MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 01-13-2014

Happy New Year! Our final days in America are finally upon us. Our plane tickets are bought. Now commences the hectic race to our travel deadline as we finish up packing and final preparations for departure. Pray for us as we work to get everything done. We are on target so far, but there are an awful lot of details to keep track of. 

Right now, I’m working on getting the shipping container shipped to us this week. We have all the books, more than enough to fill it. Our people in Uganda are already making bricks for the building we’re going to construct for the library. 

At the moment, we are able to get the shipping container and have done so, but do not have the money sufficient for shipping it to Uganda. That is going to be around $11,000. I will know the total cost for sure once we load the container – I have to estimate the gross shipping weight, which requires weighing an average sized box and then counting all the boxes to get an estimated weight. Ugh. Please pray about this project. At the moment, I can load the container and prepare it for shipping, but it will just sit here in Saint Louis until God supplies the money to ship. Ideally, I’d like that to happen before we leave the country.

Pray for our return trip. I do not dread going back to Uganda – far from it! I do, however, dread being confined to a slender metal tube for 22 hours with God knows what all pathogens, in seats designed to comfortably house African pygmies or Oompa-Loompas. Pray we’ll stay healthy. We don’t have time to be sick!

Also, I have to renew our paperwork when we return to Uganda. We tried to have this done while we were away, but immigration said I had to submit the paperwork myself. So, my work permit and everybody else’s documents are three months expired. It shouldn’t make problems about entering the country, but they MAY insist on us paying the $400 for tourist visas, which is rather silly because we are residents, NOT tourists. I have to have the cash with me just in case though. Pray the folks working the airport that night are reasonable.

God bless you all! Next stop Uganda!!