The Arrival

God is good! I’ve arrived safely in Gulu after a pretty crazy day of travels, having to trust in the Lord because I pretty much had no idea what I was doing. I arrive in Entebbe at 7 in the morning, make my way through customs, grab my bag and then find a taxi to take me to the bus stop. I am running off of maybe an hour of sleep and am totally out of it. It takes me about 5 minutes of us driving to realize we’re driving on the left-hand side of the road. So that’s cool, I’ve personally always been a fan of the left side. My mind starts to wake up as the sun rises and I look around and start observing the beauty of this place which is so extremely green and lush with banana trees everywhere and Lake Victoria surrounding us. We start getting further into the city Kampala and the traffic starts. The driving was crazy enough when we were outside of the city, but it was several times more hectic once we enter the capitol. I can barely put into words the contrast of driving styles of the U.S. versus Uganda. I would say the biggest difference is that in the U.S. there are rules. Yet, somehow I’m completely calm riding shotgun while nearly hitting every bicyclist we pass on the road, either because I was still half asleep or that God knew how stressed I should be and was giving me a peace about it all. Come to think of it, the whole day was like that and I’m sure that it was the Lord watching over me. So we stop by a Barclays ATM and I make a rather large withdrawal of 300,000. I know, big roller. Well, the exchange rate is 1 dollar to 2,600 Ugandan Schillings, so not really. But still, I felt pretty cool.

            I get one of the last spots on the bus as we sit for an extra half-hour as street vendors walk up and down our aisle selling food, drinks, watches, earrings, solar panels… You know, just the basics you would need for a bus ride. We finally take off and I’m caught in between the excitement of looking around at all the beautiful new stuff and nearly falling asleep. Eventually the sandman gets ahold of me. Another thing about the driving I didn’t mention, they use their horns extremely often, usually just letting pedestrians, or people on bodas (motorcycles) know we’re passing/about to hit them. The two are the same over here. The thing is that we pass quite a few people, and consequently use our horn quite often. This makes the whole sleeping thing a little more difficult. I’d say after a cumulative hour of sleep, I’m feeling pretty good. I continue to stare out the window like a little kid looking into a candy shop. We make stops every 45 minutes or so to let the street vendors try to sell us more food and drinks. It’s actually pretty convenient, and I almost venture out to buy what I think is a fried banana but think twice and stick to my food that I brought. Along the way I see quite a few cows, goats, chickens, and even some baboons! It’s almost as if I’m in Africa! As we get closer to Gulu, I start going over my gameplan once I get there, which is not a whole lot. Basically the plan is for me to find three guys from California who are staying at the Acholi Ber hotel. Sweet. I had thought ahead to look up the location and load it onto my maps so I could walk right there. Thinking I had this whole thing figured out, I pull out my phone to get he map up, only to realize that A) The map didn’t stay loaded B) I don’t see street names C) AT&T’s coverage in Gulu is non-existent. So much for more bars in more places.

            I walk around aimlessly for 15 minutes until I suck up my pride and actually ask for directions. The lady asks if I plan to walk there, and then just decides it would be better to call a boda driver over to take me there. So here I am with a forty-pound backpack, and another on my front on the back of a motorcycle in the middle of Gulu. I fit right in. He drops me off and I pay him probably too generously, but hey I’m safe at the hotel with the three guys at it who I’m supposed to meet up with, so I should be golden from here. Well it turns out there isn’t room at that hotel. No biggie. I walk down the street and walk into the next building that says “hotel” on it. I negotiate a price and think I made out pretty nicely. That is until I see the room, which is, well, different than what I’m used to in the states. But I didn’t know what was the norm over here, so I just roll with it. I unwrap the mosquito net and try to get a little nap before I go find the guys.

