Arrived!

Hello everyone! 

I'll give you a little outline of the past week
*Sunday evening CityLife Church commissioned me.  My family and several close friends were able to come and support me that Sunday.  I was so thankful the church was able to rally around me in prayer and send me off.  That evening I said my last goodbyes to friends and some of my family.  I was sad, but excited for what was to come. 
*Early Monday morning my parents took me to the airport where I then headed out to NY where AIM headquarters is located.  My flight went smoothly and all my luggage arrived.   Myself and 7 other short termers had orientation together.  We had seminars on the Biblical basis of missions, culture, travel, finances, and spiritual warfare.  It was very brief, but content filled. 
*Wednesday afternoon all 8 of us headed to the airport to begin our journey to Africa.  We all flew together for the first leg to London.  Seven of us had a 12 hour layover so we were able to leave the airport and do some sight seeing.  That evening we headed back to the airport and 4 or the short termers headed to Namibia and three of us headed to Uganda.  Thankfully I was able to sleep a couple hours on the flight to Entebbe, Uganda as I didn't have any sleep the night before.  My teammate Sarah, another short termer Heather, and I all arrived Friday morning along with our luggage.  We were picked up at the airport and brought to the guest house in Kampala called Matoke Inn.  We had a small bit of orientation, but not much as we were all quite jet lagged (I am 8 hours ahead of central time) and exhausted from our over night flights. 
*Saturday we celebrated the national day of prayer with other missionaries in the area by gathering all day and lifting up praises and prayer requests of people serving in all different places in the world.
*I will head out of Kampala Tuesday and make the trek to Good Shepherd's Fold orphanage.  I'm very eager to see what my days will look like there.  I'll keep you posted once I find out!

Thank you all for praying for safe travels and hard goodbyes to go well.  God has been good and showed Sarah and I much grace with how smoothly things have gone thus far.  

*An ongoing prayer request will be safety traveling around the city.  If I die in Africa, it would probably be from a car accident.  The driving here gets pretty crazy.
*Please pray that I would adapt quickly to the culture here (food, concept of time, language, social norms).  Most of the people speak English, but speak Luganda to each other.  I'd like to pick up some of that up.
*Pray that God would give me wisdom beyond my experience.  Pray that I learn quickly and care for the children and GSF safely.  Pray that God would give me wisdom as to how to meet the kids spiritual and emotional needs.  I will have more specifics on that once I meet the kids. 


I've only been here 2 days, but I love it thus far.  The people are very friendly and the country is beautiful.  The poverty and way of living is quite eye opening though.  I'm very eager to begin working with and along side the people and build relationships with them. 

I plan on updating my blog weekly just for your information. 

meredith