We made it!

For all awaiting news from Lui, sorry to be so long posting. We had an eventful (never an adjective you want to read when it comes to travel) trip from St. Louis to Entebbe. Our flight to Detroit was canceled, and so we had to take a flight to Minneapolis that left an hour earlier. Fortunately, we had all come early to the airport. We flew from MN to Detroit, to Amsterdam, to Nairobi, to Entebbe. Anne P and Warren from England were delayed two hours on their flight from London. They were supposed to fly to Dubai and then Entebbe. They missed their connection, so they also flew to Nairobi. We met them there. Sunday and Monday all blurred into one long day. When we arrived in Entebbe, Susan's bag did not. Air Kenya is tracking it down, but she had to fly to Lui without it.

We got to the MAF Guesthouse at about 1 AM local time, Tuesday morning. After weighing and redistributing luggage, bathing and getting settled, we got to bed about 2:30 AM -- only to wake up for breakfast at 5:30 AM! The flight to Mundri went without a hitch. We arrived at the airstrip right on time at 11:30. Got to Lui about 12:30, had lunch arranged rooms, took a blessed nap, and then went to the market to buy school supplies.

It has been wonderful greeting old friends: Stephen Dokolo, Manyagugu, Loice, Scopus (! an unexpected treat). Today, the governor of Western Equatoria (a Zandi woman) was in Lui holding a voter registration rally, under the Laro tree. People here, despite much doom-saying in the West, are very optimistic about the registration and April elections. They think it will bring peace. After the governor finished speaking, an African pop band (I've heard it called Juju music -- as in King Sunny Ade and his Juju Beats) played for about an hour under the tree, with a generator for power. A troupe of young men and women performed dances to the music. People were watching from branches high up in the tree. After that, there was traditional Moru dancing across the road at the Secondary School. It's good to be back.

Tomorrow, we all start our conferences. The pastors and Mothers' Union leaders will be in Lui for four days. Bishop Wayne and Iwill take the lead on that conference, and Anne and Warren will do management with them. Deb is rounding up nurses for teaching about parish nursing. She's already met with Kenneth Barinwa (the chair of the hospital board). We met Silvio, an Italian internal medicine MD in the market. He is at the hospital for two weeks, and told us there is a local surgeon employed full time now. It will be interesting to see the hospital and supplies.

Everyone is safe. Pray for our first night in Lui, that all sleep well. Supper is in about half an hour. We'll blog more later, but just figure folks would want to know we are here. For now.