            I wake up sweaty, laying under a mosquito net in a room with dirty floors, no running water feeling lost. Lord, what the heck I am doing here? I just sit and talk with God for a solid half hour, half laughing about how crazy this is right now. I was feeling like Jonah, feeling like I wanted to hop right back on the bus and buy a flight back to the other side of the world. Good joke, God. You got some nerdy white engineer to come all the way to the middle of Africa. But I feel like God asked me, “Do you trust me?” and it was a nut-up or shut-up point in time. So I get some water in a bucket and shower myself off, put on some clothes that I haven’t been wearing for 3 days, and go walk around. Here we go Lord.  We walk down the street and grab some food. I sit on a table staring out into the street, looking for a group of 3 white guys. I’m trying to think of what I would have done if I did see them. Probably just run out of the restaurant and yell, “Hey you white people! Are you looking for another white person?!” That might have been an awkward way to start our friendship. Maybe it was for the best, but I didn’t end up seeing them. I pay my 13,000 for lunch/dinner (I know, I splurged) and go back to the hotel. I talk with the boy at the front desk of the hotel who checked me in for a while, trying to learn some of the town and culture, and it was nice just talking to a friendly face. What I’ve learned now is that everyone is just as friendly, it’s great! It’s about 6:00 now and still light out, so I head down to the other hotel to see if the three movie-making guys are there. I walk in the front door, don’t see anyone matching my extremely detailed description, so I walk back out thinking I would check back in another 20 minutes. As I get back on the road, I hear a girl from the hotel balcony yell “Are you Beau?!”. This was rather confusing to me, because I was only expecting these three guys to know I existed and no girls, but I spin around and confirm that I was in fact, Beau. She then replies, “Oh, that’s a cool name. Nice to meet you!”. At this point, I’m not really in much of a joking mood but try to figure out how this random girl in Gulu knows my name. Turns out the other three guys told a group at the hotel that some white guy was going to be coming looking for them, and to tell me that they had gone to play ultimate Frisbee. So I invite myself up to hang with the crew who are students studying abroad in Rwanda and are taking a trip to Gulu. They really provided a blanket of comfort in a time where I was feeling just slightly out of place. They’re all hungry so we go out to eat and this is when I experience my first power outage, which are very common here so the waiter just lights a candle in the middle of the table. Talk about setting the mood.

We finish up the meal and start heading back to the hotel. Did I mention the driving was crazy? Well we see this truck swerve to avoid a boda and he hits a round-a-bout and launches into the air and over towards a group of people, and it seems like within 10 seconds there are 100 people surrounding the accident scene. I don’t think anyone is hurt but couldn’t really see, but I’ll assume the best. With a little additional caution we continue to the hotel, and as we’re walking a couple guys go by on two different bodas. One of them turns his head around, and tentatively yells “Beau…? Are you Beau?!”. This seems to be a common occurrence that day. I once again, confirm that yes, I am the man you speak of. Except I didn’t sound nearly that epic, it was probably more of a confused “Uhh yeah?” sort of tone. Turns out that these are the guys who are actually supposed to be looking for me, so we meet up and get to know each other and hang for a bit before we go to our rooms. I had arrived in Gulu around 3:30 and didn’t meet up with these guys until 9:00, but I am so grateful for those crazy 5 ½ hours where I really got to just hang with God and go through this crazy experience with him. I’m pretty tired and ready to go to sleep, but as I’m heading in the boy from the front desk wants to talk some more, so I reluctantly sit with him and make small talk for a bit. As we’re talking I witness yet another crazy driving event, this one a little more odd than the previous. There were some guys playing around with a bike carrying a trailer behind it, but no one on either, and no lights on either. They start pushing this vehicle and are running beside it (the Gulu version of Ghost Riding, (come one guys, that was so 2006)) and the ghost cart decides to turn into the other lane of traffic, where there was a motorcycle coming down pretty fast. In my mind, I’m pretty sure these people don’t see the ghost cart and they’re going to hit it and fly 20 feet through the air. Turns out it was two out of three of the film crew driving the boda, and they didn’t see it until nearly the last minute. They end up hitting it, but not enough for anything to happen. I was a little scared for them when this whole group of guys surround them, and in my mind they’re going to fight them, so I’m getting ready for action. And by action, I mean walking over and trying to get everyone to not kill each other and be peaceful, because let’s be honest, I’m not much of a fighter. Turns out they weren’t mad at my new friends, but everyone was just trying to find some scapegoat to blame it on. Classic. Well everyone was fine and went home for the night.

So that was my first day in Gulu. Pretty nuts, but everything has been much smoother since that first day, but I wouldn't have traded that for anything. How boring would this story have been if it went “Yeah these guys picked me up from the bus stop and I went to the hotel and hung out for the night”. You know what I mean? We were all talking about the idea of making stories memorable the other night, and one thing we talked about is having stories to tell your kids when they’re young little 7 years old, sitting in bed and waiting for their daddy to tell them about when he was a kid. It definitely made me think a lot about how I live my daily life and what sort of things have left memories in my life. So I guess one big takeaway from the first day/week is to be alright with not having everything planned out, take risks, pursue both life and God with reckless abandon, and to do things that are going to make memories, turn those memories into stories, and one day transform those into fairy tales to tell my kids. Dream big and live life without regrets!

