Where's the Crawfords?

Sometimes luggage gets lost on a flight. Unfortunately there was concern that we had got lost between London and Uganda. The driver had turned up at Kigali airport at the right time – but we didn’t arrive. He came back to meet the next flight – still we weren’t there. Emergency calls were made to the Kisoro, and even though the Bishop was busy conducting 2 weddings and a funeral (a good name for a film, maybe) he was interrupted to be told of our disappearance. Phone calls were made to CMS in England. Where are the Crawford’s? Not here. Beijing? Majorca? Manchester? Florida?

Nothing so dramatic. Our first flight from Heathrow to Nairobi was 1.5hrs late, and we had missed our connection. We were put on a later flight, but unfortunately this took the longer route first stopping at Burundi, before flying on to Kigali in Rwanda. This made us almost 6 hours late. Not a good way to start. Must do better.

We have been made most welcome here. A lot of work has been done by the staff of the Diocese to prepare a house for us. The garage has been converted to make a new lounge, and plumbing has been installed to the shower room and toilet. Unfortunately, the first time the new toilet was used by one of us, (guess who!) the seat broke. More work is needed to convert a spare bedroom to a kitchen (install a sink and buy a cooker, fridge etc) and to provide hot water as Irene is not too keen on a cold shower, but we have plenty of time to do this. (No we haven’t, says Irene)

On our first evening we were invited to a meal with the Bishop, his wife and other staff from the Diocese. The menu was a beef stew with potatoes, pasta, beans and spinach – delicious after airline food. So far we have not had to cook any meals as the Mission Partner here, Jenny Green is being very kind to us. She lives up quite a steep hill with her three children, Issie, Hannah and Joseph, a friend, Peace and baby Joanna who almost died when born and has needed a lot of care to get strength – and who looks now extremely ‘bouncing’ – especially in her bouncy chair. We have also had the company of Ian, a visitor from Cumbria who has come on holiday for a few days

On Sunday we attended our first service at the Cathedral – we chose to attend the shorter, 1 ½ hour English speaking service rather than the 3 hour local language one, as we thought we needed to get our breath back first after our journey here.

This will be a week of settling in, but with its share of excitement. The Diocese is holding a Convention, of several thousand people from across Uganda and elsewhere in Africa. This is only held once every 10 years or so, and speakers are coming from England and the USA, as well as the Archbishop of Uganda. In fact, today (Monday) Malcolm has been asked to paint the veranda outside the house where the Archbishop is staying – but as he will also be fed as a reward he is most pleased to do so:

So what has the next week promise:
- Malcolm getting into trouble by ruining his best clothes with paint?
- Visiting the town to get some money and to buy essentials such as Internet and mobile phone access, food, cooking utensils etc?
- The arrival of thousand of visitors for the Convention?
- Trying to learn some of the Local language, especially ‘I don’t know where the …… is – I’m new here too’