Almost Home

We are sitting in Terminal 5 at Heathrow.  Marjorie and I stayed here while the rest of the boys went into the City for a visit to a Pub.  Marjorie is still on crutches as she still needs to stay off her foot most of the time, although she can put weight on it. 
The guys will be mad, because we made it through security in record time.  The crutch thing got us into the express line.

       Our last day in Uganda was full of shopping and driving around a very busy city.  We took our stuff back to the hotel in the afternoon and packed up all of our stuff.  We then went to a very nice East Indian restaurant for supper where we met Rosemary's fiance Peter.  He is a very nice man, as Rosemary's Canadian family we approve! It was a great meal, although a few of the dishes remain a mystery to us.  Eric particularly liked the yogurt (ha!)
      We left Rosemary there after saying our goodbyes.  She is such an amazing person and there is NO WAY that this project would ever work without her.  Her wisdom, passion for children and love for God is inspiring.  Maybe some day we can have her come and visit us in Canada.
      Abdal took us to the airport, where we said goodbye to our faithful funny wonderful driver.  He called Richard "funny guy" and he called Justin "the baby".  He took real good care of St. Marjorie and put her into the Business Class seat in the van.  His good humour was constant and often kept us going.I am sure that we would not have survived without Abdal, the man can drive!  We will miss him and will highly recommend that all future teams hire him as a driver.  He also is very good friends with Rosemary and does his best to help. 
     I must say this about our team.  Not once in two weeks of travel and changing plans and flight disruptions and many, many other experiences did anyone ever exchange a cross word with another.  We laughed hard every day. Richard was an amazing leader, he paid all the bills and spent hours taking out money - the Ugandan Shilling is not worth much in Canadian money (an overnight stay in an average hotel is around 500,000 shillings) so he had to keep lots of cash on hand.. Big Jim (chairbreaker) was great, he had to put up with me as a roommate and never complained once, a least not when I was around.  Eric was always planning ahead, thinking of future trips and how TOUCH Ministries could improve and grow in this project.  He also won the Ugandan 31 (card game) championships, which I reluctantly report.  St. Marjorie was, well, Marjorie (nuff said). fTravis and Justin are great kids - I can call them kids because they are the same age as mine - but they always were in good moods.  Imagine that, non moody young adults.  I will add however that they have the WORST English accents I have ever heard and they persist in talking that way.
And me... I was just glad to tag along with this great bunch.  My prayer is that future teams will experience the same bond of unity that we had.
       And of course we could not have done any of this without God's grace and provision. 

• Thank you to all who prayed.
• Thank you to all who woke up in the middle of the night to pray for us.
• Thank you to the Maple Leaf gang - all those who wrote notes of encouragement on red Maple Leafs.  We read 4 or 5 each day during our morning devotional/prayer time.  I can't tell you how many times those notes were absolutely perfect for what we were facing that day. 

I leave you with this picture - that would be Travis' hand in the mix.  Perhaps this picture tells the story better that I ever could. 

See you all soon, just one more long flight!