight to begin our journey home.

Kwaheri (good-bye, literally, sleep well)

Habari Tanzania

Patty and I left Gulu at 4:50 am on Friday so we could make our 1:50 pm flight from Entebbe to Kilimanjaro Airport in Tanzania. Driving at night is no picnic for Ugandans--the road to Kampala is filled with gigantic potholes for the first 1 1/2 hours of the drive, there are no streetlights, and robbers can stop you on the road, although the police patrol the highway in the north regularly and our driver, Bright, said he wasn't worried. Mostly the only vehicles on the road were the tractor trailers going to and coming from Sudan.

We had no problems although we did see a tanker tractor trailer that had gone off the road down in a ditch. The tractor trailer that had flipped on its side when we drove up to Gulu was still there on its side 5 days later. About a third of the way down the roads improved significantly and except for road work about 20 miles north of Kampala, we sailed along.

We flew Precision Airlines from Entebbe to Kilimanjaro and the flight was about 1 1/2 hours. It was cloudy so we couldn't seen the terrain beneath us. Kilimajaro airport is a small but quite nice airport. A driver picked us up and took us to the Ngurdoto Mountain Lodge outside of Arusha National Park. The countryside is green and lush and clearly this is a wealthy area because of tourism and many government offices are here. Arusha is a growing city of 830,000. Patty and I were both impressed by how good the roads are and how modern the city is, at least that part of the city which we have seen.

Because it is the rainy season, the skies are mostly cloudy to overcast most of the time. The Ngurdoto Mountain Lodge is right at the base of Mount Meru, a smaller version of Mt. Kilimanjaro and we have not been able to see the peak because of clouds. However, around 6:00 pm we went to a deck that faces Mt. Kilimanjaro (which is about 90 miles away) and through a break in the trees we could seen the snow covered peak. It was quite beautiful and I feel fortunate to have seen it.

This morning we checked out of the lodge and headed for Arusha National Park for an all day safari there. It is a small park but absolutely beautiful. There are no lions, rhinos, or elephants in this park, but we saw most of the other typically African animals except for panthers. Of special note were the giraffes and the flamingos. We drove by a section where there were about 12 giraffes standing by the road we were on. They are one of my favorite African animals because they are so graceful, so fluid when they move. There are seven small lakes in the park and one of them was filled with flamingos--there were hundreds. I had never seen one fly or land before and it was fun to watch them take off and land. When they start to fly, they flap their wings and start to run on the surface of the water for what looked like 20 yards before they were airborne. It reminded me of a turboprop airplane taking off on a runway.

Our safari ended around 3:30 pm and our guide dropped us off at East Africa Hotel in the center of Arusha around 4:30 pm. James, the World Vision Tanzania (WVT) staff member came over around 6:30 pm to welcome us to Tanzania. We spent about 45 minutes talking over some African Tea, and then he left. He will be taking us to church tomorrow and then to lunch. We talked about the schedule for Monday and Tuesday.

By the way, "habari" means "hello" in Swahili which along with English is the national language. The response would be "mzuri" meaning "fine." "Kwaheri" means "good-bye" and "asante" means "thank you." I like Swahili--it is much easier to pronounce than Luo which is what the Acholi tribe speaks in Gulu.

I'm looking forward to worshiping with James tomorrow and will let you know how that goes.

Saying "Good-Bye" Is Hard

Our last full day, Thursday, was another great day. In the morning we visited a farm co-op where they raised seedlings for eucalyptus and pine trees, as well as for other food plants . They began in 2002 but WVU partnered with them in 2009 and things have improved greatly since then. WVU gave them training about the best ways of planting and nurturing the seedlings. They also gave them four oxen to pull the plows that has enabled them to greatly increase the fields that they can cultivate. It turns out that the father and uncle of Cindy's sponsored child, Nesta, are part of the co-op and greeted us when we arrived.

