Living on Purpose to Make a Difference: Favor Favor Favor

Yeah, we finally have arrived to our new home in Uganda. The journey here was very eventful. As you know, we ended up missing our connecting flight in Toronto Canada, because our flight was late. It was quite challenging waiting for 3 hours in line to figure out how and when we would fly out and on with our journey. We were shocked when working with the airline to discover they refused to help out with any of the cost of storing out luggage or the cost of a hotel/meals.

All of our bags

Thankfully we found a great place to stay that accepted dogs. Two days later as we prepared to head to the airport, we all sat together to pray. We know God causes all things to work together for good, so we wanted to ask for this and prepare our hearts to find that GOOD! Since we had to reschedule our flight, we were now passed the airlines deadline for flying animals in the cargo hold. Since the temperatures can get extremely hot, they set a cutoff date which was the day we were originally scheduled to fly. On this day, the temperature was over 95 degrees, so we weren’t sure what was going to happen!

Mike sitting in his first class pod! The seats lay all the way back

When we first arrived at the airport, we got the run around. We were sent to three different check-in gates, because no one knew how to handle Maggie. Finally, a lady called the manager for help. At first, the manager was adamant that no dogs could fly on this day, but then he remembered seeing us a couple days before. Suddenly, his entire attitude changed! He worked everything out for Maggie to fly, but not only that, when he heard that the manager from previous days had refused to compensate us for our layover, he was in shock. He made arrangements to have us reimbursed for all of our expenses, but not only that, he then decided to upgrade us to first class. Then, he made special arrangements to have us wait in the first class lounge. He called the lounge desk and asked that they take special care of us! NOT ONLY THAT, but he had someone look after Maggie in an air-conditioned room until just prior to boarding. We were in shock! God is so faithful.

Maggie boarding the first flight

On our flight from Brussels to Uganda, we had to make a stop in Rwanda. We waited for about 1 hour on the plane while they boarded more passengers. I went to the stewardess and asked if they could possibly check on Maggie and give her water while we waited. I returned to my seat and about 20 minutes later there was an announcement over the speaker. “To the owners of Maggie the dog, she is doing well and has been given water”. Everyone on the plane began to clap! It was so funny.

We asked many of you to pray for Maggie’s trip to Uganda. Since there isn’t anything clear and concise of how to bring your dog into Uganda, we weren’t sure if we would have the correct paper work. Right before we boarded the plane in Toronto, we received an email from our friend in the Ugandan government telling us Maggie would have to be quarantined for up to 7 days. After the special treatment Maggie had received up to the point before our entry into Uganda, we had to believe it would all work out….and sure enough it did. When we got to the baggage claim area in the Uganda airport, we found Maggie sitting in her crate by the baggage carousel. We put her on a luggage trolley along with all our other bags and headed out to our van. It was smooth sailing.

We’ve been having fun getting all of our stuff unpacked and figuring out the best way to organize everything. We’ve been to town twice now to go grocery shopping and to pick up miscellaneous items. Today we went to visit a church and heard a wonderful message from a UK minister. It was inspiring and just what we needed to hear. I loved hearing the Bible read with an English accent! I loved hearing the birds sing and watch the butterflies swooping over the flowers while Jesus was shared with us all. Life in Uganda is full of beautiful things and we are working to discover them day by day. We started our trip with the reminder that God does cause things to work together for good. We know HE will continue to reveal this truth to us and we are so thankful to be able to have this hope.