We continue to be dazzled and amazed by this undeniably awesome God we serve! He truly has His hand directly on our trip to Uganda and continues to showcase His glory around every turn!
Just this week, big and small miracles have happened which are undoubtedly only possible through and by our God. Here is a glimpse into just a few.
We purchased our plane tickets to Uganda on Wednesday of this week. This purchase was a "quick" one in the sense that Sarah and our travel agent had been watching the prices closely for weeks and because they were significantly more expensive than for previous ekissa trips to Uganda, Sarah had even briefly entertained the idea of having the group come back to the US a day later than originally planned. Well, on Wednesday the plane ticket prices dropped almost $400 a piece so we needed to act fast in order to order them before the prices shot back up and we were forced to rearrange our travel dates. Since we had raised 96% of our flight costs so far, Kevin and I were able to go ahead and book our flights. On Friday of this week, Sarah got another email from the travel agent who said that he just got word that on March 31, 2010 and beyond, fares on Air France KLM (the airline which we are traveling for our whole trip) are going to be going up due to the Delta, KLM, Northwest merger. This means that our trip to Uganda would have cost each of us about $400 more had we waited until after March 31 to book the flights. Essentially, this could have bumped the cost of our flight up $800 per person! God is looking out for us even financially through this trip and knew what we needed even before we knew to ask!
We also received a significant donation over the weekend from one of my oldest friends (we've known each other since elementary school) whose husband I'm pretty sure isn't a Christian. In fact, when Kevin and I were getting the latest round of sponsor letters together, we had even talked about not sending them a letter because we were sure they wouldn't want to give to such a cause. I'm so glad that the Lord had us send them a letter anyway and I know that they will be blessed by Him for providing for orphans through this act of benevolence. I cannot wait to talk with her and tell her just what a blessing this is for our trip and how I hope this can be a ministry to them. I also want to ask her forgiveness for standing in judgment of them and assuming they wouldn't care about this work or our trip. I'm so glad that the Lord allowed this to happen in order to give me an opportunity to put my faith into practice. We continue to be humbled at how the Lord blows our minds and goes beyond what we could ever imagine ourselves.
Our in-country expenses have been calculated and were right in the range of what we thought they would be for the trip. We still have about $2600 to raise for the remainder of the trip, which will cover travel insurance, our Ugandan visa, bottles of clean water we'll consume in Uganda, meals, on the ground transportation, accommodations, 24-hour protection, our in-country facilitator (Patrick), and the training curriculum our team will use for our meetings both before and after our trip.
I am starting to pray very hard and very specifically for this trip and for all of the people going with us. Please pray with us for our team and for the next 15 weeks as we continue to prepare our minds and hearts for what we will experience in Uganda. Right now, and during and after our trip, we need prayer more than any other resources. We are opening our eyes and our ears to watch Him do great and mighty things!
"Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think." -- Ephesians 3:20 (New Living Translation)
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