We went to the Koro-Bobi ADP for lunch and that is where the staff brought the remaining seven children and some family members for us to meet. It was kind of wild and fun. We gave them the gifts that we had brought from home and the food stuffs that we had purchased at the market in Gulu: beans, rice, bars of soap for washing clothers, sugar, salt, onions, and biscuits. Afterward we played. A couple of sponsored children received soccer balls so we kicked the soccer balls around, blew up balloons and played with the children. When it was time to go, the heavens opened up and there was a thunderstorm. When there is a thunderstorm, it comes down in buckets. Katie and Blake decided to enjoy getting soaked in the rain, but the rest of us tried to stay dry. All of us plus two sponsored children and the family that had come all crammed into our van which is like an old Volkswagen bus. There were 15 of us crammed into it! I was in the back seat where there were seven of us--4 adults, 2 sponsored children, and a baby. It was tight, but it was fun at the same time.

Thursday night we met at the Boma Hotel Restaurant for dinner. We met with the James the Northern Region Director with all of the Koro-Bobi staff. We debriefed with James our experience and then we had dinner and had a wonderful time sharing stories and laughing.

When we returned to our hotel, we debriefed for the last time. We shared feeling and thoughts about the trip, what we had experienced, how we interacted with the WVU staff and with one another. It was hard for us to say good-bye.

Cindy, Emily, Blake, and Katie headed for home yesterday, Charlie and Michelle headed for Murchison Falls National Park for a couple of days and then on to Kampala for a couple of days; and Patty and I headed for Tanzania from where I am writing this post.

I will share more of our experience in Arusha, Tanzania in my next post.

Please keep praying for all of us.

Morning of the Last Day in Gulu

This is our last day in Gulu. We just finished devotions at the Gulu Cluster headquarters and will be heading out to see a farm project in the Koro-Bobi ADP area. But we are not at the Coffee Hut waiting for our lattes before heading out. It is one of my favorite places in Gulu. It opened in 2010 bu a Ugandan woman who spent a lot of time in the UK. When she returned she opened up the first coffee shop. They also have free wifi so while I am waiting for my latte, I thought I would take a moment and blog.

Last night I invited some of my friends who used to work at WVU but have left to work for other NGOs. It was so great to see them: Dora, who worked as the head psychosocial worker at the Children of War Cdngter; Phoebe, one of the development leaders at the Paicho ADP; Christine, the Koro-Bobi ADP director when I first came in 2008; Monica, the child sponsorship person who was responsible for several of the children Beth and I sponsor. Paul, the former Gulu Cluster director was not able to join us last night, but he was able to stop by briefly this morning as he drove his two children--Patricia and Johnathan--to school.

This afternoon they are bringing the remainder of the sponsored children to the Koro-Bobi office where we will meet them and give them the gifts that we have brought with us. After that we have a debriefing and head for the Boma Hotel where we will have dinner.

I think we are all still on a high after our visit to St. Thomas Moore School yesterday. Thanks for your prayers!

An Amazing Day

It's hard to describe what we experienced today. In all of my visits to St. Thomas Moore School this was perhaps the most gratifying. And we received a goat--but I tell you about that later.

We arrived at the school around 10:30 am. We were greeted by about 10-15 students where we turn in to the driveway. Because today the government was taking the census for the school, most of the students had not yet gathered. Over the next 20 or so minutes students and teachers continued to arrive and we began the event. The headmaster, Alex, had one crutch with which he walked. When I inquired about what had happened, he told me that he had been in an accident in May of 2012. While riding his motorbike, he slammed into a car ahead of him and broke his right leg. He says he still has some pain, but that it is healing slowly.

There were many introductions as usual, and most many of the same people were there. The only person that I missed was Father Philip, the priest of the local parish who is the chair of the board. I like him and was sorry that he couldn't be there.

The first time that I visited the school, there were a total of 47 students, 12 of which were girls. Today there are 353 students, 150 of which are girls. The are expecting well over 400--perhaps as many as 600 students next year! The sense of heaviness has left the school several years ago, but there is an incredible sense of hope and "can do" attitude. The atmosphere at the school has completely changed.

The campus has changed remarkably as well. It has some of the most beautiful buildings in the district. So many schools still have run down buildings, but this is no longer the case at St. Thomas Moore. The few decrepit buildings still stand in stark contrast to the new ones. The new boys dorm that we paid for is complete and has 100 boys in it. When they are able to acquire bunk beds, they will double that number. We are paying for another duplex for teacher housing. Because of what we have been able to do for the school, the government has taken notice and has built two or three classrooms, two teacher duplexes, and has now paid for a science building.

