Cross Country: Trip #9

Wednesday, May 11

We arrived in Entebbe on time, and we all had our documentation correct to move through the immigration line quickly. Unfortunately, they weren’t ready for us to move through the immigration line quickly. You could tell the westerners in the crowd. They were regularly switching lines to find a more advantageous route through things-like we (at least I do!) do in a grocery line. Not much help there. 

Joel, Mike and I were joined by Allen Corbin in Amsterdam for the last leg to Entebbe. Allen is a missionary with Four Corners, one of the partnerships that is making this all possible (I will probably do a separate post on partnership later). Because Allen has a work permit in Uganda, he went through a smaller line quickly only to have to wait for us anyway. It was about 12:45 am when we got to the guest house where were to spend the night. There is an eight-hour time difference between Hudson and Gulu, so my body said it was 4:45 pm and was not interested in sleeping. That’s the bad news. The good news was there was a hot shower and wi-fi, so I got cleaned up, caught up on email, and studied some of our material for the week ahead before getting a whole 1.5 hours of sleep for the night (Monday night). Tuesday, although not stellar, was better. I got up twice during the night, did about an hour’s work and went back down.

It’s always fun having a first timer on the trip. This is Joel’s first time in Africa, and it is fun watching him observe the world and pointing things out. He’s experienced crazy driving before in other parts of the world, so he wasn’t afraid (or if he was, he didn’t show it). The drive across country can be 6.5-9.0 hours depending on traffic. We made it in 7.5 which included a stop at a rural Ugandan drive through (see the picture). We had some goat roasted on skewers and chapati (which is tortilla like). In these “drive thrus” you pull over and 5-10 people run to you, offering their items, which included warm sodas (no thank you) and pineapples (yes, please) and many offering their roasted meats. 

We tried to catch up on sleep on the way. I got about a ½ hour in, Mike Evans did much better. We made it to Abaana’s Hope, which houses the Pastoral Training Center that we are here to finish the last course in this, the first cohort. Usually, we have a day to study before we meet with the Lead Trainer’s, indigenous leaders with whom we share the teaching load and will lead the next cohort on their own in January. Not this time. We are meeting today to go through the lessons they will be teaching and help them be prepared for their role in the week ahead. More updates coming.

Larry Szyman

Pastor for Missional Life