Safely Arrived!

15th-16th, Uganda bound travel

From every corner of England they assembled… well not quite, but a few corners of south-east England.

With all packing completed and the location of passports, visas and yellow fevers certificates double, triple and quadruple checked, 19 of the 21 team members gathered at Heathrow Terminal 4, while Sarah and Nick flew in separately from Australia.

Group check-in and security was rather more time consuming than expected, meaning there wasn’t much time to relax in the departure lounge. However, nothing could get in the way of the seemingly quasi-religious British observance of having a drink in the airport Wetherspoons.

After some last minute purchased and water refills, it was time to board the plane for the first leg of the journey - Heathrow to Doha.

This flight got to Doha at 4:30am local time (2:30am BST), so there were some tired heads lounging about at Hamad International Airport prior to the second flight from Doha to Entebbe, Uganda. Doha airport is perhaps the archetypal petro-state monolith; it’s huge and it feels as if the luxury shops outnumber the amount of passengers passing through. Fortunately though, given that outside temperatures were approaching 40 degrees Celsius, the aircon was at full blast throughout all of the airport’s vast footprint.

We arrived at Entebbe airport at 4:30pm local time - for many it was the first time stepping on African soil.

You might be thinking that things seemed to be going suspiciously smoothly at this point, and indeed our arrival in Uganda saw our first (luckily minor in the end) hiccup. Lydia’s wasn’t appearing on the luggage carousel and she suspected that her bag had been taken by someone else, as it looked very like another one that was circling round the conveyor belt. After some initial worry and panic, James’ forward planning came to the rescue, as all our bags were labelled with the name of our tour guide, Simon Peter, and his phone number. The person who’d taken Lydia’s bag hadn’t gone far, so after some back and forth, we were able to swap the near identical red cases.

As I write this, we’ve just arrived at the Whitecrest guesthouse, where we’ll spend the night before travelling seven hours south-west by minibus to Rukungiri (crossing the Equator on the way!).

Thanks Henry for writing today’s blog.

Due to technical issues, pictures will be coming tomorrow.

Requests for prayer:

As Christians we trust in God for our protection, provision and guidance. We thank Him for the opportunity to embark on and navigate this exciting trip to Uganda. We will therefore end each blog post with prayer requests as an acknowledgement of His majesty over all things and our reliance on His daily mercy. Do join us in prayer.

Our tour prayer: Father, please help me to live this day to the full, being true to You in every way. Jesus help me to give myself away to others, being kind to everyone I meet. Holy Spirit, help me to love those who are lost, proclaiming Christ in all I do and say. AMEN