Happy Thanksgiving!

The team is doing great. Anne and Warren are a big hit with their management conference, and Wayne and Dan seem very pleased with the theological conversations with the pastors. The art project is rewarding beyond all expectation,and I think everyone feels they're getting to do what they came for. I will let them all write their own stories over on LuiNotes, Happy Thanksgiving from all of us here!

P.S, Susan brought us a feast!! Turkey jerky, craisins, and pumpkin Clif bars :)

We are here

We arrived safely in Lui about 11 this morning. Stephen and Manyigugu met us at the airstrip. We rode home in the ambulance of Lui diocese, which thanks to the generosity of the people of the Diocese of Lund, in Sweden, is now repaired and working. A few of our team rode in the car of CUAM, the Italian group helping with hospital administration. Among the nice surprises today was Scopas, who's in the area doing a survey of adult literacy, and Mama Jenifa, who is living in Mundri with her son but came to greet us. And Karen Masso was on the plane back with us, one of the team leaders for World Harvest Mission in Mundri.

We spent the afternoon hanging up our collapsible cabinets, stringing clotheslines, getting unpacked, setting up water filters and solar chargers, and sleeping, and we're planning an early night: supper, then compline, period full stop. Tomorrow Wayne, Dan, Anne P, and Warren start their work with the pastors and Mothers' Union, and the rest of the team take the art project on the road.

Waiting at Kajjansi

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Kajjansi field

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In Kampala

All 11 of the mission team have arrived safely in Uganda, strangely enough on the same flght from Nairobi. After the Missouri group's near miss with the first leg of the trip, Anne P and Warren were 2 hours late out of Heathrow and missed their connection from Dubai to Kampala. They were lucky and persistent enough to be rerouted through Nairobi and ended up on our last leg with the other 9 of us. The only casualty was Susan's checked bag, which is cruelly ironic considering she saved the rest of us from missing our rebooked, earlier, first flight and was the first of us to have checked her bag.
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Off to a start, anyhow

The November mission is off to an amazingly teamworky start. The first team members to arrive at the airport discovered that since last night Delta had cancelled our very first flight. Susan called me, I talked to Delta via her cell phone, and Deb, Wayne, and I called the team. Miraculously we all made it to STL in time to leave an hour and a half early. The nine of us are in the Minneapolis airport waiting for leg two of what is now a six-leg journey to Lui.

The wonderful thing about leaving the day after diocesan convention is the strong sense that we are being wafted to Africa on a great current of prayer. And to know that the current is a convergence of small streams from around the country - Tammy, thanks for the voicemail sendoff from Omaha! - makes the sense of support all the stronger. Thanks everybody!
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Transatlantic Mission Prep

Two weeks from today, the November mission team will arrive in Kampala, God willing. This past Saturday, all 11 missioners gathered, thanks to the technological wizardry of the people at Skype. Nine of us sat around a table at Advent, Crestwood, and the other two gathered in a home in Dorset, near the south coast of England. We were also lucky that it was a great day of sharing and planning, and I am excited about the trip and the cohesiveness of the team. At the end of the day, we practiced the reflection process we use at the end of every day in Lui -- a discussion of the way the life God desires for us has been revealed by the events of the day (the lesson or sermon), how we intercede to make that life a reality for ourselves and others (prayers of the people), what we are doing to impede that life and how we need God in the situation (confession), what we have to offer (offering), and how we give thanks (thanksgiving) -- as you can see, a Eucharistic model of reflection, which Dan first brought to last December's team. And on Saturday, our reflection led us into the Eucharist itself, which was especially powerful reflected back to us as we watched Shirley on the screen in England making the same motions as Dan at our own table, giving new meaning to being "in communion."

Here you see Sam, Anne K, Marc, Susan, Deb, Anne P, Warren, Ev, and Dan. Sam and Ev will meet with primary school teachers as they are teachers themselves; Marc is the official team photographer/videographer and will explore Sudanese agriculture and brainstorm with farmers; Susan and Deb are parish nurses who will talk with pastors and others about bringing parish nursing to Sudan; Anne K will lead the art project; Anne P and Warren will lead the management conference, and Dan and Wayne (not pictured) will lead the pastors' conference. I'll meet with adult ed teachers and try to keep all those other balls in the air.