Another thing that surprised me was they now have electricity. They don't have electricity from a power company yet, but they now have a  generator, and some of the new building are wired for electricity and they have lights in the rooms. I was really stunned to discover that the government has purchased 21 computers for the school that Alex showed us. I would never have dreamed that the school would have computers this soon!

At one point in the early afternoon, we broke into two groups and attended a class. Blake, Katie, and I attended and English class with S-4s (seniors) and Charlie, Michelle, Cindy, Emily, and Patty sat in on an agricultural class with S-3s (juniors). Blake, Katie, and sat in on a lesson the teacher, Bosco, was teaching and we thought he did an excellent job. At the end, he invited the three of us up to share a little, and it was mostly Blake and Katie sharing what school was like for them.

Part of the celebration included planting trees. All of us had an opportunity to plant one at different places on the campus. The last tree we planted was an Umbrella Tree in front of the Boys Dorm. We took a lot of pictures of the plantings and afterward we took pictures in front of the new teacher housing they are constructing.

Of course some of the students did a demonstration of two tribal dances. We all jumped in and tried during the first dance and the student body laughed and laughed at us as we tried to dance. The second dance was more than we dared attempt, but enjoyed watching the students dance it.

After several speeches were given, my being the last, the art teacher presented an oil painting to us. He explained the meaning of it and gave us a written copy of what he told us. We're trying to figure out how to bring it back on an airplane.

After lunch we reconvened and said our good-byes. We were presented with a fairly large goat which we graciously accepted. The WVU drivers tied up its legs and put it in the back of one of the pick-up trucks we were riding in. (After we left, I told the Koro-Bobi manager that he could determine what to do with it, and he responded that they would give it to one of the poorest families. I thought that was a great idea and only asked that he give me the name of the family.) We said good-by and I gave a closing prayer, and we were off to visit the women who make beads.

All in all it was an incredible day. 

Gulu and Koro-Bobi ADP

I have had problems with connecting with the internet the last two days and haven't been able to blog. We are off to the St. Thomas Moore School in about 15 minutes and have wifi at the Gulu Cluster headquarters so thought I would take a minute and briefly update you on our trip. I am hoping that I will have wifi access tonight and can say more then.

We attended devotions at the WVU headquarters on Monday morning at 8:00 am and then had a briefing on the work of WVU by one of the staff. Patty MacDonald and I had a meeting with the national leadership about my serving them and that went very well. We had lunch at a restaurant not far away and then headed up to Gulu around 1:00 pm. The ride took about 5 1/2 hours and went well. The group loved it when we crossed the Victoria Nile and saw lots of monkeys and baboons on the side of the road. They took a lot of pictures. On the way we saw to large tractor trailers on the side of the road that had tipped over. There is a lot of commercial traffic traveling on the road from Sudan to Kampala and then to Kenya.

Yesterday was a very moving day for all of us as we met with some of our sponsored children. Altogether we will be visiting 17 sponsored children and we visited 9 at their homes yesterday. Tomorrow we will visit the remainder but the staff will bring the children and parents to the Gulu headquarters bcecause they don't have the manpower and we don't have the time to visit all of them.

As I mentioned earlier, we go to St. Thomas Moore School in a few minutes. We will spend almost the whole day there. In the morning we will be breaking into groups of two to visit classrooms and share with the students for about 45 minutes. The teams are: Charlie and Blake, Cindy and Emily, Patty and Michelle, and Katie and me. I think we will be doing a little work in the morning as well. After lunch is the more formal part of the day with introductions, speeches, presentations, and students sharing traditional tribal dances. We may have a sporting event like soccer or volleyball at the end, depending on our time. After we are finished with the school we will be stopping by the place where women have a business of making beads and the opportunity to buy some.

In the evening we will be eating dinner at the Boma Hotel. A number of people with whom I have gotten to know and love who have left WVU I have invited to dinner and I am really excited about seeing them. Hopefully I will be able to connect to the internet and share with you what happened today. 

