9,000 Miles Uphill!

I’ll have to admit, my excitement leading up to this trip, to Uganda, has been the least of any thus far.  I don’t know what it was.  Perhaps it was the fact that we just returned to the USA 3 weeks ago?  Perhaps it was because I was going solo, without Jill and the kids?  Perhaps it was because we don’t have any medical clinics scheduled for this trip?  I think though, it was because I was returning with one specific purpose, and the human odds on being successful were pretty low.  My specific purpose for this trip was to pick up Jamil’s passport and then escort him to his Visa interview on Tuesday morning. 

 

Without going into much detail, for Jamil to qualify for a Visa, he must qualify as a “tourist”.  The USA does not have a “medical visa”.  Evidently tourist Visas can prove difficult to obtain.  So I have flown 9,000 miles, with a significant chance of being severely disappointed.  I am pretty sure that is the reason that I have not been as excited for this trip.

 

I mentioned the 9,000 mile trip, but I had not mentioned that it was 9,000 miles uphill!  Let me give you a taste.  Normally, we fly out of Dallas, because it is cheaper, fewer flight changes and easier when you return from an international trip to not need to recheck your luggage after customs and immigration.  This trip however, I left from Oklahoma City. 

 

On Saturday morning, we got up early and loaded our vehicles to take Jake to Weatherford.  It was move in day at SWOSU.  We knew that the dorm opened at 9:00am, so we left home just before 7:00am to make it there around 9.  Things went well as we got Jake moved in, visited some friends on campus, and made a supply trip to Walmart.  We left Weatherford a little before 1:00pm so that we could make it to the OKC airport for my 3:30pm flight.  As Jill, Jared and Jayne dropped me at the curb, we said our goodbyes.  For about the next 90 minutes, it was smooth sailing. 

 

My official flight to Uganda was on British Airlines and it was booked from DFW in Dallas.  I added a different flight, on American, from Oklahoma City to Dallas.  Despite these two separate bookings, the nice lady at the American Airlines desk was able to check my bags, all the way to Uganda.  That was a bonus, because this way I would not have to pick up the bags, recheck the bags, and then go through TSA again in Dallas.  That made me happy.  I also got a TSA precheck on my boarding pass.  This allowed me to go through TSA without taking out my laptop or taking off my shoes.   I made my way to the gate and happened to sit at a seat with a power plug beside it.  This too made me happy because I could start my trip with a fully charged phone. 

 

I knew that if my flight to Dallas was interrupted in any way, it would royally mess up my plans.  If I was late for my flight to London, there would be no way for me to get to Uganda in time for Jamil’s appointment on Tuesday morning.  I would have to reschedule the interview and pay to change the tickets.  I decided to take this risk because I really did not want to miss taking Jake to college (one of those “just happens once” moments that I missed too many of while Jake was younger).  So anyway, I was again elated to see that the plane coming to carry me to Dallas arrived in OKC ahead of schedule.  I almost panicked when I heard them come over the speaker, in the terminal, and announce that a flight had been cancelled.  I was so relieved that it was somebody else’s flight.  I considered calling Jill to tell her about this scare, but I am an old baseball player and I can be superstitious about things sometimes, so I said nothing.  Like clockwork, they started boarding the plane exactly on time.  This was awesome, as I would get to Dallas, not worry about bags, eat at Cantina Laredo in DFW, then settle in for a 9 hour flight to London. For the flight to London, I had a seat reserved at the front of the section so that I could stretch out a little and get some sleep.  But first things first.  On this American flight there was another fortunate finding.  At my seat in 9B was a cigarette lighter plug in.  I just so happen to have an adapter and pulled it out so that my phone could continue to charge.  It was like my “Brute Day” or something.

 

As everyone finished boarding and they shut the door, the captain came on the radio in the cabin.  I thought that he was joking at first because he said “This is your captain speaking, can everyone see me?”  I thought that was strange, but then he went on to tell us that there was a severe thunderstorm near DFW and that we would not be allowed to take off for at least an hour.  UGGGGGGGH!  I immediately started looking at things on my phone.  I looked at the weather radar for Dallas and the options for later British Airways flights to London.  After discovering that the storm looked small on radar, I felt better until I came to realize that the storm seemed to be starting over DFW and spreading east.  Finding that British had no later flights from DFW, I started scanning other airlines.  The only option was an American Airlines flight that left at 8:05pm, instead of the 6:35pm that I was scheduled.  The problem with this later flight would be that I would only have 75 minutes I London, rather than the 3 hours I had before. 

 

We boarded the plane at 3:00pm in OKC.  It was 6:00pm before we finally pushed back from the gate.  After the storm had passed at DFW, there was a jam of planes trying to get in and out and to find a gate.  So when we finally arrived in DFW it was 7:05pm.  We had been switched to gate C27 rather than D10.  The D terminal would have been much better because that is where my London flight was leaving from. 