Thank you all for your prayers, I know they were what were carrying me through that crazy day!

A Few Quick Pit-Stops

Preface: As we write this, I’m still not in Uganda, but one plane ride away. I stopped and saw one of my good friends in D.C. for a few days and then traveled around Europe with my older brother Brett for a week. And fair warning, this is a long post. Please take breaks as needed, stretch, eat snacks, nap, and feel free to not read the whole thing (there won’t be a quiz). I would shorten it to just the interesting stuff, but there’s probably a small handful of people that want to hear all the details. Which might just be my Mom. So here you go Mom! Hope I don’t put you to sleep too!

My first stop was to see my good friend Alec in the capitol, Washington D.C. He moved to the East Coast since he’s a stud in lacrosse, and is now doing what he loves by coaching lacrosse! It had been 0.2 since I’d seen him and since I had to fly out of the east coast anyways, I thought I’d stop. He’s also getting married to his beautiful and awesome fiancé Kelly this summer which I won’t be able to make it to just because they were too selfish to reschedule for when I get back. So I get in with my 40-something pound backpack, my secondary, smaller backpack and also a tertiary bag, which has stuff for me to bring to Brett. Needless to say, I look pretty ridiculous. Alec laughs at me as he picks me up but then we catch up on life, share a meal together, and then head to his place for some more fellowship. Man, he’s an awesome guy.

So Alec has to work the next day but I decide to set out to see the capitol by myself. The thing is, it’s like 33° and snowing/slushing out, and that isn’t exactly what I had packed for since it’s more like 33° Celsius in Uganda! (Oh man, conversion jokes. You engineers get what I’m saying). Nevertheless, I have a great attitude, I’m in the capitol where lots of political stuff happens and such, and I’m off on an adventure!! My attitude changes pretty quickly, as nothing is open either due to the snow or that it is too early in the day. So an hour and a half later I’m soaking wet and finally just go wait inside the capitol building for my tour to start. Let me tell you, this is the best building in the world. It is dry, warm, has a roof, it’s dry, it’s heated. It was awesome. I guess the other parts of it were cool too… After a tour, I was no longer dripping wet, so I force myself outside once again. I spend the rest of the day visiting museums and such until Alec joins me after work. Let me tell you a bit about Alec’s car. It’s the best car ever. It’s dry, warm, has a roof, and even a heater. It’s awesome. We go see some more museums and learn about things, then go back to his place, play some FIFA, talk and hang out, get dinner and enjoy being bubs together. The next day we go on a “hike” to the “great” falls in Virginia. And by hike I mean a nature walk. And by “great falls” I mean more of large rapids. Nonetheless, it was a beautiful day and it was great to enjoy some nature together. We go do the whole tourist thing the next day, visiting monuments, yelling “FREEDOM!” Mel Gibson style off of the Lincoln memorial, seeing other statues and such. It was actually very interesting and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. We then grab Kelly from the airport and we all go to the store together and prepare for an Italian feast that Kelly makes us. She made some phenomenal lasagna along with other appetizers, and after consuming about double what I normally eat, we all hang around her place in Georgetown and talk until we’re all about to fall asleep. The next morning Alec and I go to the library of congress to try to steal the Declaration of Independence. Oh wait I mean to go see books and stuff. I also was on a mission to find a transcript of a speech my Dad gave a long time ago about the internet (I think he was onto something), unfortunately I wasn’t granted access to the library cause I couldn’t get ahold of Obama. I texted him and he responded, “Sry in a meeting. ttyl :)”. So it didn’t work out. Oh well.

Alec then dropped me off at the airport and we said our goodbyes. I had a few hours before my plane left though, so I hung around, read some books, talked to some strangers, one of them said he had candy in his van but I wasn’t hungry. I talked to this one girl who was on the same connecting flight and she decided that I was required to have a proper American meal before I left the country, and we both had a layover in Philly, so we decided we’d have my last meal in America together. Apparently fate wasn’t a fan of these plans and our plane got delayed an hour so we both had to rush our separate ways. The one that got away… But anyways, I make the flight to Munich, try to sleep the best I can, and then arrive in Europe.

This is when I would suggest taking a stretching break, going outside or getting some coffee or tea. Once again, sorry it’s so long.

