The Packing Challenge – Part 3

Again, I thought I was done after Part 2. However, I know people were praying for us in our travels, and I need to brag on God and what He did on our behalf.

We’d repacked everything, readjusted, moved things, gotten everything to weight. In some cases, I knew I was pushing the weight limit allowed by the airline. (50 pounds or 23kg — BUT 23kg goes all the way up to almost 52 pounds because a kilo is 2.2 pounds.)

We’d used an industrial scale, the finding of which was a God thing. It just so happened that the son of the people who picked us up from the train had a scale he used to fill propane tanks and it just so happened that he was on vacation and wouldn’t be needing it until after we left and it just so happened he didn’t mind if we used it for our luggage.

We got everything repacked on Saturday afternoon so we didn’t even have to think about it on Sunday. But think about it I did, almost to the point of obsession. I knew I was worrying. There was little I could do to stop myself. All I could do was use the worry as a motivation to pray. So many people told me they were praying too, whether through text message, Facebook, or at church.

Sunday afternoon I called Debbie Guimon. I don’t know how many times she’s made this same trip, many times with large amounts of luggage for the orphanage in Soroti. She couldn’t offer any definite answers, but she did give suggestions for how to handle things if the airline turned out to be as particular as Amtrak had been.

We left for the airport at 7AM on Monday and arrived almost 4 hours before our first flight was scheduled to leave. There was no one in line before us and the good people at Delta/KLM focused on our luggage, as did the TSA people.

They only questioned the weight on one bag — a piece that was already overweight (70lb) but needed a couple pounds removed. Then, they allowed the overweight bags to count toward our luggage allotment and didn’t charge us extra — a savings of $300!

TSA was just as great! They didn’t let James handle any of the bags they searched, but they willingly zip tied the containers and put everything back the way they’d found it. Going through the luggage since then, I’ve not found anything out of place from where I put it!

Everything was still in good shape when we got to Uganda. All the luggage made it intact. Everything got through customs.

Today we head to our house and begin the unpacking process. I love unpacking. It takes so much less time than packing. 😛 Just take the items out and put them in their place. Ah! The relief of it! Order from chaos! It also means this challenge, for this trip, is finally at an end.