 

Immediately after I got off of the plane, I pulled my best Forrest Gump and started RUNNING.  I ran to the sky train to switch to terminal D.  It seemed to take forever to stop at 5 stops going to the area I needed.  As I exited the train, I started RUNNING to gate D26 to the American Airlines desk.  I flipped out my passport, my boarding pass for the BA flight that left 45 minutes ago and my American Airlines platinum member card (hoping to get some special treatment).  The attendant there helped me jump through the hoops to get me moved from the BA flight to the AA flight as they were finishing the loading.  Whew, I was on the plane.  But I was hot and sweaty and sitting like a sardine in the middle of the row.  As a few people on the plane talked about the weather, a guy in front of me heard of my short time schedule in London.  He had his doubts that I would make it from Terminal 3 to Terminal 5 and through security in time to make my flight.  Due to the weather traffic, we left about 10 minutes late from DFW.

As we were nearing our landing in London, the pilot came over the speaker to tell us that due to some sort of “traffic snarl” we had been asked to circle for a while until they had a spot for us.  I was watching the little flight map as we circled once, twice and then a third time.  I was counting off the minutes that I had left.  When we finally landed and got to a gate, I had 50 minutes left.  This was full 25 minutes fewer than the “travel expert” in front of me had doubted me with.  So I hit the door RUNNING again.  Right as I came out of the tunnels, there was a sign and people looking for passengers heading to some 5-6 places and one of them was Entebbe.  So I stopped and identified myself, fully expecting that I was going to receive some sort of extra search, because we got that when we returned from Uganda a few weeks ago.  I absolutely did not have enough time for this!  Instead, they gave me a bright orange “Express Connection” pass. 

 

The lady told me to show it to everyone as I went.  So I said thanks and took off RUNNING again.  I came to the end of a hall and there was about 30 people in line to get on the bus to drive from Terminal 3 to Terminal 5.  I flashed my orange card at a bunch of passengers that had no idea what the orange card was but I am sure were saying bad words in languages that I could not understand.  I pushed up to the front of the line and this old bus driver cut the line off 3 people in front of me.  I called to him and as he came to me, I showed him my Express Connection Card like Wayne and Garth on Wayne’s World.  He said, “What is that?”  I explained that I now had about 40 minutes to make a flight in terminal 5.  He graciously reopened the door of the bus and squeezed me in.  The next bus would not be arriving for 6-10 minutes.   After the bus ride that seemed like an eternity, I jumped off of the bus and started running through the labyrinth of the terminal 5.  The escalators were broken so I ran up the escalator and down a long haul until I came to a line that had to have 200 people waiting to get into the immigration area.  As I got a little closer, I saw a magical sign that was orange and said “Express Connection”.  There were exactly 2 people going down this line, and they were walking, so they got passed.  I got to the front and the lady checked my boarding pass and passport and pointed me in the right direction while yelling “RUN” like Jenny did for Forrest.  Again I took off and ran up the escalator to the big huge area of the security (TSA-like) area.  No magical orange sign here, but the lady working helped me to find the shortest line.  How is it possible that every time I go through TSA I am behind people that have never traveled before and can’t read?  As I cleared TSA, I had 10 minutes left.  In terminal 5, there is an A, B, and C.  Every time that we have flown through London, we have needed to take a sky train to B or C.  This time, I was in gate A5.  This was almost exactly down stairs from the security area.   I raced to A5 and got there as the last of the passengers boarded.  Take that you doubter in row 16 of the AA flight from DFW to London!  I had brought clothes to take a shower and brush my teeth in London, but instead, I entered the plane hot and sweaty.  Instead of the aisle seat I had reserved (and then lost when I missed my flight in Dallas) I had a middle of the row seat again! 

 

The plane pushed off on time, but then we waited for 30 minutes, in line to take off.  The flight was uneventful for me. Probably unpleasant for the 2 people next to me.  I had moved Jake into college and run through 2 airports in this shirt and it was not daisy fresh.  We arrived in Uganda 15 minutes late.  As I fully expected, my luggage did not keep up with me and my airport running.  I had to wait until all of the luggage was collected, then had to go to fill out a form for my missing luggage.  The earliest that it could arrive would be late Tuesday night.  My plane was supposed to land at 10:50pm, and I finally got out to meet my friends picking me up at 12:30.

 

Monday has been better.  We were able to secure Jamil’s passport today!  I have finished putting all of my documents and papers together for the visa interview on Tuesday.  Please join us in praying for that interview.  We really feel that Jamil needs to have a surgery in the US to heal his eye/brain tumor.  The only way that he can come to the US is by getting a visa.  The interview is at 9:00am in Uganda.  That is 1:00 am in Oklahoma.  I am praying for a soft spot in the interviewer’s heart.  That he or she will understand that Jamil really needs this operation and that we will return him to Uganda to live out a happy, healthy life.

 

After going uphill for 9,000 miles, I pray that tomorrow we get to take a zip line of celebration to make all of that climbing worthwhile!  12 hours until interview time.  Please pray.

 

Jay