Finally! Travel Days

I am safely in Uganda at this point. There is very little internet connection and very little power so whenever it is that I post this it will be several days worth. This is all just the highlights, there is so much more I wish I could share, little details, thoughts, observances.

Thursday
My favorite people in airports are the ones running with their luggage. My family (minus Kevin who’s at World Changers) drove to Atlanta, and we had lunch at my favorite restaurant, The Cheesecake Factory. It was great. I got checked in then said good-bye to the family and went to my gate. Second favorite part of the day was getting to ride the train-thing to my concourse. Simple things.
As I said before, God has been doing some crazy things leading up to this trip. Let me clarify that this is a good kind of crazy. I talked to a good friend of mine the other day, and just listening to him talk about all God was doing in his life was awesome and so encouraging to me. It has been so clear to me all God is doing to pull this trip together, but to hear how much He is doing in other people’s lives at the same time is such a great reminder of how big our God is. I knew this was going to be a life changing trip, but I expected it to be while I was in Africa. But this past week, in the midst of running errands, packing, and seeing friends, the huge difference in the life I am leaving and the life I am going to has been constantly on my mind. I’ve had to answer a lot of questions about why I am going and, though its not been fun or easy, I know God is bringing my heart to the place where He can have complete control and teach me the things I need to learn while I am gone. Apart from me, I know 8 people who are in, going to, or have gone to Africa this summer! We’re going to different places for different reasons, but I am so excited for how God is going to use us all this summer.
To finish day one, I boarded my plane and made it safely to London!
Fun Fact: I have brushed my teeth in the airport and gotten to see lots of flight attendant hand motions…

Friday
I’m sitting next to Molly in the London airport writing this. I probably won’t get it posted until tomorrow or Sunday because internet cost money in airports. But here’s how today happened. They woke us up real early (like 3am your time) and fed us breakfast before we landed. We landed at 10 this time (5 your time) and went through customs and all that. The London airport is HUGE and when you get off the plane you are driven on a bus to the arrivals gate. I had planned to meet up with Molly at her gate, but since there was none, I went ahead and went through customs and hoped Molly would do the same. Good news- she did. We met up at baggage claims and we rode a bus to our terminal. More good news, they have Starbucks in London, so we hit that up and made a game plan for our day. Kenya airways wouldn’t let us check in til that afternoon, so we stored our bags while we went out to explore. We bought train tickets (not really a train, more like a subway, but that’s what they call it). We only had three hours before we had to be back at the airport, and the train took an hour to get into town. But according to the London locals we talked to, that was the quickest and the cheapest way. It was fun and we got to see some of the city and talk a lot while riding the train too. We got off at Green Park station and walked through the park. We saw some kids that looked like they went to Hogwarts, they had uniforms on that reminded us of the Gryffindor seal. Yes, Molly is a Harry Potter fan, a Starbucks fan, and, Perry, a Twilight fan. We’re going to get along fine. We walked to Buckingham palace, took touristy pictures, and then walked some more. There weren’t really any other notable sites within walking distance, though we could see the London Eye from where we were. But we saw tons of cute houses, and lots of embassies and some double-decker buses. And a big church. We came back to the airport, got our bags, got in another line to check our bags with the airline, went through security, and now here we are. And you guys probably just finished lunch. Tonight we’re going to Kenya, then tomorrow we’ll finally get to Uganda. Hopefully then we will have internet access! I’ll end again with some prayer requests but thanks so much for all your prayers thus far. Everything is going great!

Saturday
Last night was an ok flight. We got more sleep than we did the night before. Right now we are sitting in the Nairobi, Kenya airport waiting on our final flight to Entebbe. This morning, they woke us up at 4 am to serve us breakfast, but it was awesome because we got to watch the sun rise. It was so incredible, before we even saw the sun there was a rainbow of colors creeping up the horizon. Then as we were flying through the clouds we saw the tops of mountains peeking through. They were all sharp, jagged mountains, different from how ours look. On our descent, we came through the layer of clouds and got our first glimpse of Africa. It was amazing. I can’t believe we are here!
In Entebbe, we cleared customs, got our luggage and met the driver from the FIMRC. He took us to Kampala, where we met up with the Mike and Megan, FIMRC staff. We went and changed our money, walked through a Ugandan grocery store, then got back in the car to continue our drive to the village.
Our next stop was Jinja, where we ate lunch at a very nice Ugandan restaurant. We also walked around some of the shops where local artists have their crafts. We didn’t have a whole lot of time there but hopefully at some point we will be able to go back and buy some things. We then finished our drive to the village.

Finally here! More posts to follow!
In Him,
Becky