A Good Day

This was a good and full day. We met with Rachel at 9:30 am for a short briefing about the WVU policies concerning the sponsored children we will visit and for our own well-being while in country. We headed out for church at 10:45 am. We attended Watoto Church South about halfway between Entebbe and Kampala. Watoto Church is a large pentecostal church started by a Canadian pastor/missionary 29 years ago and it has  exploded. There are about eight Watoto churches in Uganda, and they want to start another one in Juba, South Sudan this year. The church was in a large semi-permanent tent with pretty sophisticated video/audio equiptment for the praise service. The service was energetic, and the preacher was energetic. They also had a Christian comedian do some comedy for about 10 minutes. I couldn't understand a lot of what he said because of the different accent and the speed with which he spoke, but the congregation found him hilarious. The whole service lasted an hour and forty-five minutes.

From there we headed for lunch at a nearby restaurant. Service tends to be much slower in Uganda than in the States so we spent about an hour and a half on lunch. Next we headed for the Royale Imperial Hotel in Kampala. We checked in, went to a place nearby to exchange money, and headed to a nearby market to buy some gifts and souvenirs.

We had dinner at the hotel and were delighted to have Fulukas and Miriam join us. They shared what was going on with them and how their ministry to sexually exploited girls was going. They are such a great couple and are so totally committed to this ministry. They have four sons aged eight through two. They are trying to develop chicken farming as way of eventually making their ministry self-sustaining.

Tomorrow morning we leave the hotel at 7:45 am and head to WVU headquarters where we will be attending devotions (I have been asked to lead them). I will be meeting with the national staff while the group will be briefed about WVU ministries. After lunch we head for Gulu and should arrive around 5:00 pm.

The Beginning of Our First Day

It is the rainy season here now and as I write this blog post it is showering outside. Apparently it rained hard last night but I didn't hear a thing.

Our flights to Uganda went well and we arrived in Entebbe around 10:15 pm. Rachel Tumwine, the WVU staff who spoke at our church in November, met us with two WVU drivers and took us to our hotel about 15 minutes away We arrived there around 11:30 pm. We are currently having breakfast, will shortly have a brief introductory meeting, and then head out to church which is on the way to Kampala. We will be attending the Watoto Church South and the service goes from noon until 1:30 or 2:00. Then we will have lunch followed by checking in at our hotel in Kampala. There is a nice market nearby where you can buy souvenirs and gifts and we will go there after checking in. In the evening we will meet with Fulukus and Miriam, the couple that is working with the sexually exploited girls and whom Michelle has partnered with in this ministry.

Thanks for your prayers.

Hanging Out at Starbucks

Our flight from Boston to Amsterdam was uneventful and we arrived here at 8:00 am. It just so happens that I know where the Starbucks is located so we wended our way there and relaxed for about an hour. Then we headed for our gate where we again had to wait in line and go through security. We are about ready to board the aircraft for a 11:00 a.m. departure. We arrive at Entebbe at 10:15 p.m. This is a long flight. The hotel is about 15 minutes from the airport and we hope check in by midnight.

News about Kony and the LRA

I was sad to read in the Wall Street Journal that Ugandan troops were suspending their search for Kony in the eastern part of the Central African Republic where they believe he is hiding. He is the one who was responsible for the devastating war in northern Uganda  that lasted 20 years. He left Uganda in 2006 and moved into south Sudan and the Central African Republic. The Ugandan army along with help from advisors from the U. S. military have been searching for him for the last couple of years. But recently the Central African Republic government was overthrown by some rebel troops, the president had to flee, and the government is barely functioning. The new leader told Uganda to leave the country which they are now doing. There is a warrant for Kony's arrest by the International Court in the Hague for crimes against humanity. I have heard many stories about his crimes and seen some of the results of the war. He is still kidnapping children, raping, and mutilating people in the areas he and his troops are inhabiting. We can only hope that this is a temporary set back and that they will be allowed to go back in search for him and bring him to justice. 

