Glorious Day ... Scary Monkeys

Tent #1

Tent #2

We've been waiting so long for Eli's passport but on Thursday afternoon, after waiting for 3 hours, we finally received it. What a Glorious day!!! We arrived at 2pm, waited at Tent #1 for 2 hours. Then received news that the passport had been signed and so we moved to Tent #2 for the next hour. At around 4:45pm we got a thumbs up from Hashem (who's been working with us through the passport process) and we made our way "inside" to finally sign off on the passport and take it with us!!!!

We can now move on to our next apt on Monday. We'll be attempting to fit A LOT of appointments in next week and see just how quickly we can finish up the process. We'll keep you updated as we move along. Monday we should have a better idea of when we might be coming home. (An email will be sent out as soon as our tickets are bought with our exact time of arrival, visiting hours once we are settled in, and meal schedules.)

We were introduced to the local food a little more this past week. Our friends, the Goggin's, were introduced to it first and then shared with us... Mtoke (ma-toe-kay) is basically green bananas or plantains. They peel them, then steam or boil them, and then mash them with a little milk and butter. So it's basically like a twisted version of mashed potatoes and gravy. The gnut sauce is a brown gravy that tastes like boiled peanuts. I realize this sounds disgusting, but it's really good. We tried out another restaurant, called Mish Mash and are hoping to try out a few more this week.

Yesterday we decided to go to Entebbe to visit the zoo. That was an experience to say the least. We saw all kinds of animals but then next thing we knew we were surrounded by monkeys. They were playing and hanging out on this fence. Well, all of a sudden after about 10 mins hanging out with them, they started coming at us! One started hitting my shoes and then we started backing up, well sure enough they started chasing us! They were coming from all directions. Front, left, right, everywhere! Shawn threw his water bottle, but that just ticked them off more. Melissa and I were bookin' it out of there! Shawn was in charge of protecting the women while Paul & Eli were up a ways and watched the whole thing happen. It was terrifying! After that, we were done. We were hot, tired and didn't want to run into any more monkeys. Yeah right! There were about 30 more between us and the exit. And they were eating! A couple more close encounters and we were out of there. IF YOU EVER VISIT UGANDA, NEVER GO TO THE ENTEBBE ZOO! We learned a valuable lesson.

Today we are hanging out at the house and relaxing (especially after the traumatic experience we had yesterday). Then tomorrow we hit the ground running. Tomorrow evening, we are planning to visit with the Krause's in Entebbe and the rest of the Orphan's Heart Uganda Mission Team. Very excited about this!

Please continue to pray for our process and the last week (or 2) that we are here. Eli is a little under the weather and we'd like for his cough and runny nose to clear up before we head home.