Day 2: Blog Post by Dustin

July 8th, 2009

Greetings from Uganda! We finally made it to Uganda after 28 hours of transit time. We are all exhausted from the traveling but are excited to begin the work God has set for us to do.

Here are the highlights from the past day:

• We flew from London to Nairobi, Kenya, on our second leg of the trip. We shared the plane with three other humanitarian/missions groups consisting of mostly high schoolers. It seems that an African missions trip in Europe may be the equivalent of a Mexico missions trip in America.

• Once we arrived in Nairobi, we had a (thankfully) short layover before we boarded our flight to Entebbe.

• Upon arriving in Entebbe, we were anxious about going through customs and possibly having to open up our luggage and the supply boxes we packed up. Praise God that he sent a Christian brother as our customs agent that let us through without having to open any luggage or box. (This was the first time in all of Aeri’s travels to Uganda that she did not have to open anything).

• Our YCVM hosts -- Grace, Patrick, Emma (short for Emmanuel), and the driver Mr. Unus —- picked us up from the airport and welcomed us with so much love and joy.

• We drove through Entebbe and made a stop at RTC (Reformed Theological College) which is where Aeri teaches music every summer.

• We met Pastor Choi and his wife who have been full-time missionaries to Uganda from Korea since the mid-90s. They provided us a meal of delicious Ugandan food, as well as a pleasant surprise…kim chee!

• Aeri led us on a tour of the RTC campus. We made a stop at the recording studio where one of the music teachers, Herbert, shared one of his recordings. Patrick, Grace, and Aeri couldn’t help but dance. Eventually Dustin and Valene joined in with Patrick teaching Dustin “defense” dance moves, while Grace taught Valene a variety of dance moves that we could only assume to be “offense.”

• Then we made our way to Kampala where we can only describe it as Crazy-pala or China-pala because the traffic (car, bike, pedestrian) was crazy and like China.

• We are currently staying at the City Royal hotel which has everything you would expect out of a nice hotel (and thankfully…running hot water!). We hope to meet the UMC bishop tomorrow and then head to our final destination, Kumi, on a 4-hour bumpy bus ride. Thank you to Jane for her wonderful letter wishing us safe travels especially for our “booties” on the bumpy bus ride. We hope that Burt’s grandkids Emma and Linus are taking care of Jane like they promised!

Here are the answers to yesterday’s blog questions:
1. Valene and Dustin’s bag. 5 pounds overweight.
2. Tesla electric cars!
3. Burt. He was just old enough to sit in the emergency exit row.
4. Aeri. =(
5. Valene. The flight attendant told her that he wouldn’t give her permission, but he wouldn’t stop her either.
6. Burt. He got off the plane first and went ahead of us. We found him…eventually.
7. Burt again. Wow, too many Burt answers.
8. Fish & chips: Valene and Dustin. Spinach salad: Aeri. Hamburger: Becky and Donna.

Questions for the day:
1. On our flight to Entebbe, who pointed out a woman’s headdress that looked like bubble wrap?
2. Who was unable to be recognized by two members of RTC because of his/her new haircut?
3. Who opens water bottles with a knife?
4. Who fell asleep on the bus and almost tipped over onto one of the host team members?

Thank you for all your prayers. We continue to ask for your prayer support as we continue our journey. Here are some specific prayer requests:

• That we would be protected from the mosquitoes (the little suckers have already claimed a few team members as their victims).
• That God would give us guidance to a request for one of our team members to preach a sermon at church service on Sunday.
• That we would get lots of rest, get over our jet-lag, and be energized.
• That we would be prepared for our singing, body worship, drama, and VBS presentations.
• That the exams that Silver, one of the host team members, is currently taking is going well.
• That the host team would not be adversely affected by their service to us (some are taking time off work for the 2 weeks that we are here).