Final Preparations

December 8 – Who’s Doing the Testing?

Since I last blogged. . .

I found that I needed gall bladder surgery. It was done on December 4 and the doctor said I needed about two weeks to get back to normal. I had 14 days from surgery to trip! It worked out okay – I didn’t have a lot of trouble from the surgery. I fell terribly far behind on preparing sponsor statements and I had to cancel a presentation at Faith Presbyterian Church in Franklin, NC but other than that, the recovery was going well.

We were running a bit late on getting a visa because I had waited until the last minute to get my passport renewed (I suddenly realized I was out of pages!). But we mailed it on December 1. With the Ugandan Embassy requiring two weeks to turn around applications, there was still a day or two of slack time!

On Thursday December 7, just three days after surgery, things started to turn toward the strange. That morning, I realized I hadn’t seen a check to the Embassy in our written checks. I called Lisa. We had forgotten to put money with our application! I frantically called the Embassy and spoke with a delightful young woman who has helped us before. She remembered me, and agreed to help, however she had sent our applications back by overnight mail the day before.

The applications (which included both our passports) didn’t show up on Friday as overnight mail should. On Saturday, Lisa went to our tiny post office. “Oh, we’re short staffed,” said the helpful post office lady. “We haven’t had a chance to look at the Overnight sack for a couple of days!”

But she suddenly found the time right then. And our application was right there where it should not have been! We went to the main post office and got the postal money order we needed. The package was in the mail by noon. It would arrive in Washington on Monday, one week and one day before we were scheduled to fly.

On Thursday, I received an email from Amy in Chicago asking me if I had heard that there was an E Bola outbreak in Uganda. She didn’t know much more, but she referred me to a blog from a missionary she knew. The blog said the disease had killed several and the CDC was coming in to check on things. I also received one from my travel agent who told me there was a small problem. There had been some necessary changes in our tickets and there was no change in price or time, only I would fly with an E-Ticket and Lisa with a paper ticket. She said neither could be changed to match the other.

On Sunday December 8, we went to church. This was my first extended trip out of the house since the surgery, and it was spectacular. I staggered all over the church catching pews, slapping walls, and nearly falling on Lisa several times. I had been warned at PT that this could happen – anesthesia and CMT don’t match well. And the anesthesiologist had told me the same thing just before putting me to sleep. And they both were right!

And so the $64,000 question: is Satan trying us or God trying to tell us not to go? We want to be faithful, but as one helpful friend put it, “Does He have to strike you dead with lightning for you to get the message?”
We decided all these things were definitely not much fun, but none was actually preventing us from going or making it exceptionally dangerous to go.


Monday December 9 – Getting Ready

So on Monday, I got out the cane PW had bought me soon after I was diagnosed. I told myself and everyone who would listen I didn’t really need it, but that wasn’t the case. I needed it pretty badly.

Our passports came back on Wednesday December 11 (our friend at the Embassy really came through for us). I became steadily better on my cane. The Children’s Project statements moved slowly because I needed much more sleep than usual after the surgery and refused to take time off for it.

I worked hard with the cane, and it actually went okay. Lisa said I walked a lot faster with it, and I hardly stumbled at all. The Project’s statements were still going very slowly because I didn’t have the strength to work on them a lot.

And I developed some sort of respiratory infection that completely took my voice away! But each of the situations (except the infection) was clearing up. We decided we were being tempted, not signed, and we moved ahead!

Hannah led the way, and her family helped us pack pencils, first aid supplies, toys, and letters for our kids on Friday night. They came back on Sunday and helped again.

Monday December 16 – Final Preparations

I went to work at 8:30. Lisa also had to work. So there was no one to finish up the packing until after work.

My day was crazy: it ran non-stop, no lunch, until physical therapy at 5:00. While I was getting dressed, my boss called and wanted to meet right then. When she found that I couldn’t do that, she was angry that I wanted her to wait until 6:00 to meet. “No, don’t wait,” I told her, “just go on home and I’ll call when I finish here a bit after six.”

I called her about 6:30, but her phone went to phone mail. I asked her to call when she could. I worked on odds and ends until nearly 7:30, then called back. I got through and inherited another hour’s work. On the way out about 8:45, I found two other things that needed to be done, so it was 9:15 when I finally pulled away from school. Lisa had soup waiting, then I had the computer.

The statement problem was that we have 44 children changing major levels in school (that is from primary to secondary, from O level to A level, or from A level to university). Each change means significantly more cost. We set our fees for the year in January, so I had to figure out what we could afford and what we would have to ask the sponsors to pay, and live with my decision for a whole year. Then I needed to write letters to tell sponsors what was going on. There were also letters for a couple of kids who’d quit and a few with other changes, and it took until a bit after 1:00 a.m. to finish.

That’s about the time we realized we hadn’t made a WalMart run for all the necessities for the trip (snacks, Purell, underwear, snacks, etc.). We went to the new WalMart in our community which Lisa, a WalMart hater, hadn’t entered in the year it had been open. At least it wasn’t crowded!

Back home about 2:30. I had printing to do, so we went to bed a little after 3:00.