Finally Made It

Hey it's Floyd,

Well we finally made it!!! After a nine hour flight from DFW to London, followed by a 12 hour layover in the London airport and another 8 hour flight to Uganda, we made it to New Hope Uganda. After the craziness of our first flight, we experienced a much better second flight. Much less turbulence and everything worked. We breezed through the Visa line at the airport and got our bags in no time. But this is where things start to get interesting.

We were supposed to be picked up by someone from New Hope, but when we went outside the airport there was no one there to get us. We knew that we had instructions to wait up to two hours and if no one came, to go to another location. We arrived in Uganda late and so we only had to wait about 45 minutes to hit the two hour wait window; but still no one was there. We had taxi driver after taxi driver trying to get us to go with them, but we wanted to call someone first. But we didn't have phone service as we suspended our T-Mobile accounts and didn't yet have airtime on the Ugandan network. Fortunately a taxi driver offered to call someone for us. So we called the missions coordinator number that is posted on an old PDF file Tamra found, only to find that it was not a working number. So there we were, outside of the airport, surrounded by taxi drivers practically begging to take us somewhere, and no contact options to help us know where to go. (On a side note, we were all wondering if we were going to get off the plane and just feel like we were at home. Needless to say, we were feeling all kinds of feelings but the feeling of home was not one of them.) Finally Tamra happened to find an old email with New Hope's Director's cell phone number in it. We called it, yet again on this very persistent and yet friendly taxi driver's cell phone, and the director answered!!! To make an even longer story shorter, they were somehow confused and thought we weren't arriving until 9:30. No worries.... it was a good experience for us to have.

We got the bags loaded on the bus and off we went. I will leave the details of the bus ride and lunch for the girls to talk on if they want, but the primary point I want to make is that this ride took FOREVER!!! ***NEWS FLASH FOR ANYONE DRIVING INTO LUWERO*** There is construction and there is no escape!!! A two hour drive was now an agonizing 3 and a half hour drive; which by itself doesn't sound that bad. But now factor in 6 people sitting in two rows side by side (shoulder to shoulder) with ABSOLUTELY NO LEG ROOM!!! Folks I am not exaggerating. Our legs could not go straight, they could not bend, they could not do anything but stay in a roughly 60 degree angle the whole way. I found a new appreciation for the large bus we use on the church plants today. It was a brutal ride.

We finally get to New Hope and the people are very welcoming. We were all exhausted from the traveling and the lack of sleep over the last two days (I only got two hours of sleep in this two and a half day trip) so when we got to our sleeping area, we all crashed for about two hours. We went and had a delicious dinner and are now winding down and getting ready for what I am sure will be a long and exciting day tomorrow.

I think that the point of today was to prepare us for something. I don't know what and will not presume to guess, but I definitely feel it was a preparation day. Tamra and Kim may post additional details and or pictures and their experience of the trip to this point may in fact be different from mine, as it is all about perspective. But I thank God for getting us here safely, with all of our luggage, and for whatever He has prepared for us over the coming days and weeks. We are ready God. Let's get to it...