I have arrived!

Hello all, just a quick note to say that I am in Uganda! Currently, I am staying in an apartment behind one of the missionaries homes while we get the electricity fixed and a refrigerator in my apartment. Hopefully I will be moving in on Tuesday night or Wednesday. I drove down to my apartment after lunch yesterday to set up some of my things before the evening fellowship! It was not as hard as I imagined to remember to stay on the left side of the road, but it was just the first time. I am SO thankful that the car I borrowed to go down was an automatic. The car that I will have access to is currently in Kenya, but will be back next week.

My time here so far has been really great. I am slowly adjusting to the time difference, though the call to morning prayer for Muslims at 5:30 am has not helped. My stomach is still dancing, but nothing major has happened, praise the Lord! The other missionaries have been so wonderful in helping me to slowly get acclimated. They have been hosting me for meals and doing orientations with me slowly. Last night for dinner I had popcorn and ice cream. If you know me well, you would know that these are two of my favorite foods and just happens to be the normal Sunday dinner for the family that hosted me last night :) The WGM office has a high speed internet connection, so skype can be used there, but the internet is so slow in the other places, it is not even imaginable. To give an example of how slow it is, my internet connection will be 7k. Putting it in perspective, a dial up is 56k, and high speed at home is 3500k. Wow, right? Patience will be learned!

Back to financial orientation!

All my bags are packed

As hard as it is to believe, I leave today. At 6:30 pm I will take off from Newark and head to London for a 14 hour lay over, then at 9 pm I will board another plane headed to Entebbe, Uganda.

Am I ready? I don't really know. My bags are almost ready to go, but my brain is probably not. But I'm not sure it ever will be. I know that Uganda is where I am supposed to be, I know that I will be doing great things there, and having all sorts of new adventures, but it will be hard for me to leave home. One great thing about modern technology is Skype...the free online video chat service! Check it out, its pretty great. Now I just have to pray that Uganda's internet service is fast enough to handle it ;)

Besides prayers for mental health as I leave, and for traveling mercies, I have a physical prayer request. The other night I was going to sit down and I missed the chair (big surprise coming from me) and now I have 7 cuts going up my spine. They are not large, some are tiny but others are at least the size of a nickel and it hurts to sit against anything. Great for going on an airplane for 15 hours, huh? I've got some pain numbing meds, so hopefully that will help, but pray that I would be comfortable on the airplane and that the wounds would heal.

Many of you have been so amazing these past few months as I have been preparing for this journey, and I am SOOOO grateful for that. Please keep the encouraging words coming. I may not have gotten a chance to respond to all of you in my craziness, but they have not gone unappreciated at all. Hopefully I will get a chance to reply during my week of settling in to my new environment.  Once I get to Uganda and rest up some, I'll be sure to take pictures of my place and let you know how the adventure over was. 

Lastly, do I have enough funds to hit the skies? Yes! Wouldn't you know that I have about $9563 in my account presently (with more promised to come in) and the amount I had to have was $9545. God works wonders :) Pretty cool if I do say so myself. Thanks for letting God use you to help me get where He wants me to be serving Him!

For now, Weebale (Thank you) and Weeraba (Good bye). God Bless!

I'm leaving on a jet plane...

Two weeks from tomorrow (July 23rd) I leave the country. Two weeks! It's hard to believe that it has really snuck up on me. There is still so much to do. This week is filled with doctors appointments, shopping for supplies, and cleaning out my room. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find a simple stamp pad now a days! 

Thanks so much to all of you who have donated financially! As of today, I only need $684.64 before I can hit the skies. God is faithful and he has used you to help me in working with the people of Uganda! Please continue to pray for me, especially as I prepare for this big leap of faith with leaving my family, friends, and the world I know to go and do His will for my life. The next few weeks will be hard ones no doubt, but I know that this is where God wants me right now. 

I will arrive in Uganda on the morning of the 25th of July and will proceed to move in my new home: an apartment that is a 5 minute walk from the school! I will have a roomie but I do not know anything about her yet. The apartment is one fourth of a house, we are one of the apartments on the bottom floor. Our guard, Joseph, does not speak much English from what I know. I will have occasional access to a car that is automatic (praise the lord!). So my failure to find someone to help me re-learn stick will suit me well...hopefully.

Next week I will be the missionary again out at Delanco camp in Tabernacle, NJ. I'll be speaking on Thursday night if you want to come out and hear!