Love the Beatles. Not so loving of the reality. Travel here in Uganda, as I'm sure I've mentioned before, is not quick. The road is not only long and winding but is also bumpy and dusty. Even when the road is good, it's not that good. Last week Danielle and I adventured to visit our friend Jono in Arua which is way north. Even though Uganda is a small country there are still a lot of k's to cover and covering them is certainly more effort than it is in Australia. Arua is a town not far from the border of DRC and about one hundred kilometres from South Sudan. In fact the road to Jono's farm runs along the border to Congo. From where we are in Mbarara it took us five hours to travel two hundred and sixty five kilometres to Kampala where we stayed the night. The next day was a seven hour bus ride travelling the four hundred and eighty two kilometres to Arua.
Whilst the travel is tedious there are often a few moments to make the trips memorable for reasons other than the sheer exhaustion at the end.
As it was my first trip to Arua I was quite interested to see what northern Uganda looked like. To my surprise it was a lot more lush than I had expected. It seems that it is north eastern Uganda that is more arid. And along the way we travelled through, or at least past, Murchison Falls or Kabarega National Park where there was plenty of animal spotting to be had. We saw baboons who are quite ugly but somehow cute, other smaller monkeys who are genuinely adorable, a wide variety of antelope type creatures who I am sure are all unique but to me are pretty much the same, and a lone elephant bathing in swampland just after we crossed over the River Nile with it’s surfable looking rapids.
This photo is not of the Arua trip elephant. We travelled past that one at around 100km/hr, not easy to get a photo out of a bus window at that speed.
Despite the tiring journey there and back, and even with the elephant, the highlight was still visiting Jono and seeing what he is doing in Arua. We were totally welcomed by his friends and the church that he is now part of, including speaking at several meetings over our two day visit (mostly Danielle) and running an impromptu Teacher Seminar for the teachers at the school attached to the church. Neither of us are particularly into farming but it was also fun to tramp across farmland and hear about Jono's vision for it's future, giving us a picture of how it might be beyond prickles and potential vipers.
Walking Jono’s land
Vision keeps us moving forward. Without vision there is no growth. Australia HOPE International did not start out where it is now but because of vision countless lives are being changed into the future.
And vision will keep us on the long and winding road. When you can't see where you are headed and the drive is tiring it is vision that stops you from pulling over and camping where you are (or maybe it's a dislike of camping). Like Abram who kept on moving until he reached where God had told him to go, even though he was in unknown territory, my personal lesson from Arua is that I need to remember that there is always something ahead, possibly something I don't understand yet, but it's there. And every day I can be moving toward it or be sleeping on an air mattress in the middle of nowhere.
Here's to the road...
bron