            Brett, his buddy Lucas from Austria, and I meet up in the central train station and we drop off my excessively large bag at one of their friend’s house so I don’t have to lug around the 40 pound monster the whole time. What a blessing that was! We all stroll around the city, nearly getting hit on multiple occasions not because of the driving, but more because Brett and Lucas are used to walking around a town of 5,000 and the traffic is slightly less there than in the large city of Munich. And naturally I’m like a lemming and follow them into near death situations. Somehow we all survive. We go watch the surfers down in the English Gardens for quite some time. It’s more like wake surfing, but there is just a constant wave in this part of the city and they ride it and do pretty sweet tricks, almost like skateboarding. Then a group of ducks try to swarm us, along with the two leaders, the swans. Those things are pretty intimidating close up. They account for nearly as many deaths per year as sea turtles do. We do more tourist things then meet up with Maya (girl who’s house my bag is at) and all of us go out to this restaurant that’s been around since the 1500’s and this place was packed with futbol fans that are celebrating a Bayern Munich game earlier that day. The place was pretty legit.

            The next day Brett and I fly out to Barcelona via possibly the weirdest, least friendly airline out there, RyanAir. They’re great because the flights are so cheap ($60 bucks round trip to Barcalona) but they are the stingiest company ever. If by some chance your luggage is half an inch beyond the required size, it’s a 50 euro charge. Pretty crazy. I meet this really nice girl on the plane, Francis, who gives me some awesome tips about the city along with hand drawn maps and lists of things to do… So basically a free tour guide! We land in Barcelona and find a pretty cool hostel called the Hipstel. You’ve probably never heard of it. It came complete with trendy people, terrible jazz music, and an attempt at being green. There was a sign in all the bathrooms saying that water was a non-renewable resource. Now I’m no genius, but I’m pretty sure water is one of the more renewable resources we have. Regardless, I limit my showers to 12 seconds and don’t wash my hands after going to the bathroom. Gotta conserve the water. While walking around the city we find a small place with Tapas, which are just smaller dishes with a variety of food. We let the guy pick out a few things for us, mainly because we couldn't read the menu and couldn’t understand him. We watch some Real Madrid futbol and then he comes back with some fried squid and some other food. Now I’ve never tried fried squid, but I’m glad I did… And probably won’t do it again. We then went to another bar and watched the second half of the game and celebrated the victory like the locals!

            The next day we went to the beach, but it wasn’t terribly hot out, but it felt great to someone who has been in Oregon and in the Austrian Alps, so Brett and I are walking around the city in shorts while other people are bundled up like there is a snowstorm coming. It was honestly 15-20 minutes before we saw someone else in shorts, and it was in the 60’s. We made lunch at the local market which had the most beautiful fresh fruits, juices, meats, cheeses, chocolate and other local foods. It was an Instagramfest out there, so many people taking pictures and rightfully so, the colors were unreal. From there we made our way up to the Parc Guell on top of the hill, which the architect Gaudi had done a lot of design at, and he also lived there. We hiked to the top of this hill and got a breathtaking view of the Barcelona panorama. That night at the hostel we met a group of German’s around our age and talked to them all for a while. They were pretty awesome people. In fact, most everyone we met in the hostels was pretty cool. And also a bit weird. Not a whole lot of travelling business people stay at the local youth hostel. Speaking of youths, there was a massive group of school kids at the Hipstel so Brett and I decided to mix it up and find a new place. Go figure, there’s a group of kids there too. I feel like an old man complaining about kids, but they wouldn’t get of my lawn and I didn’t want to get out of my rocking chair since my cane was inside by my walker.

            After a less than restful night due to those pesky kids and their music, Brett and I head towards a hike to an old monastery in the mountains half an hour outside of the city. Thinking we’re a couple badasses, we decide we don’t want to take the path and want to go right up the ravine and do some free climbing and such. Well, after bushwhacking for half an hour and then coming to essentially a dead end, we go back down the hill defeated. Nevertheless, the adventure continues but this time on a well marked trail with signposts and such. About halfway up, go figure we get stuck behind a group of 160 elementary school kids, so the going is slow from there. But we eventually summit the mountain and go on a path with several scenes retelling the story of Jesus, and then we get to the actual monastery which is very beautiful. (I’ll be posting pictures eventually, somewhere so you can actually see what I’m poorly describing by generic words such as “beautiful”). We hop on the train back to Barcelona, exhausted and go take a nap at the hostel and wake up and decide to make dinner for ourselves. We meet some new friends, Kat and Encode, in the kitchen and collaborate our meals together, which ended up being super delicious. That night we get talked into going out clubbing with these two girls who kept bugging us about it, not because they liked us but because they worked for a company and got paid based on how many people they brought. I felt so used. There was a Russian and Swedish girl, Natalia and Jenny. Jenny was a lot of fun, Natalia was more… Well, Russian. She didn’t seem to enjoy my stupid dance moves. But Brett, Jenny and I stay out until like 4 am, which is probably the latest I’ve stayed up in 4 years doing non-school related stuff. But we’re rookies compared to Jenny. As we’re taking the bus home, she gets off midway through the stop because she has a friends birthday party to go to. She invites Brett and I, but we decline, mostly because its 4 in the freaking morning.

