Farrah Fawcett, John Bon Jovi and Jason Bourne

The day began with breakfast, having the blog and comments read aloud (always a great way to start our day), and a quick devotion time with Pastor Dave. We packed up, loaded the bus and two vans, and began our long, long, long, long, long journey to Gulu. Did we mention it was long…?

The trek began with a major traffic jam in the middle of Kampala. We were at a stand-still for 30 minutes or more. Next, we took an Urban African Safari (another name for this could be Urban African Detour) - those of us riding in the bus were at the mercy of our driver, Wilfred. He ascended up a mountain of sorts (one you would mountain bike up, not drive up!), which was apparently a shortcut to get to the road to Gulu. We thought we shaved off about 45 minutes from the trip, and had made up for the traffic jam. In reality, the two vans chose not to go on the shortcut, and we somehow ended up behind them on the main road…

After a quick “short call bathroom break” (a #1) we were finally off! We drove, and drove, and drove, and drove. We knew that it was going to be a long ride – it normally takes about 5 hours. However, we did not know all of the obstacles that were waiting for us on the road to Gulu. The first was a truck that had turned over and was blocking the road (we made a hard right and drove parallel to the road in the grass bumpiest terrain ever). The second was stopping for road construction which caused the radiator fluid in one of the vans to go a little crazy. The third obstacle we encountered was the onslaught of speed bumps, which by the way are NOT painted so are, let’s just say easy to miss. This means that our bus got “major air” according to Pastor John in the van behind us. Thankfully we only incurred two small injuries, a bump to the head and a bloody nose. But everyone is ok! Our drive actually flew by as our gamer and DJ Dustin made sure we were entertained all the way to Gulu. We now know who each others’ celebrity crushes are and our celebrity look-a-likes. This is the stuff mission trips are made of, people!

We finally reached the Nile River (which meant we were only 1 hr from Gulu)! The Nile is magnificent…fast water with many rapids, along with police armed with guns. We were informed they are very protective of the bridge as if it was destroyed it would cut off transportation between the north and south Uganda.  Oh, and we found our vehicles guarded by a very large baboon who sat only feet from the door of the bus. 

We finally reached the farm in Gulu! We were shocked at how amazing this place is! We were warmly greeted by all the SOI staff who gave us a very thorough description of each of their ministry focuses. Then they broke us into groups and gave us a tour of the farm. We saw banana trees, papaya trees, coffee bean plants, corn...they can grow some crops. They also had an assortment of animals…pigs, cows, goats, and chickens. Several of the pigs have just had piglets and supposedly all the pigs on the farm came from ONE pig! While looking at the chickens, one of them got out of the coup and I (Lauren) caught the chicken!                                                                   

After the incredible tour of the farm and hearing from the Gulu SOM staff we made it to the Church Hill where we will be spending the next 4 nights. We were all thankful to find comfortable rooms and yummy food waiting for us.

We are looking forward to our first worship service in Gulu tomorrow!  Until then…

The Charlotte girls