Nov 13 - It's Monday! (Road trip in Uganda after midnight)

It's great to be alive today! A few of you know that we had a rather harrowing trip on Friday with a group of 43 students from the school.

The plan was to go to Kampala to see the Mandela National Stadium - the only stadium in Uganda...where the Uganda Cranes play football (soccer for all you Americans), go to the National Zoo - the only zoo in Uganda, then to Wonder World, an amusement park - you guessed it, the only amusement park in Uganda. It took 4 hours to get to the stadium from Budaka. We got a tour of the stadium, and the kids were allowed to run around the track, as you can see from the picture above. Some were quite bored, as you can see from the Bored Brenda picture.

Before I go on, let me interject that this was a "study tour" which most schools do here in Uganda. Once a term, any students whose parents pay for it can go on the tour the school offers. Of our 117 school students, 43 went. Six of those were our own Cornerstone kids. We told our kids that if they got the top position in their class at the mid-term exams, we would pay for them to go on the study tour. I am so happy to report that our kids got top spot in all the classes! Both Rogers and I are so proud of them for this achievement! (And, by the way, Brenda 2 has only been in school since May, so it's quite an accomplishment to be top of her class! She couldn't even speak English when she came to us.) Our top scholars are, in order left to right and back row first in the picture:

• David - P1 (1st grade)
• John (eyes closed for the pic!) - P2 (2nd grade)
• Natasha - P3 (3rd grade)
• Johnson - Top Class (Kindergarten)
• Vanessa - Middle Class (Pre-K)
• Brenda 2 - Baby (Preschool) 

This picture was taken at the zoo, our 2nd stop of the day. We ate lunch out on the lawn in front (brought rice and meat with us) with about a zillion other school groups...good thing everyone wears their school uniforms so we can find our kids! As you might imagine, it was a first for all 6 of our kids. I'm sure many of the other 37 have not been to Kampala either. I was a little frightened by the enclosures for the animals. Some only had 5' high chain link fences between them and us. Doesn't seem real safe to me...at least the lions had an 8' fence, but still it was chain link. But, we weren't eaten by wild animals and we made it through the zoo in 45 minutes. That actually was the plan so we could get to all 3 things in a day.

We ended our time in Kampala at Wonder World - think a county fair and you will have a good picture of this. The kids were totally mesmerized, though, as they have never seen anything like this. I gave our 6 kids Shs2,000 each to buy tickets and go on rides. We spent just over an hour at the amusement park.

Here was the schedule of the day:

• 6:15 am Leave Budaka
• 10:10 Arrive Mandela Nat'l Stadium
• 11:40 Leave stadium and head to zoo
• 1:20 pm Arrive at zoo
• Eat lunch
• Do zoo
• 3:00 pm Leave zoo
• 4:50 pm Arrive at Wonder World
• 6:25 pm Leave Wonder World for Budaka
• 2:15 am Arrive in Budaka

Okay, you might have noticed that it was almost 8 hours to get home - that's where the "It's great to be alive" comment comes in. It took 2 hours to get out of Kampala due to bad traffic - about 15 miles in the 2 hours!! We should have been half way home at this point, but alas, we were only on the outskirts of Kampala (at the Coca Cola factory for all of you who have been to Uganda...). Then, a few miles later we were slowed down by a matatu (minivan taxi) that had been in an accident with a cow - both parties fared poorly in the tangle. Then we were on our way again, only to come upon a LONG line of cars stopped. Apparently there was a bad accident ahead and no vehicles could get through. Did I mention this is the only paved road to Budaka? Well, our driver decided to take a side road, along with all the other cars, matatus and small trucks. All of you 4-wheelers would have loved it! But, late at night in a small bus with 43 kids and 12 adults (26 seats on the bus, by the way) on muddy roads from a recent rain, it was quite treacherous. We had to turn around on 2 occasions because the road was impassable. Imagine a line of 20-30 vehicles on a single lane road in a forest trying to all turn around! Our bus got stuck in the mud and while all the other vehicles kept going we had to get all the kids out and stand on the road for about an hour in the pitch black (thankfully there was a full moon when the clouds parted several times) in mud...oh, and did I mention we were in the Mabira Forest - the only forest in Uganda? Where wild animals, snakes, etc roam? My imagination was running wild, my mouth was praying and my arms were around our kids trying to keep them warm and safe.

So, we finally got out of that situation, continued on the horrible road, almost getting stuck many more times, (prayer life definitely growing in all of us) and rejoiced as we got to the main road. We turned toward home and were excited there was no traffic (it was about 11 pm at this time - we had been scheduled to be back at 8:30)...

until...we found ourselves in a line of cars. We had not circumvented the accident at all. We were back in line (further along the line...but nonetheless back in line) behind the accident. Another hour of sitting and waiting and then we were able to squeeze by the accident. Then found out we were almost out of gas due to the circuitous route we took. Pulled into 3 stations (after midnight) to find no one had diesel. Finally found one and were able to be on our way. Got home at 2:15 am. Oh, did I mention we had had nothing to eat since 1pm, lunch at the zoo??

Okay, there are many more stories surrounding this, but I want to say 2 things:
Thank you to all of you who pray for us regularly. God protected us from peril at many turns.
Doesn't this account make all of you want to come over and visit? HA!

Enough for this week. More of regular life next week! I love you all.

Thanks to all of you Evergreen people who are sacrificing this season to help see that our children's home and the school get built! May God bless all your efforts.

In His care and protection,

Laurie