Uganda Trip #13 | Post 8
This is probably the hardest part of these trips. We have completed our tasks, felt good about the progress, said our good byes and begin the trek home.
Today it started at 8 am as we left Abaana’s Hope, the site of the Pastoral Training Center and headed into Gulu for a 9 am flight to a town called Kajjansi, near Entebbe and the international airport. Our plane was 50 minutes late. It was a very small terminal, somewhere between he size of the Kid’s Room and the Community Room. There were only four of us who were waiting for the flight. In addition to Stu, Mike and myself, we met Kathy Hoglund, a chatty missionary in Kampala, Uganda’s capital city. She hails from Burnsville, MN and was a graduate of Bethel University.
The MAF (Missionary Aviation Fellowship) plane had a 12 person limit and there were seven people in the plane when we went to load. We were put in row three, which had one seat on the left side, a 12 inch aisle and two seats on the right side-definitely not business class. Stu and I were close than we preferred. I put my arm up around Stu’s back to create a little space and he spoke of being nestled in my underarms. We left Gulu (a gravel runway) and flew to Adjumani, which was twenty minutes north. We stayed in the plane and the two final travelers joined us there. We flew to Arua, 25 minutes west and near the Congolese border. We dropped of four and picked up four. We got out of the plane for refueling, and we stretched a bit. This terminal was larger, about the size of FCC’s auditorium. We stood outside against the wall of the terminal, but were told we had to move inside.
About 20 minutes later we were on our way to Kanjjasi for a 1.5 hour flight. Our pilot told us that we could put our backpacks in the overhead bins…which didn’t exist in this flying sardine can. I guess pilots have dad jokes too. We landed on our last gravel runway for the day and made a 1/4 mile walk to the area to pick up our bags and meet our driver to take us to Entebbe…and we waited…and waited.
About a 1/2 hour into waiting Mike contacted our Gulu contact to tell him of our loneliness. He contacted our driver who said he was 20 minutes out. He arrived 30 minutes later and took us to a market so I could by some grandkid souvenirs before dropping us off at Hotel Protea, a very nice place on the shore of Lake Victoria, the second largest fresh water lake in the world, behind Lake Superior. We arrive there at 2:30 and had a 9:30 pick up.
After a mildly frustrating morning this was a welcome break. We shard good lunch (I had perch from the Nile), and eventually grabbed three pool side recliner chairs and caught a nap. We chatted and sat for long periods of quiet. When you have spent as much time together as the three of us have, you get comfortable not feeling you have to perform for one another. It is now 11:30 pm, 15.5 hours after we left our place this morning and we have flights to Brussels, Chicago and Minneapolis ahead of us. By the way, Brussels is in Belgium…is their national language Belch? Dad jokes are portable.
At this time you simply want to get home…this is one of the few downsides for the size of the privilege we have in training these pastors. When ever we run into other believers here (which happens regularly) and we describe what we are part of, we are made aware of how well we have it and how meaningful our labor is.
While I’m pretty shot already, we are already talking about our trip in May and our graduation in September. God is using FCC, Training Leaders International (TLI), and the Pastoral Training Center to start and strengthen churches in Uganda, Congo, South Sudan and possibly Kenya. Thank you for allowing me to partake in this incredible work. May God expand FCC’s reach so that thousands, locally and globally, live a gospel inspired life.