After many days of stressed induced heartburn, sleepless nights, many tears with the kids, Sunday is here. The day that we leave! We all (the entire team) went to church, were commissioned, and then left for the airport. To be honest, I have been dreading this day for many days. I knew that this would be the hardest day. Saying goodbye to the kids was heartbreaking. As we stood in the parking lot, our daughter cried “I don’t want you to leave!” and our son, “I want to go with Granddad!”

So we’re off to Uganda! Once we left the parking lot, I was finally able to relax and look forward to going. The flight to ATL was uneventful, and then off to Amsterdam. I wish we had more time there, as it looks like a beautiful city, but we only had about 2 hours. We all got coffee, pastries, and said our final goodbye to city life as we know it. Because who knows what Uganda will be like, but we know it won’t be like the US or Europe!

On to Uganda. This is a 10+ hour flight, and we slept most of the time. Although we are getting in at 11:30 at night, we still slept. For some reason, flying makes me really tired. During that flight, the medical part of our mission trip was started early. 2 people fainted while we were flying, so our doctors and nurses jumped into action and helped them out. At one point, the children’s choir of Uganda started singing. They sang so beautifully. And I truly felt that we were in Africa now.

After our flight, we get off in Entebbe, Uganda. The airport is almost empty, except for our flight, and we were able to retrieve all 26 pieces of luggage. We met Fr. Nicholas, and some of our drivers, and saw, through the darkness, the cities of Entebbe and Kampala.  The compound where we would stay a night or two was beautiful and a great place to rest our tired, well travel bodies. But wait, not all beds have a mosquito net, so we need to find those, and get those hung before we go to bed. It is around 2am before we drift off to sleep.

Wow, what a day. It feels like a lifetime since we left the parking lot at church.