Seriously?!?!

First of all, thanks for all the prayers - Uganda and Kampala have been very calm after the elections.  Whenever there have been any incidents of demonstrations or strikes, the ever-present military and police have shut them down quickly.  We traveled all around Kampala today and it seemed like business as usual.

Well, we met with the lawyer this morning and they still haven't received the written ruling from the judge.  One of the lawyers is going to Soroti today to get the signed and sealed ruling and bring it back on Tuesday - nope, no FedEx service here!  Strike One!

Simon had to travel to Soroti and Katakwi last week to get the death certificates for our embassy appointment and he delivered these to the lawyer this morning.  These documents had to be submitted to another government agency in Kampala to get a long form death certificate.  The long form document will be ready on Tuesday morning.  Strike Two!

We picked up Simon at InterFreight and saw where he works as a warehouse supervisor.  Next, we picked up the kids and drove as fast as we could to the U.S. embassy for our 1:30PM appointment.  We were about 5 minutes late and when we walked up to the embassy gate, we were told it is a U.S. holiday (President's Day) and all embassy staff were out.  Strike Three!  You''re out!

You can imagine we were all a bit ticked off that we were given an appointment on a holiday!  Soooooo, we drove back across town and dropped off Simon at work and spent some time with Aunt Betty and the kids.  Betty showed Angie how to cook chapati, kind of like a thick, fried tortilla...delicious!  We looked at pictures and asked a lot of family questions. 

The plan for tomorrow is to go the embassy (again!) and make sure we can get an appointment for Wednesday afternoon - they only schedule orphan interview appointments on Monday and Wednesday afternoons.  A potential wrinkle is that Wednesday is the local Kampala election day and most businesses have that day off too.  We're praying that we can get all of the paperwork ready by Wednesday morning so we can have our appointment Wednesday afternoon.  If we can do that, we'll have the kid's visas on Friday and can travel home as planned on Saturday.  If not...well, don't want to think about that!  Despite well laid plans, many things end up going down to the wire in this process - learning to be patient and trust in God's timing.