Day 1 - Part 1 (Written By Josh)

After approximately 22 hours of travel, we finally landed in Entebbe, Uganda at 12:30pm local time. We were joyfully greeted by the Uganda ground team and Earnest & Catherine. It was very kind of them to wait up so late to greet us. We also got to meet our bus driver Abus. Yes, Abus drove a bus. We learned that he is a Muslim, and an awesome bus driver, so please keep him in your prayers. We spent a lot of time with him and are praying that God will use that time and future opportunities to reveal himself to Abus. 

LOVE Pastor Ernest and Mama Catherine, here with Joy

About an hour on the road and we had reached our living quarters. It was an 8 bedroom house and we all paired up for rooms. After getting settled it was about 3am before Christen and I finally got to bed. I think it may have been a combination of the jet lag and excitement, but 6:30am rolled around and I was up taking photos of the sunrise! I knew that running on 3 hours of sleep for what was coming next would be rough. We had breakfast, a morning

devotional, piled in the bus and we were off.   

Views from the porch

Pretty intense gate! 

What I first saw on the streets was on of the greatest cultural shocks of the trip. Traffic was mad. People were driving and walking all over the road. There were multiple times where I flinched because I was sure a passing car was going to fillet us. A lot of the roads had no lines and industrial sized pot holes. Thankfully though, Christen, who gets super car sick, was fine the entire time. 

As we drove to M1, there was a lot to look at. Many of the streets were lined with tin and wood shacks or run down concrete shops. Almost all of them were selling anything from mobile phone service to meat on a stick. We even saw a fish market and several meat markets. None if it was on ice, and none of it was stamped with expirations dates. You had no clue how long anything had been there or where it came from. I guess the locals are just experts at eyeing bad food, which would be a useful skill to have. 

We finally made it out of the city and into the beautiful green, rolling countryside. The smell went from a thick diesel exhaust to the smell of an overgrown marsh (there was a lot of swamp land). We drove and drove in anticipation of seeing the place and the children that we had long been praying for. We passed through one more row of shacks selling bongos and then we saw the infamous sign......

Normally I would leave you hanging there, and it makes a lot of sense to do so because it is very suspenseful, but we had a group of very unique men who were well balanced in serious work and...goofiness. 

We had to stop the bus to wait for the rest of the ground team and we happened to stop right next to a group of young men who were boda boda drivers. Now if you don't know what a boda boda is, you should look it up in the dictionary...although I'm sure that wouldn't help you either. It's a flimsy motorcycle taxi. We're not talking about a Harley Davidson here; more like a moped (mo-ped). The drivers were entertaining (and I think they were pretty entertained by us as well). They even let Judd drive a boda boda! He did pretty well and apparently had practice from back home. Then came Jonathan. Jonathan's turn went something like this: [Excitedly jump on the bike!!!] [Kick start!!!]...FAIL. [Kick start again!!]...FAIL. [Kick start again.]...FAIL. [The driver kick started it for me!!!] [Off I go!!!]...[bike dies]...FAIL. [The driver started it for me again.] [Off I go.]...bike dies...FAIL. [Driver jumps on the back of the bike and tries to drive it for him..]...[ok, I guess]...eventually he realized that he was popping the clutch and then he got the hang of it, but to watch him enthusiastically try over and over again was hilarious! He is such a good sport and his church is very blessed to have him. 

Strike a pose

 

There he goes!

This was even funnier in person

We had a fun time waiting and took some pictures. The girls even took a potty break in the bush with the cobras (well, they didn't see one but Abus said they could be out there). As soon as the Uganda team arrived, we were off; being led by the Holy Spirit down a dirt road to a destitute place that would serve as the setting for some of the most memorable and spiritually impactful times of my life. 

Brave Girls