Schedule for the Trip

We head out for Uganda on Friday, April 5th. We have a flight from Boston to Amsterdam, about a four hour layover, and then a flight to Entebbe, Uganda. The flight actually flies into Kigali, Rwanda, around 8:00 pm, but we don't disembark from the plane and are on the ground for about an hour. Unfortunately it is so dark you can't see a thing outside. The flight to Entebbe is about 45 minutes.

We will spend the first night in a hotel in Entebbe and leave on Sunday morning for Kampala which is about 25 miles north, but because of traffic can take well over an hour to reach. We will worship with someone from the World Vision staff and then have lunch and probably go to a little market not far from the hotel. We are hoping to visit with Fulukas and Miriam in the late afternoon. He is the former WVU staff person that I got to know, and he and his wife are working with sexually exploited girls who have gone into prostitution. There are some pictures of Fulukas and Miriam and some of the girls they have worked with on the wall in the lower Nelson wing of the church. Michelle Luhrmann has helped fund the Amilia Center which they are working on.

On Monday we have devotions at WVU headquarters at 8:00 am sharp where I will be delivering the message. Afterward Patty MacDonald and I have a meeting with some of the national staff. We will head up to Gulu late morning and arrive mid to late afternoon where we will check into our hotel and then have dinner with some of the WVU staff.

We will spend Tuesday visiting our sponsored children. That is always a powerful experience and should take the whole day. Wednesday morning we head to the St. Thomas Moore School where we will spend the day. There will be a lot of speeches, dancing, lunch, and in the afternoon some kind of athletic event. One year we had a soccer game and last year we played volleyball.

Thursday will be dedicated to visiting some other work that WVU is doing in the Koro-Bobi ADP.

On Friday morning, Patty and I leave at 5:30 am for Entebbe where we have a flight to Arusha, Tanzania to meet with the national staff on Monday. We will attend church in Arusha on Sunday with some of the WVT staff and probably have a meal with them. On Monday morning I will lead devotions at the national office and then meet with the national staff. In the afternoon and most of Tuesday we will visit some of the projects that WVT are engaged in . Our flight leaves in the evening. We fly into Nairobi, Kenya, then to Amsterdam, and arrive in Boston early afternoon on Wednesday.

Cindy, Emily, Katie, and Blake will leave Gulu mid-morning on Friday and head to Entebbe for a late evening flight to Amsterdam and then Boston. They will arrive at Logan in the mid-afternoon.

Charlie and Michelle will head to a national park on Friday morning. They will head to Kampala on Sunday and spend Sunday evening, Monday, and most of Tuesday with Fulukas and Miriam at the Amilia Center. They head out on Tuesday evening for Amsterdam and will be on the same flight as Patty and me from Amsterdam to Boston.

We're all excited about the trip and ask that you would keep us in your prayers!

Musings on the Vision Trip to Uganda

It has been slightly over a year since my last trip to Uganda and I must say that I am very excited about going back. This will be my eighth trip to Uganda and while I am still a novice, I have made friends with some of the World Vision staff and I am looking forward to reconnecting with them.

One thing that I have observed over the last five years is that there is a good deal of change that occurs both in personnel and in restructuring. Paul Abok, the former manager of the Gulu Cluster, was reassigned to the Oyam Cluster that is not too far from Gulu. I am hoping to be able to see him during the visit, especially since his home is in Gulu and he goes there on weekends. It is also close enough to his present assignment that he will be able to visit on a week night (I hope). Christine Lamunu who was the Gulu Cluster manager when I visited in 2008 has since left World Vision Uganda and is now working for Save the Children. She is living in Gulu, so I am hoping to see her as well. I know there will be turnover with some of the other staff at the Gulu Cluster, but I am hoping that many are still there.

After Uganda, Patty MacDonald (the World Vision US rep ) and I are flying to Tanzania to meet with the national staff to discuss how I might be able to minister to WV Tanzania staff. We will worship at a church in Arusha where the national office is located on Sunday April 14th, and also see some projects that WV Tanzania is involved with. It turns out that Arusha is very near Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. I am hoping that it is not covered in clouds as it well may be since the rainy season begins in late March. Patty and I arrive back in Boston on April 17th.
I intend to blog every day if possible given my schedule and the availability of the internet.