I'm in Africa!

It's true...I am here! There are so many amazing God things that happened so that I made it to Africa. First, my flight from Raleigh to Detroit was supposed to come in a lot earlier than it did, so I only had about 10 minutes to make it to my next gate. Insert insane anxiety on my end (and running and shoving people out of my way out of the plane). However, after accosting the airport worker person and yell/asking where the Amsterdam flight was, I found out that the next gate was right across from the one I just came out of! Wow! The flight to Amsterdam was ... long. I was hoping to sleep on the flight, but I only got about 2 hours. So when I came in to Amsterdam the plane landed way far away from the main terminal and we had to be bused to where all the information was about flights. I once again started freaking out. However, the flight came in early and I had about an hour to get to my gate. I actually got to use the bathroom before this flight! It was great! The flight to Entebbe was really long, too (8 hours - the same as my flight from Detroit to Amsterdam). The person next to me slept the whole way, so I was kind of stuck in my seat for the whole time. I'm also NOT looking forward to more airplane food. It's really not good at all... I really don't like it. And a note to all of you who, like me, have (had) never traveled internationally, the vegetarian dishes are way better than the ones with freeze dried meat. Blech! I finally got to Entebbe, and got my first VISA stamp in my passport, (which I had to have my picture taken and I had been wearing a hat for about 9 hours - can you imagine how that picture turned out? I'm not so excited to know..), and then waited FOREVER for my luggage. Luckily the girl sitting next to me on my flight to Entebbe was from Virginia also (wild) and I had a partner during the visa/waiting forever for luggage adventure. Finally, I saw Sarah waiting for me and we hugged and jumped and hugged some more and got into our "cab". Sarah had her favorite driver (I didn't know you could have favorite drivers until now), Bosco drive us home. It is AMAZING how Ugandans drive, because frankly, it terrified me! First of all, they drive on the wrong side of the road and second of all they drive on the wrong side of the car. INSANE! So, I got to the compound, unpacked, met the missionaries, showered, and hit the sack (with the help of Ambien). I slept for about 10 hours!

Today I had the great pleasure of meeting Katharine (Hope Alive! Uganda's director), Kate, Kacie, and Al (Hope Alive! Missionaries), as well as Richard, Francis, and David (Ugandan Hope Alive! workers) at a yummy lunch (of African food). Then we headed to the Hope Alive! office so Sarah could get some work done. I got to meet Dorothy, whom I have heard TONS of stories about. She is just as sweet as Sarah said she was. After that we headed to coaching (which we call tutoring) and I got to meet Moses (who teaches in a local school and also teaches for Hope Alive!) as well as a lot of the kids in the Hope Alive! program. It was a fantastic day! Now, I'm trying to stay up a few more minutes (it's about 8:42 here - even though my blog says it's some other ridiculous time) so I won't be so tired tomorrow.

I'm so excited to meet more Ugandans and to help all of the precious children here! I am motivated to be a better teacher in the States so that I can come here and help these people even more. Thank you all for your amazing prayers! God has definitely been listening :) Love you all!!