I woke up today (Thursday) to Kris working his phone and his “guy” trying to find a way to get Peter and Mike to Entebbe today. There is one flight a day from Amsterdam (where Mike and Peter are) and Entebbe (where Kris and I are) and our hope is that we can get the e-visa thing cleared up and get them here so we can get to Gulu and get to work! Turns out, that since COVID the flight is only every other day. We made the decision that we will wait till Friday and if they can’t make it, we drive cross country and go into full scramble mode. It will be lonely for me in the Guest House in Gulu by myself, but I will make the best of it—and probably bother some of the residents nearby! The good news is that they expected my luggage to be on the flight from Amsterdam.
This gives us another day to get the e-visa straightened out. Kris gave the guy some instructions, some money to pay any bills or fines and gave the instructions to “get it done”. I started studying where we were staying and caught up on email. Kris took his vehicle into a place to get some work done. After successfully getting it fixed, we went to the mall so I could get some deodorant and a toothbrush, having decided I can make it in the same clothes another day (that would make it roughly 96 hours with the same clothes on-may have to burn the clothes afterwards!). Fortunately, the spaces have not been over eighty degrees and I do have access to a shower.
Friday is D-day. When we woke up Kris checked on the status. Neither of them had their visa yet. Mike and Peter decided that 9:30 was the deadline on their end. If the visas came through, great. If not, they had booked flights back to MSP at almost the same time as the one to Entebbe. Fortunately, all the TLI flights have trip insurance, so Mike was free to take this approach. It was about 7:45. Texts and phone calls between Mike, the guy and Kris flew back and forth. Kris looked like a general manager on draft day, telling the guy to yell if he must. The problem was the Uganda’s system shut down regularly, so your timing must be just right. I had proven you can purchase a visa once you land, but KLM would have none of it. Nine O’clock came and nothing. The guy said it was not looking good.
It was while I was studying, that I ran into one of the often-repeated phrases from our teaching: that God is sovereign, wise and good. I had a faith decision to make. Either God is sovereign, wise and good (in all things including airlines) or he isn’t. I chose to trust Him and settle my occasional burst of anxiety.
At 9:20, the text said that Peter had his visa and his baggage (with two of the four totes containing our materials) would be with him. We figured Mike was next in line and we would live happily every after. Turns out, that 9:30 came and went and Mike informed us he was heading for the plane going to MSP. God is still sovereign, wise and good. Now we have a thirteen hour wait till the plane arrives and Peter, who’s never been to Uganda, gets to encounter the mess that I had two days earlier at the Entebbe airport.
The place we were staying at had no vacancies for Friday, so we had to find another place. I took a few hours and wrote two of my previous posts. We went out for lunch and Kris and I started making up a plan for the week ahead without Mike, who is the one we all look to for direction on the curriculum and any adjustments that had to be made. We continued our housing search and found a place closer to the airport. We vegged out. I did some more reading and studying in my new role as the trip leader. I’m not sure TLI, the organization who leads these trips, have had one without one of their staff before. I got a nap in, knowing it would be a late night, with Peter landing
