We Are Home on time.

Sorry for not being able to send you a blog, but our last days were very busy and the Internet was down on Thursday. Some of the last experiences we had: In the evening we were standing around and I saw something black crawl toward David's leg. When I said something, he would not take me serious, imagine that, he thought I was pulling another rat story. Finally Jim saw it and yelled at David, David calm shook his leg and a small bat fell off. It started crawling away, and we were all backing up. Finally one of the workers spotted it and with his rubber boots he stomped on it and kick it out the door. On Thursday evening we went and had a delightful meal with the Suitti family. They have 12 children living with them, some his, hers and theirs plus a few orphans. We had makootee which we expected, but she put some sweet bananas in the makootee so it had a wonderful flavor. She had fixed us fried and baked chicken, beef, green beans which were the first we had had in Uganda. The children sang for us and it was a nice evening of relaxing before we went back to grade final papers and to total their grades. I know Carol was up late and also Len grading papers. Len was evening finalizing his comments at breakfast. On friday morning we got the wonderful news that we did not have to be checked out by 10:00. We all packed and after breakfast meet with the pastors at 9:00, which did not get started until about 9:30, to discuss the details of them training other pastors. In the midst we had the District Superintendents from Kenya, Rwanda, Bruindi to come prepaing for their afternoon and Saturday meeting. As we explained to them the License to Preach School they were very excited and hoped that this material would also be pasted on to their countries in the East Africa Annual Conference. At 10:00 we started the Closing worship with singing of hymns, reading of scripture, prayers of intercession and when Len prepared to begin his sermon, in walks Bishop Jones from America and his brother Dean Jones from Duke Divinity. Len gave a wonderful message about journeys, using a story of Lewis and Clark and his Swedish family roots. I was a short, concise and inspirational message to us and to the Uganda pastors. Finally Bishop Daniel Wandabula was able to arrive and greeted us. We were hoping to leave at 12:00 but it was more like 1:15 before we left. It is hard to tell a bishop to move it along, especially when the Bishop is as big as Bishop Daniel. We packed our bus and headed toward the airport. Friday is a very bush day in Uganda, because many people work in the city through the week, but they go back to the Village on weekends, no not to a summer cottage, but to their small grass, mud and maybe brick home. We stopped to see a University where Jim's church sponsors a young man named Noah. We got a snap shot of a sign of a Habitate for Humanity village near Mukono, since Jerry has helped to build many homes in Johnson County. I believe this village is also very special because woman have been able to purchase these homes through selling of beads with an organization called Beads for Life. We dropped off a young lady named Rachael in Mukono and then we went through the busy traffice of Kampala on a Friday afternoon. George our driver knew some of the back ways so we did not set in much stopped traffic. James, the Dean of Superintendents meet us at a street corner and gave us farwell greetings and necklaces for me to sell. On to Entebbe we ate at a very nice resturant as our last meal in Uganda. They wanted us to be at the airport 3 hours before leaving, and by the time we went through all the check in areas, we had about 30 minutes to spare. We left at 10:20 and arrived in Amsterdam around 5:30 am. We had about 30 minutes to get to our next gate to leave for Detroit. In Detroit we had to go through customs and connect with our flight to Indianapolis. In Amsterdam we said goodbye to Len because we was taking a later flight to Louisville, and we said goodbye to Barbara in Detroit. Everythings was moving so quickly that we barely had time to say goodbye. Everyone made it home safe and sound with all of our luggage intact. God is so Good. This Sunday morning will be a wonderful time for each of us, as we realize that God has taken us to Uganda and back. David and Jerry are sharing in their service about all the wonder of God building the first United Methodist Church in Uganda. Thank you one and all for the prayers, financial support and love that we felt on this wonderful and God inspired trip in the precious name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Byron Fritz