Happy New Year!
We survived our return trip to Uganda at the end of November. We packed up all our belongings. Got our COVID tests. Said our goodbyes. Then we began our trek. As you can imagine, the already complicated process of international travel is even more difficult now. Uganda requires a negative PCR test within 72 hours of when you ARRIVE in the country. Subtracting the 24 hours to get the results, and the almost 24 of actual travel time, the window in which to do this is very small.
The lab failed to get our results back in time, but the airline allowed us to fly anyway, since Amsterdam allows entry on a vaccine card. They also did not charge us for the extra pieces of baggage we had! Praise God!
Our results still had not come when we arrived in Amsterdam and we were stranded there for almost 24 hours because of it. We were finally able to talk to someone at the lab in America and get the results emailed to us. The airline moved mountains on our behalf. We caught a flight to Paris, spent 12 hours in the airport there, before getting a flight to Nairobi, Kenya. By this time, the 72 hours had passed. However, Kenya’s timeframe allows 96 hours, and we were within that. Once we landed in Kenya, we were home free. We were able to get on our short flight to Entebbe.
Needless to say, by the time we reached Entebbe 4 days after we left, we were beat. After we passed a second PCR test in the airport, we were finally allowed to go. Because of the flight changes, our luggage did not arrive with us. They sent it on the next KLM flight from Amsterdam. We eventually got our things a day late, minus one piece that had inexplicably been unloaded in Kigali, Rwanda (a connecting stop on our original flight). It arrived the following week and the airline had it sent to us in Mbarara. God blessed, and only one small item in our luggage was broken despite all the changes and delays!
I had reserved a room in a guest house, so we went there, unloaded our stuff, got showers, and went to bed for the first time in almost 4 days.
We waited an extra couple of day for our missing piece of luggage, but finally left with its status unknown, and headed for Mbarara. What a relief and a joy to finally crest that last hill and cast our eyes upon the mountain valley that holds the home we had not seen for so very long!
The guy I hired to keep the place in our absence had worked very hard to make the place beautiful for our return. He did a great job.
After two years of sitting empty, except for bugs and geckos, the house was a catastrophe. It took two days to get it clean enough for us to be able to sleep there. Two rats had been living in my office, the store room and the boys’ room. They had made a terrible mess. Many things needed to be fixed, both in the house and on the vehicle, as they always do when we’ve been gone. We pushed through and got it all done at last.
Meanwhile, I had to resolve problems out at the camp. Some rebels in one of our churches took advantage of the Corona lockdowns to attempt a takeover of the church. It didn’t work. After everything at home was more in order, I met with the camp officals, and our members, and our deacons and got it squared away. Pray for continued peace.
We held a Christmas service at Sangano the day after Christmas. We brought all the churches in to the service. I preached. Greeted everybody. It was like returning to family after a long absence, for family they are. Then I baptized 65 people, young, old, and everywhere in between. God is still working in hearts all over the camp. After all of that, we had Congolese beans and rice and stew, which I had not tasted in 2.5 years. It was a great day and God was glorified.
Pray for us. I have a lot of work to do. Every permit has expired. Everything has to be renewed, including the NGO which expires in May. I am facing a sea of paper work in the coming months.
Pray for our churches. We have a lot of teaching and training to do to get everybody back up to speed. In the 1.5 years of the lockdown, they were allowed to attend church for five months. That, more than anything else, contributed to the troubles, along with standard human sinfulness.
Pray for our backlog of building projects. I plan on starting the first of the construction projects, rebuilding the Isanja church building, in the next weeks. Any financial help with these project would be appreciated, both by us and our church people.
We live in uncertain times. As always, we continue to serve the risen Savior, plan the best we can, react to the unexpected as best we can, and continue to occupy until He returns. God is still working in lives all over the world and we feel privileged to be part of His work.
God bless and keep you.
