there....and back again

{Lord of the Rings reference anyone...?}

Anyway, we have 3 days until we pack up the Life Ministry bus with our belongings and drive to the airport after two years of living here!

We have mixed emotions about this but as things have been winding down, we're mostly feeling quite excited to see our friends and family - some that we haven't seen in two years!

With all that's going on, could you please remember us in your prayers? Specifically for:

1. Health
Noah woke up this morning with a headache and the minutes later started throwing up. Jamie had some sort of stomach flu on Wednesday as well although that's passed. Could you please pray that Noah feels better {and that it's nothing serious like malaria} and that the rest of us remain healthy for the duration of our time here?

2. Our flights
We fly out of Entebbe, Uganda on Wednesday June 19th and 9:20am. We'll be spending a night in London, England and then flying to Toronto on the 20th. Would you pray that we get good seats for our family on the flights, that all our luggage makes it through and that all travel details go smoothly? Also pray that the boys {specifically Blaise who is currently teething} do well on the flights and that Jamie and I have patience and grace and strength to manage all of them?

3. Transition
We know that people have expectations for us upon arrival or within the first couple weeks and months. Could you pray for wisdom for us as we navigate reverse culture-shock, adjusting to a different time zone all the while spending time with others? Especially for an awareness of how each of our boys is handling the change and wisdom to know how to best help them journey through this transition.

Thank you so much! We're looking forward to spending time with you and sharing about how our time in Uganda was.
If you're in the Toronto area, on our first Sunday back {June 23rd} we'll be attending the 9am Rexdale Alliance Church service if you want to come by and say hi!

an update on the busy-busy

We're on the homestretch now with less than two months until we leave our home and our life in Uganda.
And our remaining time isn't going to drag by, either.

Currently we have Eric {a friend and coworker with Power to Change in Canada) and Jayme {former staff with Power to Change and now freelance videographer} here doing some filming for a promotional video for our South East Africa partnership. It's been nonstop since they arrived on Monday as Jamie's been doing a lot of interviews and being "followed" for a lot of "day in the life of" type footage. But we enjoy having people in our home and this week has flown by.
Tomorrow Jamie, Eric & Jayme will all journey up country to get some more footage of rural areas and, of course, the wildlife! They will be back on Tuesday afternoon.
Please pray for safety on the roads for them.
Please pray for safety and peace and patience for Vanessa as she remains in Kampala with the boys.

On Sunday the 28th of April we have the staff team for our short-term project arriving. Shortly after, the students will arrive and will stay in country until June 11th. We will be busy with ministry and packing up our lives during this time.
We are looking forward to having the team here and especially Vanessa as there will be another staff family coming - Archie, Cindy and their three boys will join us and live with us on our compound. What a lively, loud and hopefully joy-filled time we're expecting!

Please pray for safety for the staff and students as they travel starting next week. Please especially remember Archie & Cindy and their kids as they travel here on the 28th. Traveling with a family is no small task and we'd ask that you'd pray for grace and patience and kids who sleep well on the plane!
Please pray for the final logistics of housing, schedules and other details as they are worked out on our end of things.
Please pray for God to be stirring in the hearts of the Canadians coming and the Ugandans we will be interacting with.
Please pray for Vanessa as she does the bulk of organizing and preparing our home in Uganda to be packed up or left behind{for the next team of STINTers}.

Finally, if you didn't catch it on our Facebook group, please check out this blog post written by one of the STINTers, Bimisayo, who is one of four Canadians who will taking our place and continuing the work here in Uganda this August.

Thank you for your partnership. It's because of you that we are able to be out on university campuses and on summer projects and here in Uganda, making an impact on people like Bimisayo. Be encouraged! God is doing great things!

what's next for the stricklands!

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You can check out the latest scoop here.

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These boda men were arriving as Jamie and I were leaving a restaurant from a lunch date. I thought I'd snap a picture as we've seen so many crazy things on the backs of boda bodas. We sure will miss having a laugh at the wild things we've seen on the roads here.

thank you for praying!

Thank you for praying! Jamie picked up the passports around noon and we all whooped and gave high-fives. Just another opportunity to show our boys {and ourselves!} the power of prayer. So thank you for coming along side us in this way.
We are looking forward to the times of refreshment and vision renewal that we experienced last year in Spain. Not to mention sidewalks and probably a trip to McDonald's. :)

And now to finish packing...

one more day...?

Needless to say, we are not in possession of our passports at the moment.

Jamie went down to immigration today and after talking to multiple people was reassured that he can go by the office tomorrow and pick up our passports.

We are frustrated. I am frustrated. But this is typical of Uganda. So we'd ask that you would continue to pray that Jamie would be able to pick up our passports tomorrow so we can fly to Spain on Friday morning!

please pray for our visa's!

We just heard back from our lawyer (after not hearing from him all weekend) that apparently our passports won't be released until Wednesday. This would be fine coming from a Canadian office, but we know that all too often here in Uganda "Wednesday" actually means next week or who knows when!
Could you please pray that we actually do get our passports with all visa's in them by Wednesday and no later?
Thank you so much for lifting us up in prayer!

Visa Update

Have you heard of this thing called "low power"? They like to do it to us here in Kampala. It's where we have power, but not enough to power our fridge or fans. Sometimes our lights will go on, but only dimly. It's currently "low power" right now. It's how we roll here in Uganda.

We've been a bit quiet here lately. Not intentionally, but with the birth of Blaise and Christmas and ... life, I suppose we got a bit busy.
But nevertheless, here's a wee update for you.

We still do not have our passports in hand. The final word on our visa situation is that it could have been far worse, but we still ended up paying $510 USD in "late fees" because myself and the boys were illegal (ie. without visas - whether tourist or otherwise) while we were waiting for Jamie's work permit to go through. Apparently they wanted to charge us $450 PER PERSON instead of $450 total. So in that light, $510 isn't as bad as it could have been. It's still a lot of money, though and we're disappointed the fees weren't waived.
We paid this a week ago and are still waiting for our passports.

We fly to Spain early next Friday! We are excited, but we sorta need passports to fly, right? So we're just waiting to hear back from our lawyer but we'd appreciate your prayers that there would be no more "fees" requested from us while we wait and that we'd get them by Monday.

Also we just found out our flight home from Barcelona to Cairo has been cancelled so we're in the process of trying to figure out the best situation for new flights. Our travel agent is great and has been working to figure out the details, but we'd appreciate your prayers as we sort out these last minute changes.

We are very much looking forward to our time in Spain and are praying for refreshment and for clarity as we think and pray through different options for when we move back to Canada. There will be an update coming regarding what we'll be doing (we'll still be with Power to Change) and where we'll settle once we know.

Thanks again for your partnership. We are so aware of your prayers for us as we encounter the challenges and blessings of working to fulfill the Great Commission in this generation.