A sad departure & a journey enjoyed ….

Wednesday 23rd September – a sad departure & a journey enjoyed

Yesterday the five of us (Caroline now calls us her children) left the sanctuary of The Bishops house, the friends who are firmly ingrained in our hearts, and the beauty of South Sudan.  There were inevitably tears, but warm and deep embraces to seal our many memories.  Joseph met us to say his goodbyes at the border where we had a smooth passage into Uganda in good time for our flight.

MAF did us proud again, and as we flew South we could clearly see many small African settlements, and it was easy to imagine some aspects of the lives lived out there.

It is a truly wonderful way to travel and we are very grateful for the dedicated service of the pilots and the MAF organisation which enables people to fly into and out of remote regions of the world.

We flew directly into Entebbe international Airport. what a contrast to our departure ‘lounge’ in a field 90 minutes earlier.  With fewer and considerably lighter suitcases than we arrived with 10 days earlier we arrived back at the Airport Guesthouse and a lovely welcome back from Charles, the proprietor.

Rachel and Adrian leave tonight, and Andrew flies to join Donelle for the rest of his sabbatical the very early tomorrow morning.  Jeremy and Maggie have decamped to another guesthouse by lake Victoria where we shall stay another couple of days.

While it rained on our our arrival yesterday afternoon which allowed us time to rest and do more admin in the cool, today is a beautiful sunny day so while reports are still being written, and orders from our’ Mother Superior’ are still being received remotely, we are able to work while sitting by a pool, gather our thoughts and prepare for entry back into a very different world.

It has been an extraordinary and privileged time that we have spent here and we hope that through these accounts you have been able to share some of our experiences. We will be preparing some presentations for when we get home to give a fuller account, and more stories, so keep an eye out for dates and venues for these.

Caroline is still working in Kajo Keji. She is speaking at church in Liwolo on Sunday and still having meetings to further the work of Cress in the newest and most fragile country in the world.