Kampala Adventures

Monday morning Larissa, Kim, and I got up early so that we would have the whole day to handle our paperwork and errands. As we were walking out of the MAF guesthouse, there were large dark ominous clouds headed our way. As soon as we got on the bus, it started to pour rain. The bus was leaking rain down my back and as our stop approached there was no end to the rain in sight. Monday was our day to be productive and handle all of our paperwork, so we just tried to keep our documents dry and continued to make our way around Kampala. After a while the rain stopped, but the streets were still flooded. There is a great picture of Larissa wading through the streets while trying not to loose her flip flops above. We continued on our way through the city walking and taking public transportation, and a few hours after the rain stopped it was completely dry. You would not even have known that it rained.

We got all of our paperwork done in a reasonably short amount of time! The people we spoke with were incredibly helpful and nice to us even though we were unclear on many of the details required to get work permits and bank accounts. The next time we come to Kampala, we should be able to pick up all of our documentation after it has been processed.

The next day after running a few errands in Kampala, I decided to meet up with Kyle (also an engineer) to go visit the Kampala office of emi (engineering ministries international). I was already in Kampala, but no where near emi and Kyle was still at the guesthouse, so we decided to meet at the taxi park in Kampala. It is a massive area were buses that leave the center of Kampala and go to all the outlying areas park and haggle over passengers. There is a picture of a small section of the park above. There are vendors in the entire surrounding area as well. Well thank goodness for cell phones, because Kyle and I were on opposite sides of the taxi park. We finally met up, found the bus we needed to be on, and started on our way to emi.

At emi I met up with Suellen. She is a missionary with emi who was sent from the church my family in Sao Paulo, Brazil attends. It was great to meet her and to hear about the work they are doing in east Africa. We also got to speak Portuguese together. Kyle had also been in contact with emi and was interested to learn about different models of engineering missions in Africa.

That night, we were treated to a great Ugandan meal by our friends at the MAF guesthouse. We had a great time eating, laughing, trying to pronounce difficult words in several languages, and just enjoying each others company. After dinner, the Massos arrived. Yesterday we got back to errands and rearranging all our luggage. Then we had dinner together as a complete team and a local Ethiopian restaurant. We are leaving on MAF flight this morning, but our things will not arrive for about a week.

We got a lot of things done in a small amount of time in Kampala. Praise God for the time we had to rest and bond as a team while Kim and I got over jetlag. We had a few minor setbacks, but God worked in all the details of our stay in Kampala!

Now back to loading up the truck!