Neither Cindy nor I kept a daily diary this trip, and unless you also follow me personally on Facebook or Instagram, you might have missed out on some pictorial updates. It has been an eventful two months. I will try to post a photo gallery soon.
When Cindy and I first arrived we found Shalom, one of our sponsored girls, down south and had her stay with us for a few days. She enjoyed living the hotel and restaurant life for a while and we loved sharing her company. Then we got her enrolled in school and said goodbye.
While we were in the capital, I took my already-prepared application for NGO Board recommendation to the appropriate office for approval, this time with a new passport and all my ducks in a row. When I reached the counter, I was told my application was not complete without a new requirement that began one month prior. The organization that is welcoming me for a work permit has to apply and be certified with a new entity that regulates personal information protection. That application costs money and the certification often takes weeks to receive. I checked with my cooperating organization leader and found she had already applied but was waiting those “several weeks” for the certificate. Without it, I was stuck.
Jeremiah, our trusted driver, drove us home to Gulu, where we found our “daughter” Janet living in our house with her four-year-old niece, Marion. Marion is the one for whom we provided life-saving malaria treatment last year. She stole our hearts and went with us everywhere. Our other “daughter” Prisca joined us as soon as she heard we were in town. The house was full of love and laughter. We went on a few special trips, including one to Chobe Safari Lodge at Murchinson National Park. It was a fancy spot with a world-renowned breathtaking view of the Nile River. We had lunch with hippos, warthogs, monitor lizards, and monkeys. We toured the lodge property and found the elephants far in the distance, and the giraffes and various antelope breeds close by. Cindy was hoping for a close encounter with elephants, but it never happened. The day after she left, though, I was stopped by four of them crossing the road on my way home. Sorry, Cindy! Maybe next time.
Before she left, we drove Cindy to the area where we hope to serve. We were going to meet with a man about some land, but on the way there, I pointed out the land I really felt drawn to and said, “Wouldn’t it be perfect if we could get this land here?” Cindy agreed. We met the man just a few hundred meters away, and to our surprise, he walked us to the exact land I had just pointed out to Cindy. He walked us around the perimeter of the small lot, which he said was about seven acres. (It turned out to be 3.27 acres.) We sat down with the clan leaders of the tribe that owns the property and, with Patrick interpreting, began negotiations. They were even more eager to sell than we were to buy, but the price was still very high.
Have you ever noticed that God has infinite ways of communicating “wait”? We were so eager that we initiated a transfer of the funds to buy property from our personal account in Florida to Patrick’s personal bank account in Uganda. We were told later that was a mistake and could put Patrick in a bad place with law enforcement, who might believe he was laundering money and the URA (like our IRS) for evading income tax. God protected Patrick and us, by orchestrating a reverse of the funds, a hiccup that we found frustrating at the time, but are grateful for in retrospect. While the bank was rejecting our wire transfer, the land surveyor completed her work and informed us of the true size of the parcel of land. At that size, the amount we tentatively agreed upon was ridiculously exorbitant. We called the sellers and said “no thanks.” Now we are fielding offers from them for far more land than we initially walked at far fewer shillings. Soon, we will return to see their grand new offer. I still don’t know how to transfer the funds unless we have it sent to a Ugandan attorney or land office.
The house is clearing out. Janet and Marion left on the same trip that took Cindy back to Entebbe for her flight home. When I got back home, Prisca was there, and she had a friend stay in the guest room with her. Patrick spent the night a few times, but school has him busy most of the time, so we see very little of him. He brought his niece, Aber Tracy, from his village, and she stayed with us for about a week. During that time, we got a visit from Clinical Officer Jenifer, who we just sponsored through ultrasound certification training. She stayed for three days. We had two girls in the guestroom and two more on mattresses in the living room, but they were all happy, and I was happy to have their company.
This week my last houseguest, Prisca, will leave me to start her school, also far to the south. She has no interest in healthcare but does want to work with us in the future, so we are sponsoring her through office management vocational training starting March 1st. She will be in a school in the capital, toward the north end where we like to stay when we visit. She has a former classmate who is also going to that school, so we may all ride down together.
The day Jenifer arrived last week, I accompanied Patrick to a family funeral. There, Patrick’s half-brother presented me with a South African rooster, which he said was some special breed, and that I should keep it for breeding rather than eating. He even charged me with bringing him back some of his offspring. Not to be outdone, Patrick’s brother, Walter, brought me a young hen, to help me get started in my chicken breeding. When we arrived home, we found that Jenifer had also brought me a rooster from her home as a thank-you for sponsoring her school. The trouble with her rooster was that he was fully grown and far more aggressive than “Red” the South African breeder, so he kept beating old Red to the hen, who we named “Jen” after our houseguest. We also found that Jenifer’s rooster had no circadian rhythm. He began crowing at about 4:00 am and kept crowing every minute rather than every hour. He ended up being the most delicious chicken I ever tasted. Red and Jen are now peacefully cohabitating on my porch.
I get a lot of advice here and rarely is it consistent. One experienced missionary suggested I should file my NGO before trying to buy land. I immediately started the arduous process of filing my NGO. Imagine an IRS audit while having a root canal. The trouble is that one of the major components of the NGO application is a description of the land and people affected by the ministry. If we buy the land we are looking at we would be in one district, but if we buy land even a few miles north we would be in another district. Not only that, but the land in question sits on a road with access to several rural villages with no healthcare. If we extend our services in outreach to those villages, we risk entering into a third district. I attended a workshop of NGO leaders who assured me I only need the approval of one district, wherever the headquarters is, but since I haven’t bought land, I cannot say for certain where it is. So here I am at another “wait” sign from God. In the meantime, I have all my documents and extras in order. I just need to find out where TLCU will call home, and start meeting the local authorities there.
Until we get what we would call a “place” we are doing what we can to promote Ugandan health and welfare in accordance with our mission statement:
“Our mission is to be of maximum service to God and His children in Uganda, to heal, protect, and nurture abundant life, and to restore relationship with God through Jesus Christ.”
To that end, we have sponsored another certificate nurse, Akello Patrishia, to return to nursing school for her diploma. The certificate nurse in Uganda, like the Associate Degree Nurse in the US, is being phased out. Soon all Ugandan nurses or midwives will be either diploma or degreed nurses (similar to our RNs and BSNs).
The biggest news of all is forthcoming and has to do with our recent graduate from Ultrasonography training. Keep watching for updates.
God, bless those who read this, pray for us, or support our cause. May You always be glorified in our every thought, word, and action. Through Jesus Christ our Lord we pray, amen!
