I am serious when I say the rest of the journey is almost a blur, but I am going to try to chronicle it as best I can. We did receive our call and had less than a week to appear before the judge in Uganda with the boys for the initial hearing. I would love to say everything was smooth sailing from there, but not so. The first obstacle was getting a flight in time. We had all the money on one card and could not get the amount approved for the total purchase of several thousand dollars for the four tickets. We ended up having to borrow the church's card to purchase the tickets.
It started with that then went south for the next couple days. We were trying to get arrangements settled with scheduling and paperwork in Uganda right up to the morning of our flight out. I actually ended up calling our Ugandan lawyer at home at about 2:00 AM Uganda time to straighten out some issues for us. Thank God for Isaiah's graciousness.
On the way to the airport we got tied up in traffic and were rear-ended. We finally made it to the Tulsa airport where we caught our flight easily but were delayed in our Chicago flight going to Istanbul. This was scary as there were only two flights a week into Entebbe, Uganda. We hurried between flights and made it though. We were in flight.for a total of over 24 hours. When we finally arrived in Uganda we were extremely tired. We made it though and what we found at the airport was worth every bit of the hassle, stress, and discomfort it took to get there...
We were met at the airport by Wilfred along with our two boys. I promise you, this was one of the most exciting moments of my life. We went through so much to get to this point. The boys were excited to see their American Mommas and Daddies, as was their little friend who came along for the ride. We struggled much over the next days with the other children vying for attention and hopes of maybe going to America as well. You just didn't know how to respond when a sweet 4-5 year old little girl stretched her arms out and says "America" or "Daddy".
We left the airport and ran some urgent errands that took much longer than we anticipated. We finally took the boys to eat what was probably their first and only meal of the day at a local restaurant around three in the afternoon. We were troubled as they didn't even take an order for the boys. We were told they could eat off our plates. We fed them most of what was on our plate then ordered for them as well. We were so enjoying watching them enjoy their food. We thought what we did was a good deed.....until BOTH boys vomited all over the restaurant floor. Too much of a good thing is still too much.
We then went to our hotel, spent some time there with the boys, and they were shuttled off back to their home as we got some needed rest. The next day the rat race continued. We were picked up early and taken to Wilfred's house while Jacob and Sarah went for their court hearing with Ephraim. All went well there.
This was an interesting day for me. It was holiday time for the orphanage staff, so Wilfred had a bulk of the kids staying at his home. I believe he had in the neighborhood of 30 children staying at his house. He was going to court with Jacob and Sarah and his wife asked Kim to accompany her to the doctor with one of the children. I was left at the house all day long with thirty something children ranging from infant to eighteen years of age. They didn't soeak English and I didn't speak Luganda (native tongue), but we survived and actually communicated fairly well. Well, the older kids made good of the situation.. They would look at me while talking then giggle out loud.
Emma was attached at my hip the entire day. I was his "American Daddy" and he made sure everyone knew it. At one point Emma grabbed me by the hand and drug me about a mile and a half down a path and showed me a well where they went to get water. He smiled from ear to ear, pointed, and said "See". It evidently was a favorite place of his and he wanted his daddy to see it. I mentioned the long walk to Wilfred later and he replied, "That is not a long walk. This is prime property. See those houses over there?" He ponted to houses on a hillside likely several miles a away. "They get their water from this same well," He said. "They are poor."
The next several days were a comedy of errors. We wanted so bad to get everything completed and our boys home by Christmas just two weeks away. This turned out to be an impossible order. We had our hearing with Emma on Thursday and the courts closed down Friday until after the holidays. We rushed around and had the boys medical' check ups and such as that. We had a couple scares there but all turned out ok.
Well, Jacob and I left our wives and babies in Uganda as we returned home to care for our families at home. This was extremely difficult as we did not know how long it would be and we knew we would be spending Christmas apart. Somebody had to return though and both of us had jobs and bills to pay. Ugandan culture does not value the female culture quite the same as Western culture does and this bothered us. We found comfort though in knowing that we basically would be meeting Michael in the air. We had purchased him tickets when we discovered we would be leaving the ladies behind. He was familiar with the culture and capable of caring for our families. Our plan was he would be there within twenty-four hours of the time we left. Something we learned during this adventure though was, nothing goes as planned...
To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment