I believe I can fly...

Cheesy, I know. Oh well, that's what comes out this late at night when I know I'm leavin in just a few hours. Sorry.

So yeah, I fly out and leave for Uganda tomorrow. Crazy...doesn't even seem to real yet. I mean, it seems real in the sense that I spent the whole day running around like a chicken with its head cut off. And real in the sense that I spent what seemed like several hours suctioning air out of space bags so that my clothes would get about 1/2 in flatter than normal. Not to mention the time spent finishing up discussion board posts for my online class (yes, I procrastinate), packing a carry on, weighing my checked luggage, getting a new camera, buying online skype credit, and basicly trying to check off every bullet in my mental and physical checklists which I feel like I have been working on since...no that's right...I HAVE been working on them since May 1st. But, despite all that, I still can't, at this late hour, wrap my mind around the fact that in 6 hours I will be in a car on the way to Raleigh airport, and in ten hours I will be boarding my first flight, then landing in DC shortly after that, then later that night I will be boarding a flight over the big lake to London, which will greet me at 7am British time, 2am James time. I'll get to spend a whole 13 hours in London (hopefully not in Heathrow the whole time...maybe I'll get to actually see London for a few hours, cross your fingers) and then fly thurs night over europe and the Mediterranean and into the continent of Africa. I'll stop in Nairobi first, only to quickly get on the last little leg into Uganda. Wow. I know, most of you have probably fallen asleep from exhaustion or turned away by this point, but yes, it will take me almost 48 hours to get to Kampala, Uganda, my destination.

If you don't know why I'm going, then we must not have spoken AT ALL in the last 5 months, haha. No, it's actually very likely that if we haven't spoken at all in those last few months that its because of this trip, because it takes quite a bit of prep to get ready for this stuff. Anyway, I'm going as a part of a UNC School of Nursing / Duke University Medical Center collaboration trip. This is the second year the trip has been made, but only the first year that my school, UNC School of Nursing, has been involved. Last year several neurosurgeons, nurses, anesthetists, and others traveled to Kampala to put on a week's worth of free nuerosurgeries for patients in Mulago Hospital who needed expert work done. Some surgeries are complex and require technology or expertise that Ugandan surgeons may not have, so the surgeons from Duke will teach and perform surgeries. This year, myself and 8 other nursing students will be going from UNC, all of us rising seniors, who are using this trip to fulfill a school summer externship requirement.
Not only am I going to get to be a part of this awesome week of surgeries, and to work in the ORs as a nursing student, but I am leaving four weeks ahead of the majority of the team, with an early group of 7 people, including myself, two other UNC nursing students, 2 Duke engineering students, and a neurosurgeon and his wife, who will b e working in the hospital and traveling the area the whole time until the rest of the team arrives. I know, crazy. Five weeks ahead of me in Africa, I never thought I'd be at the gate of this adventure this soon.

I'm unbelievably excited. Most of you probably know I've felt called to dip my feet into foreign missions for about a year and a half now, since I attended Passion 2007. Soon after that, God placed a deep calling to Africa on my heart, and without me even knowing it, lined up the dominoes so that I could find this trip, so close to home right at school, and I committed to it this last february.

Well, I really should get some sleep...I'm tryin my own plan for how I'm going to get some sleep on these flights...I'm hoping that since I've stayed up this late, I will be tired enough to sleep for almost all of the US-London flight, so that I can enjoy my day in London as much as possible. I'll let you know how that works out.

Well, just remember, I leave on my first flight at 10:30 am July 2nd (technically today) and land in Uganda on July 4th (i know, no fireworks for me) at around 2pm Ugandan time, 7am Eastern. I'll always be 7 hours ahead of Greensboro.

Remember this address, so you can keep coming back to read my blog. I'm going to try to update it pretty often, at least for the beginning of the trip. OH, the dates of my trip are July 2 - August 4. I'll have good internet access for about the first ten days in Africa I think, so I'm hopin to let you know what's going on those days, then I take a ten day trip to Tanzania, with just one of my friends, to travel and see some National Parks around Arusha, and to visit a little boy I sponsor through Compassion International. During that time, I won't have the internet, so I won't be able to post most likely, and will have to catch you up on all that excitement the next week before I return.

Anyways...I'm sorry to those of you who I promised I would have this post up on sunday night, and who I told I'd email, and who I told I'd call. There's just a lot to do the last day, especially if you're a procrastinator as good as me. So please forgive me. And if you have skype on the computer, look for me on there and maybe we'll be able to talk.

I expect my next post to come sometime on the 4th or maybe the 5th, once I've recovered from two days of flying. So come back and look for more then.

Keep praying hard for me! I'm excited about what God's gonna do in me, through me, and beside me, so pray that it happens. I'm hoping to get seated next to some interesing people on the flights, so you can even pray for them, that I would be able to talk to them about my trip, why I'm going, and maybe even get into a spritual conversation. Who knows.

Well, Happy fourth of July, since I may not get to tell any of you that, and while you're watching fireworks in the US of A, I'll be swattin mosquitos in Uganda. Love ya'll. Comment on here if you want to!

-In His love,
James

P.s. photos work on here too, and seeing as how I just got me a fancy SLR camera, I'll be tryin to upload some if the internet is fast enough over there...so hopefully something to keep all this type from bein so boring next time!