Safely Home

Friday evening we arrived safely home after 32 hours of travel (22 hours in flight). It felt so good to be home!! I remember placing my head on the pillow, then waking up Saturday morning at 7:45am thinking "Were we really in Uganda or was it just a dream?"

We had an amazing time; we are filled with so many precious memories, and we miss the people so much! I last wrote on Tuesday morning before giving away the laptop that I had been using while in Uganda. My company, Samaritan Health Services, blessed us with two laptops to be donated to various ministries there. Once I gave away the last one, I had no way to update the blog. Now that I'm home, I would like to catch you up on those last few days.

Days 12 and 13 - Tuesday and Wednesday
The team drove back from Tororo to Kampala. We brought Pastor Moses and Betty along with us. They have two daughters who attend boarding schools along the way to Kampala, so we made several stops in the towns of Iganga and Jinga to visit them. Our team arrived in Kampala around 3pm, which gave Jessica and me a few hours to relax and have some dinner before we had to head to the airport for an 11pm flight to Kigali, Rwanda.

Our driver Moses took Jess and I to the airport which is about 30 miles from Kampala. Moses is a delightful man and a really good driver. Traffic at this time of day, 5pm, can be a bumper to bumper nightmare, but Moses somehow managed to avoid it all as he navigated side streets through the city and got us to the airport in plenty of time. Our flight to Kigali was on time, but when we arrived there was no one there to greet us. We didn't know what to do. We waited for about an hour to see if the hotel van would come for us as had been the arrangement, but we finally decided to take a taxi to a hotel. It was then that I realized in my haste to get things packed that morning, I had forgotten to write down the name of the hotel I had booked for us in Kigali. I began feeling out of control being in a foreign country and not knowing where to find rest for the night. We were to meet the Compassion representative in the hotel lobby at 9:30am and I had no idea where that was! I asked a taxi driver to get us to a hotel close to the Compassion office, so he brought us to this really nice resort hotel and pointed towards the parking lot, assuring us that the Compassion office was right there. We stayed at a hotel down the street from there (which was a little less expensive), waking up Wednesday morning for breakfast and hoping to just walk down the street and find the Compassion office around 8am. However, when we got to the resort hotel and looked where the taxi driver had pointed, there was no office!!!!  Nothing was there.  We are at a complete loss.

I began feeling out of control again, beating myself up for not writing down the contact info. There was nothing I could do about that now; I had to just pray and ask the Lord for help. All of a sudden a Jeep belonging to an Aids/HIV organization pulled into the hotel parking lot, and I felt led to approach the driver and ask about the Compassion office. He said the Compassion office used to be here, but they relocated a few years ago. He did not have a contact number, but he thought there might be someone in his office who did. He called and left a message, telling us that once he heard back, he would come find us in the lobby. Well, I was thankful for his help, but I still felt anxious because our meeting with the Compassion representative was to be in one hour. Then the Lord told me to go and speak with a lady at the reception desk of the hotel. She simply made a phone call and handed me the phone. It was Eugene, the Compassion Representative!! He told me that he called the hotel this morning (the hotel we were supposed to stay in), and hearing that we had not stayed there last night, he was getting ready to contact the man who was bringing Gedeon and tell him we would not be coming! 

You know, I praise the Lord! Everything worked out in just the nick of time. We do not always see His hand moving on our behalf. There are times I get in these situations and feel like I'm all alone with no one to help me, but the Lord is so faithful! He is always right there with us. He led us directly to the person who could help us. He is so faithful!! He is just so faithful. We met Eugene in the hotel lobby at 10am, and he brought us to the Compassion office to meet Gedeon. When Gedeon saw us he sprang up out of his chair and came right to us. (We had been warned that he might feel really shy.) He greeted us with huge bear hugs, and we just embraced and loved each other. There was such joy in his face when he saw us. Our time together went by very quickly as we talked, played some soccer, and ate lunch together. Before we knew it the 4 hours went by, and we were saying goodbye for now. None of us wanted to say goodbye. As we drove away from the bus depot, we kept looking back at Gedeon, and he kept looking at us in our car. We waved until we could no longer see each other. I know in my heart that one day I will see this precious young man again. How soon I do not know, but we will meet again. His desire is to become an evangelist and pastor. I encouraged him to do all that is in his heart for the Lord. His favorite verse is Isaiah 59:1 - "Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; Nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear".

What a fun day! Thank You, Lord, for bringing us together despite all the obstacles. Thank You for the work You have begun in Your son Gedeon! Thank You for placing him in our lives these past 10 years. Use him mightily for Your Name's sake!!

"If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself." - 2 Timothy 2:13