;)
~ the top floor WAS our 3-bedroom apartment in Kampala ~ All three of the Trumps have safely arrived in Karen, a suburb of Nairobi, Kenya, at our new home (well, it'll eventually be our new home). Krista and Josiah came by plane on Tuesday with our co-worker in Uganda, Rev. Jacob Gillard who was coming to Nairobi for a Volunteer Coordinator workshop. He was a great help to Krista and Josiah - especially since we checked through extra baggage that was lightweight but bulky and would have taken up too much space in our LandCruiser. Josiah was completely indifferent to the journey. He slept part of the trip, nursed a little, and played some. If he travels this well on longer flights we will label him a perfect missionary kid! Traffic in Kampala is so bad that my family arrived in Kenya before I even got back to the apartment after dropping them off at the airport!
Our apartment was almost empty. All of our furniture and major appliances had been purchased already (all of it was bought by one guy - he bought everything we were selling at the price we asked)! There was only a little bit of packing left for me to do and then it was time to load the truck. The rear seats fold forward and I filled the entire back of the truck, jam-packed. I had hoped to fit everything inside the truck with nothing on the rack on top to reduce the chances of being hassled by police along the way or by the revenue authority at the Kenyan border. But I was left with a collection of boxes and bags that just wouldn't fit into the truck. So I took a motorcycle-taxi to the store and bought a big tarp and some twine. Then up onto the roof I climbed and loaded the rest of our stuff. Finally, everything was packed, our housekeeper said one more tearful goodbye and set out with all the stuff we were giving to her, and I waited to check out of the apartment. Our scheduled time for checkout came and went. So I took a shower and changed my clothes to something more comfortable (and less sweaty) for the first part of my drive. And I continued waiting for someone to come check us out of the apartment. Finally, someone arrived and did the basic walk-through, checking all the doors and looking for any damage. He reported that everything was in order and promised that our two month's pre-paid rent and the deposit would all be refunded. One of our gardeners rode with me most of the way to my stopping point for the night, which was only a few hours of driving. I checked into a very nice hotel - with air conditioning - for $25 and enjoyed one of Uganda's traditional specialties, whole fried tilapia with french fries. Krista and Josiah, meanwhile, had arrived in Kenya, went out to a wonderful lunch with our coworkers in Kenya, Rev. Claude and Rhoda Houge, and had already begun settling in to a small apartment at their home.
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~ our fully packed LandCruiser ~ The next day I picked up David, who would ride with me all the way to Karen. David has spent time in both Kenya and Tanzania and is fluent in Kiswahili. He's also one of our top TEE students and should be sent on to seminary sometime in the next year. He's a young guy full of energy and also has a driving permit just in case the need should arise. So we set out at 7am from Iganga, Uganda and reached the border in short order. We called ahead to arrange for a "Border Facilitator" to meet us. This fellow had helped me clear our vehicle across the border when we visited the seminary in Matongo, Kenya. This time, though, we had a fully-laden truck and were not applying for a transit pass for the vehicle but a temporary export and import pass for the vehicle. It took a while - almost 2 hours altogether - but our Border Facilitator worked wonders. At one point the Kenya Revenue Authority agent came out and wanted to know what we were carrying in our (obviously) overloaded truck. I told him it was all personal used household goods and that we were moving to Kenya. He asked to take a look. So I opened the back window for him. I had placed obvious household stuff just at the back there - like a laundry basket, buckets, and some dirty clothes. I offered him to dig through but I think the dirty clothes assured him that we were on the up-and-up. He said it would have been good if we had an inventory of the contents of the truck - which, of course, Krista had very thoughtfully put together while she was packing so we'd know what was in each box. So he took our inventory and disappeared again with our Border Facilitator. It wasn't long after that before we were on our way. Total cost: $10 for our facilitator, $100 for a temporary import license, $160 for internationally valid 3rd party insurance, and $0 in "consideration" for border officials in need of encouragement.
;)
~ David and Shauen safely in Karen with all our stuff ~ The rest of our trip was wonderfully uneventful. We passed plenty of police checkpoints but weren't stopped at any of them. We made it to Nairobi before sundown and successfully found the East Africa Field Office for LCMS World Mission after only a few missed turns. Home at last, just about 12 hours after starting out in the morning. The next day we unloaded the truck into a spare office and shortly after that David set out on his journey by bus back to Uganda.
So we have safely arrived at our new home. We'll only actually be here for about 40 days over the next 8 months. But it'll be home for sure by January. Praise the Lord for a safe and uneventful move! -Shauen