            It’s raining pretty hard the next day, which isn’t the worst thing because we don’t feel bad sleeping in until 9:30 and reading in the morning. We make a new friend in the Hostel that morning and then all go to the Sangrada Familia, which is a in-progress cathedral designed by Gaudi, which was the most amazingly architectured building I’ve been in. I would highly suggest googling it and checking it out, but basically the support and inspiration of the shapes and such we’re inspired from nature, so the columns would go up as one “trunk” then branch out to four different supports and stuff like that. Once again, google it, it’s totally worth it. After spending quite some time in there we go check into the new hostel, which is actually really nice and has a very modern feel to it. It sorta had a skateboard theme to it, which was fitting because we met a some English guys who were sponsored by DC and other local shops. But that night Brett and I hung out with a New Zealand girl named Amanda and a French guy named Quinten, who was a total goofball. We went out and bought two fresh baguettes and good wine for 3 Euro, and feasted communion style. We busted out some playing cards and rotated through a few games, learning each other’s games and just enjoying some good times together.

Thursday was our last full day in Barcalona, and we went to the old Olympic site. All day we were “baguetting” (check out Brett’s Facebook album) while enjoying the beautiful day, seeing the old castle, going to the market again for lunch and enjoying an array of juices along with fresh bread and meat. I wish we had eaten more meals there, the fruit was some of the best I’ve ever had. After exploring some more, we made our way back to the hostel and reunited with our buddy Quinten. We started playing paddle ball/wall ball with a bouncy ball and shoes for paddles on the roof of the building. There was a group of people staying at the hostel who spontaneously broke out in a choreographed dance while making dinner. I felt like I was in a musical. They were pretty legit, and turns out they were there for a competition. Alright dance extras of Step Up 13, game on. So naturally, Brett and I teach (or attempt to) everyone the line dance “Good Times”, which seemed pretty basic compared to their routines, but who cares, it was fun! Then we started a dance party and had some dance-offs. I was clearly out of my league, but I was thinking screw it, I’ll never see these guys again, might as well make a fool of myself. Since that’s what dancing comes down to for me, not how well I can do it but how many people I can make laugh at me for my lack of dancing abilities. We then get talked into going out on the town again with some of our friends (minus the Next Best Spanish Dance Crew). I guess I didn’t learn the lesson on peer pressure very well.  So we leave the hostel and get to the train station at 11:58 and the trains stop running at midnight. It was a close one, but nevertheless we take this Metro to a bar where all of us from the hostel hang out and get ready to go to the club. Everyone eventually goes into the club but Brett and I end up taking a taxi back to the hostel with the host who took the rest of the group to the club. Everyone was obviously sad,  nay, heartbroken, when we didn’t go clubbing, since they wouldn’t have anyone’s dance moves to laugh at, but on night of clubbing in Barcelona was enough for me. I’m not as young as I once was…

Back to Munich the next morning, had just another world-class experience on RyanAir then go find ourselves another Hostel. Brett and I were pretty tired again from traveling, so we had a low-key night of card playing and hanging out. We found an awesome burrito place similar to Chipotle (obviously not as good though, more of Qdoba quality) that really hit the spot. They even had Tapatio. I know, right?! Talk about a taste of home. They guy even gave Brett a bottle to take back to Austria, which I regret to report was stolen from his jacket. Tapatio is a hot item on the Munich black market.  Okay if you’re still reading this, maybe take a stretch break or get a snack. Here, I’ll even start a new paragraph so you can have a good stopping point.

