I have to confess that preparing to leave Mbale to go to Dodoma, Tanzania has its moments of doubts and fears. I’ll be stay with Bishop Jackson in a small village outside of Dodoma called Homboro where I’ll be living without electric power. That will take some getting used to. Homboro is around an hour to an hour and a half from Dodoma so, unlike here in Mbale, I won’t be able to just run into town whenever I want.

Yep, a lot of changes…I just didn’t know how soon they would start.

I get up Friday morning all wired up to start packing to leave on Saturday for Kampala for a week before heading to Mwanza, Tanzania to spend a couple of weeks with Bishops Sekelwa and Jackson before going on to Homboro with Bishop Jackson.

Having come back to Mbale after being here last year, it’s amazing how much stuff I have. I start going through it all, separating what I’m going to leave from what I hope to be able to take with me. I have stuff everywhere! I can hardly even turn around! My room here at Bishop Gogo’s house is small, 8×12, so there not much room to sort out stuff for packing.

Bishop Gogo sticks his head in and looks around with his eyes kind of big. He’s not saying much but I can tell that he wants to tell me something. He finally coughs and says that he just talked to Bishop Yusto, who I’ll be meeting tomorrow morning in Kampala and will be staying with for a week. So I’m like, “Cool, so what’s Bishop Yusto up to?”

Well, it turns out that Bishop Yusto will not be able to host me for the week or help get me to the airport in Entebbe! My first reaction is to FREAKOUT! What am I going to do now? As we say in Alabama, “Time to punt”.

So here I am in my room with everything half packed to leave in the morning with nowhere to go. TIA.

After giving me this bit of news, Bishop beats a hasty retreat leaving me to get used to this new change in plans. Now I had thought that Bishop Yusto and I had worked out this whole deal about me coming to stay with him a week or two ago. When we talked on Wednesday, everything seemed to be all set. My bad, I forgot, this is Africa where everything always changes at the last minute.

But, the Lord always makes a way even before we need the way. I had talked with my friend Caleb, who lives in Kampala, on Tuesday about us getting together one evening to hang out before I left for Tanzania. He asked me if I would be staying with him. I told him, “No, I will be staying with Bishop Yusto.” Yep, time for that punt.

So I’ve got a place to stay but I’ll be leavening on Wednesday or Thursday instead of Saturday.

Now what to do with all this mess in my room? Cram it all into bags and forget about it until later? Not the best idea but it kind of works, until you realize, the next day, that you’re going to have to have some of the stuff that’s been crammed in those bags, that are now in your way for the next three or four days.

I knew that Africa would be full of adventure but this was not what I had in mind.

Now it’s Saturday morning and I wake up with the old David Bowie song in my head,
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes.

Yep that seems to describe my life right now.

The thing is, I never liked David Bowie.

CH-CH-CH-CH-CHANGES!!!!!!!