UGANDA IMPACT FRIDAY AND SATURDAY

July 7 and 8


The last few days have seemed a bit like a blur really. We climbed on board an Emirates A340-500 and spent fourteen hours in dark skies and landed at Dubai at 5:30 am. After a few hours wait we loaded up again and flew to Entebbe via Addis Ababa (capital of Ethiopia) Its amazing to find the number of Christians and Christian groups on these kinds of flights, especially from Dubai down to Africa. There were a whole bunch of Irish young people who were part of the Habitat group or one of those groups who build houses for poor people around the world. It took us until 3:30 pm to land finally at Entebbe.
The first challenge was our accompanied baggage. They weren’t going to let us go until we produced invoices and descriptions for all the things we had. They were talking taxes and big time. We tried every avenue until I talked with the lady who seemed to be in charge and said we were going up country to serve the Lord and this was our equipment and that she had the power to bless the people of Uganda by releasing us with our gear. She agreed and we walked out with it.
We had another fourteen pieces of unaccompanied baggage in the cargo depot at the airport but by the time we got there it was closing up and we were told to come back in the morning (Saturday). This was not possible for us since we were going to drive for five or more hours. But there was no two ways about it and we agreed to drive back in the morning. It would mean leaving before 5:00 am.

We eventually arrived at Mbale by 11:00 pm. They were holding an all night prayer meeting at this time and we needed to go over and spend some time meeting the people and I was to give a word and etc. We ended up getting there by 12:00 and stayed until 2:30 am. There were about 700 people at the prayer meeting and they were going right off. It was wonderful. We were dead beat but very energized by the passion and faith of these people. Emmanual shared and ministered a bit. They love him and were so glad to see him return.

Patrick (Emmanuel’s father) and I got up and left for Entebbe at around 5:00 arriving by 9:00am. Patrick had enlisted the help of a man who worked in the President’s office to see how things could be processed with a minimum of fuss and even more important a minimum of expense. What proceeded from the time we arrived was far too complex to explain. I don’t ever think I could explain it. We went from office to paperwork and from one official to another. We finally got in to where our equipment was and there wre three pieces missing. There was all the same set of disputes about how much the stuff cost and the fact that if we were leaving it in the country we would be required to pay tax on it. This could have ended up costing another 3,000 plus dollars. The melee continued and it was obvious that certain people would have to be given financial incentive to simply allow the process to continue. It ended up costing us about another $A1,000. It was a convoluted process that took from around 8:30 till 1:00. We finally had our clearance paper at 1:00 pm but guess what…..the whole show shut down at 100 pm and we were told to return on Monday morning. This was impossible as you would realize. Our conference and crusade began on Monday and I was the only one who could appear to accept the goods since they were on my ticket. We were all praying like mad for God to intervene. And he did. The key woman customs officer finally told our official man that she would return in half an hour and open up the shed again and we could get out our gear. We waited longer than that but she returned and our fourteen pieces of equipment were extracted and loaded up. We gave her a lift back to Kampala and she talked about the fact that she was a Christian and wanted to help us but found it difficult with everything else that was going on at the time. We were more than a little grateful. We arrived back in Mbale at about 8:00 pm in the end. What a day. What a struggle, but we are now poised to begin the program tomorrow with the services in Faith Cathedral. The rest of the team were able to sleep and relax, so that was terrific. I’ll try and get a good sleep tonight and get ready to preach in the morning.

Pray for us..


Love to all of you from all of us.