Good morning everyone and warm greetings from Uganda.  After 16 hours of continuous travel, Pam and I arrived safely at 4:15 AM local time.  We are +8 hours from you.  Here it is 3 PM.

For those of you who haven’t been tracking with us… Wendell Stoltzfus, Pam and I are on a 16 day mission trip to Uganda with Equipping Leaders International to hold 2 four-day marriage conferences for Pastors and their wives in Nebi & Pakwach in northwest Uganda.  We were supposed to launch the trip back in November 2022, but it got canceled because of an Ebola outbreak.  We rescheduled for January 20 – February 5, 2023. A big thank you to the generous gifts of our Bethany family and the elders for graciously sending us.

We left our house at 7:10 PM on Thursday and Gerald Sauder drove us though the teeming rain to Liberty International Airport, Newark. (Thanks Gerald!) We took off at 12:30 AM Friday morning for Istanbul and then on to Kigali, Rwanda and finally Entebbe, Uganda just south of Kampala.

Our flights and connections were good, but our luggage is currently in Istanbul, having missed the connecting flight.  This is an issue, not just because we have no clothes, but also because we are carrying 2 ministry suitcases filled with teaching aids and gift bag contents for the 40 pastors and their wives who will be participating in the conferences.  We are hoping that it arrives tomorrow on the next available flight, because if it doesn’t, the likelihood that Turkish Air will get it to Nebi  in a timely fashion is pretty small.  Nebi is 8 hours away on primarily dirt roads.  Please pray that this gets straightened out.  But even if it doesn’t, we are really looking forward to the conference.  God is in control.

But for now, we’re at a hotel on the north shore of Lake Victoria recovering from jet-lag.  It’s a beautiful spot with exotic birds and the gentle lap of water on the shore.  There was a beautiful sunrise this morning and I am currently writing this from the deck off our second floor room.  But at $60 per night with a full breakfast included, it can’t be beat.  Here’s the view from the deck (below).

Earlier this afternoon we picked up our anti-malaria drugs at a local pharmacy and then stopped by a cambio to exchange funds and our $200 spending money miraculously became 735,000 Ugandan Shillings.

Pray for the luggage situation and for our big trip to Nebi tomorrow.  Lots more pictures coming.  Thanks for reading.