Adventures in Variety

We arrived in Nakaale yesterday afternoon in good order after only about three and a half hours of driving. This was much better than only a couple of days earlier when the missionary who was picking us up came down to Mbale and the direct road was too muddy and the longer detour took him almost six hours.

The peace and quite here is lovely, especially after the bustle of Kampala. Birds and insects form the primary sound backdrop with everything so green compared to last I was here. It’s now the tail end of wet season, so the grass is high and the trees are in full leaf. When I was last here, it was March, which is the tail end of dry season, and that year was unusual because there had been no September-November wet season. I don’t think the temperature is that much different than Kampala, but it feels so much cooler with the lower humidity. I’ll take some pictures as I’m out and about for work the next couple of days.

Today has been a restful Sunday, with church this morning and dinner with the pastor, his family, and a number of others. We’ll have evening service, then cook our own supper.

Tomorrow, our work starts with me taking care of some maintenance work at the clinic and Taryn helping with the preschool, Karamoja Education Outreach (KEO).

Stuart

We finished out our time in Kampala well and came up to Mbale on Wednesday. It’s been a nice couple of days here visiting with friends and purchasing groceries to get us through the next few weeks.

Tomorrow, we head up to Karamoja. The roads have been pretty bad, so we may have to take the long way around to get to Nakaale. Thankfully, one of the missionaries will be driving us from Mbale, so we’re in good hands.

Prayer requests:

• My sore throat is over, but I still have a lingering cough that makes it difficult to have a conversation, since whenever I talk much, I start coughing.
• Margaret has been having trouble getting solid sleep. Hopefully the quiet in Karamoja will help with that.

Stuart

We arrived without problems (both we and our baggage) on Tuesday night and got enough sleep to avoid jet lag, which was nice. That’s not to say that we aren’t dealing with sleep deprivation, but that’s technically something else. ;-)

Wednesday, we were able to go grocery shopping and get cell phone SIM cards and transfer up to the EMI apartment. Our apartment here is normally used by EMI interns, so it’s only set up with twin beds and the mosquito nets won’t work with the two beds squished together. Turns out that two people actually can sleep on a twin bed…

It’s been a busy few days of getting to know EMI and the Kampala area. I’ll post a better summary of EMI once we finish the rounds of talking with everybody, but I will say that it’s been very encouraging. Margaret has also been doing particularly well, which has made things easier.

We attended church today at New City Church and it was refreshing to feel like we were (almost) at our home church.

This week we’ll be with EMI for a couple of more days and then travelling up to Mbale to see friends for a day or two, then up to Karamoja at the end of the week. We still need to work out the details for all of that.

Please pray for:

• Knowing the right questions to ask so that we may get an accurate sense of the work and life here.
• Relief from my sore throat that I think I picked up on the flights.

Stuart