We met for breakfast at 7:00 am and headed for the WVU National Headquarters around 7:45. We attended devotions with the WVU staff and after the presentation we introduced ourselves to those staff who were there. I always look forward to devotions because my friend Vincent who is in charge of spiritual development for all of WVU leads them and I get to see him if for even a brief time. Below is a picture of Vincent.
After listening to several presentations on the work of WVU, we headed up to Gulu around 11:30 am. We were in a convoy of four vehicles. Joan, Michelle, and I were in a vehicle together and the other church split up between the other three vehicles. We were fully loaded with all of the luggage that we brought, a lot of it was for the children. The trip normally takes from four to five hours. We made good time on the first half of the journey and stopped at a nice rest stop to stretch our legs and get something to drink. It wasn't too long after that we started running into road reconstruction. The amount of roadwork that I saw amazed me.
For a number of years the government has been working to rebuild the road to Gulu. Each time I return they have made progress. I never saw much actual work being done, and I might see one modern road construction vehicle like a grader in the work area. Today, however was totally different. Not only did I observe the "usual" work" but from a little over halfway to Gulu, road construction was actually occuring or had been done but not completed all the way to Gulu. It dawned on me after I saw an Asian looking man supervising at one place, that this is the result of the billions of dollars that the Chinese government has been pouring into Subsaharan Africa. I was astonished that the road work has gone all the way to Gulu. When I was here at the end of July, virtually none of this occured--it has all happened in nine months!
In addition to the road work slowing us down, the lead vehicle had a flat tire. The spare tire was too soft to use, so one of the drivers of another vehicle drove it to a gas station not to far up the road to fill it with air. That episode took about 40 minutes. Below are a few pictures of it.
After listening to several presentations on the work of WVU, we headed up to Gulu around 11:30 am. We were in a convoy of four vehicles. Joan, Michelle, and I were in a vehicle together and the other church split up between the other three vehicles. We were fully loaded with all of the luggage that we brought, a lot of it was for the children. The trip normally takes from four to five hours. We made good time on the first half of the journey and stopped at a nice rest stop to stretch our legs and get something to drink. It wasn't too long after that we started running into road reconstruction. The amount of roadwork that I saw amazed me.
For a number of years the government has been working to rebuild the road to Gulu. Each time I return they have made progress. I never saw much actual work being done, and I might see one modern road construction vehicle like a grader in the work area. Today, however was totally different. Not only did I observe the "usual" work" but from a little over halfway to Gulu, road construction was actually occuring or had been done but not completed all the way to Gulu. It dawned on me after I saw an Asian looking man supervising at one place, that this is the result of the billions of dollars that the Chinese government has been pouring into Subsaharan Africa. I was astonished that the road work has gone all the way to Gulu. When I was here at the end of July, virtually none of this occured--it has all happened in nine months!
In addition to the road work slowing us down, the lead vehicle had a flat tire. The spare tire was too soft to use, so one of the drivers of another vehicle drove it to a gas station not to far up the road to fill it with air. That episode took about 40 minutes. Below are a few pictures of it.
We finally rolled into the Bomah Hotel around 7:30 pm. We were glad to be in Gulu and hungry for dinner.
Tomorrow we will share devotions at the Gulu Cluster and then visit with our sponsored children, something we are all looking forward to.
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