The next day we got our stuff from Maya’s place, then had Vietnamese food for lunch with Maya’s best friend Annika, who was a movie makeup artist and the cool kind too, like gunshot wounds, broken bones, severed arms and stuff. They were hilarious girls, we really enjoyed hanging with them. From there Brett and I went back and found a new hostel and wanted to go check out what renting a surfboard and wetsuit would cost for the river surfing. We get to the surfshop and the smell was beyond nostalgic, definitely reminded us both of when we lived in Hawaii and used to surf. WhERe doES tHe tIME go? Unfortunately they didn’t rent wetsuit booties, and the name of the river is “Ice River” which made us decide it was probably pretty cold. That, and the fact that it was like 35 degrees out both made us decide that it was a little too cold to go without the proper gear. But we start talking to the guy who owns the shop and share a little bit about what we’re both doing and stuff and start talking about church and faith and stuff like that. Turns out Christiano is a youth pastor/worship leader at his church in Munich, and his dad is the head pastor, and this skate/surf shop is his ministry to the city and the demographic of skaters and surfers. It was so amazing to hear about his heart for this city, this generation, and specifically those he gets to interact with in the shop. Talk about being immersed in, but still standing out in the world!  He invited us to come check out his church called the Christliche Biblische Gemeinde, and we were excited to go the next morning! After hanging out at that shop for quite some time, we go back to the hostel and shower up, this time actually with soap. We may have forgotten it while in Barcelona, but it was ok since we both stunk. We also forgot our towels in Munich too, but it turns out T-shirts soak up water too. Technology, it’s crazy stuff. So, freshly shaven, we meet up with Maya and Annika again for burritos again, because they were pretty legit and we spent a few hours with them listening to some live music at the hostel, then we parted ways for the night.

The next morning Brett and I packed up and left the hostel after a delicious German breakfast, which consisted of a toasted peanut butter and Nutella sandwich, and another toasted sandwich with meat, cheese, cream cheese, and other toppings on it. Not quite the same breakfast we do in America, but I have no complaints whatsoever. Using our expert navigating skills, i.e. Brett’s sense of direction, we show up at the church a few minutes before it begins. It was crazy how much this church felt like home even though I couldn’t understand the preacher, lots of the worship songs, or what I was laughing about, but I seriously loved it. My mind was wandering a bit as I was sitting there listening to the pastor speak in German. Deep thoughts with Beau Milliken: I realized there are some things that transcend all language and cultural barriers, classes, stereotypes, countries of origin and people groups: Smiling, laughter (I seem know when to laugh at jokes in several languages), the evidence of love of Christ in a group of people, the glory of Brett’s crazy long mustache, fellowship among believers, and the camaraderie of people being in an unfamiliar environment while travelling. It becomes so apparent that we’re all on the same team, just a bunch of people trying to figure this whole “living” thing out. I feel like the whole “Finding yourself while backpacking through Europe” is one of the most cliché things of my generations, and I want to say that it is definitely the more expensive route to “find yourself”. Mirrors are only a few bucks, or you can find a sign that says “You Are Here”. Ha, get it? Alright sorry, that was awful, but all joking aside, really it’s not about going somewhere to find out who you are, it’s about being yourself where you’re at. Put yourself in new situations where there’s no reason to put on a mask, and you get to just be you. Turns out you can just do this everyday! That’ll save you some expensive plane tickets…

So we talked to Christiano for a bit after church but had to leave soon after since Brett had a train to catch. We gathered his stuff from the hostel and went and grabbed some lunch. We decided to spring for some really fancy food: Burger King. Don’t judge us. After buying the train tickets and sitting around talking, it was time for goodbye. This goodbye was really tough, not only because it was my brother and a best friend, but it was also the last familiar face I’ll see for a while. It really hit me as I went and checked back into the hostel. I’m still crazy stoked, but that was the last piece of home that I was holding onto, and now it’s off to the next chapter of life. So I’ll leave you with the words of wisdom from Brett: “Don't forget the memories. When the good times get coming don’t you dare forget them. Truth is, memories are coming atcha, so don’t let them hold you back.” Truer words have never been spoken.

I am so tremendously blessed to have had this opportunity for a few pit stops before Uganda and I thank the Lord for the gifts he blesses me with that I in no way deserve. I urge you that if you don’t know our creator, just check him out. He’s pretty darn amazing. He loves you more than you’ll ever know and wants to bless you because you too are his child who he loves unconditionally. My prayer is that whatever I do glorifies him and not myself, because every gift comes from him.

I am in the Doha, Qatar airport right now, a 5 ½ hour flight from Uganda where I hope to do a quick update to let you all know I’m safe and sound, but in all reality please don’t worry, I have my Lord watching over me! All glory to the maker of the heavens and the earth!

Love you all,

-Beau