Where to begin..
We left Busia, Kenya on October 1st and made the strenuous trek into Busia, Uganda which consisted of about a 10 minute bus ride. Not too shabby, ay? J We had an amazing time in Kenya, and we were able to finish it off with a really nice dinner prepared by Chef Lukas(complete with chipotes, samosas, lentals, rice, bananas, pineapple (I didn’t like pineapple before the race…now, I can’t get enough!) with everyone from Deliverance Church. We were extremely blessed this past month and we will continue to pray that God blesses them as they’ve opened up their church and homes to us.
I was really curious how similar Uganda and Kenya would be, and let me tell you, the two neighboring countries were extremely different right off the bat. Basically, Busia consisted of one dirt road that went on for about 5 miles with businesses lining the street. We thought Busia was busy with all the cars flying down the street – all seeming like they would collide at any moment before one would swerve to the “right side” of the road- bota bota’s (aka taxi bikes) were always zipping on and off the road with passengers on board and men and women along the road working hard selling fruit and vegetables and giving haircuts.
We had been hoping and, let’s be honest, expecting to see some crazy wildlife here in Africa and to our dismay the only wildlife we’d seen at that point was the cockroaches, lizards and mice that roamed our home at night. However, within 5 minutes of driving into Uganda, we saw a family of baboons on the side of the road! Man oh man, that was oh so exciting!
Fast forward 2 hours…
As our bus pulled into Kampala, Uganda, I think we were all more than a bit overwhelmed as the locals swarmed in around us. The city was moving at an insanely quick speed. We had to stop in Kampala to switch buses that would take us the rest of the way to Lira. People weren’t wasting any time asking us to help carry our bags, if we wanted to buy whatever they happened to be selling, and all kinds of other questions that I don’t think any of us could even focus to answer if we tried…it was a lot to take in after getting to bed at 2am, waking up at 4am and cramming 30 people and 30 peoples giant bags on a bus fit for literally about 15…yes, people were sitting on eachothers laps and even standing up for the 2 hour ride into Kampala. We finally figured out which bus we were to get on and were extremely relieved to see we were the only group on there…little did we know, the bus wasn’t leaving for another 2 hours so there was plenty of time to fill er’ up! The entire time we were waiting to leave, the locals were walking up and down the aisle trying to sell us pots, watches, dress shirts, pop, fruit, cakes, flashlights…the list could go on and on.
Fast forward another 2 hours as the 5 hour bus ride to Lira begins…
Jessica, Jennifer and I were sitting by eachother and it just so happened that the burning hot African sun would be beating down on us the entire ride. We made the best of the situation and tried to sleep through it as much as possible which was somewhat difficult since we stopped in every town we drove through to pick people up and drop people off. As we would stop, people in the towns would run as fast as they could up to our windows with some type of food to sell us – the menu included bananas, goat on a stick, chipotes (which are definitely in our top favorite African foods – they’re similar to fried tortillas but much better!). Every so often someone would get on the bus to preach which was a really good and encouraging thought, but to be honest, when it feels like 100*, the suns still beating down on you with no escape, you’re squeezed into tiny seats with no room to move along with about 60 other Africans for 5 hours…someone literally yelling to you in another language is not the most appealing thing in the world..BUT! I’m sure it got through to someone and they’re just doing what they felt led to do so that’s good news J
We finally arrived in Lira to find out that Pastor Johnson’s phone wasn’t working and I had no other person to contact to pick us up. After a bit of runaround, another teams contact offered to give some of the other local pastors a phone call to come get us…Praise God! Lira is bigger than Busia, but much smaller than Kampala. There are enough dirt roads through the city to allow me to get lost for sure …which if you know me at all, I can get lost pretty much anywhere so maybe that’s not a good indication of what it’s like here haha -and don’t worry mom and dad, I’m not walking anywhere by myself. We met Pastor Johnson at the place we’re staying at, and we ended the day with a nice meal and resting in our temporary new home.
Thank you for your continued prayers <3 Please be praying for my squad, about 15 people need to be at $11,000 by October 31st or they’ll be sent home to continue fundraising.
I hope you’re all doing wonderful and enjoying the cool fall weather. I miss the changing leaves and the cool breeze, so enjoy it for me J
I love and miss you all J
