Contingency Plans

We've been busy lately with preparations for the upcoming presidential elections. They will take place on February 18th. We don't anticipate any problems, but we've adopted the boy scout philosophy of being ready.

So, as a team, we've prepared our "Go-bags". This is a 5 kg bag that is intended to hold the necessary items we would need in order to evacuate quickly in an emergency. This past Tuesday we held each other accountable in our preparations by bringing our go-bags to team meeting. I spent the time leading up to our meeting trying to pull together our stuff.

The kids caught onto the busyness of the moment and started preparing their own go-bags. Dara stuffed hers full of stuffed animals and other "essentials". She even made a "cat carrier" for the cats. It wasn't easy to explain that if we needed to evacuate our home, the cats and dogs would remain. It's just part of life here. It also took awhile to help Dara understand that we wouldn't be able to take all of her stuffed animals (even though she was adamant about being able to carry them all by herself without fussing). She didn't unpack them until that night after meeting.

Dade's bag was similar to Dara's but I took a better inventory (for blog purposes). He had 11 stuffed animals (explaining that he wad need to add 2 more if we were leaving soon), 2 hats, his Bible, a solar powered flashlight, a book, and a small game. He eventually unpacked his animals as well, but the rest of it remains by his door - as does Dara's.

Here's a picture of some of the contents in mine...filter water bottles, some non-perishable food items (these will need to be replaced with something not as precious but will remain here until I find something better), and a small bag with medicines and first-aid supplies. What you can't see are the important documents and papers in the back, a laptop that will make the bag heavier than intended (but I'm not willing to just leave it), sunscreen, bug spray, backed-up hard drives, phone w/charger, candles w/matches, and flashlights. There's also quite a bit of money that needs to be added. Did you know it's $100/person to get a visa to Tanzania?! Tanzania is our closest border - if we have to walk. Thankfully, there are no visa fees to go to Rwanda (our best option if we get to drive). We'll see. I'm also supposed to have a Bible and journal but I'll pack my journal if we need to evacuate and will use a small Bible of Joel's (mine is just too heavy).

In some ways it's a bit hard to get motivated to keep the bag packed and at the ready when I don't see us needing them. Our desire and plan is to stay unless absolutely necessary to leave. I keep reminding myself that it's too important to not take seriously. It'll be a blessing to never need our go-bags, but I sure don't want to get caught without them.

Please know that I am not writing this to scare our parents (or anyone else) but it was just so cute to watch the kids get involved and caught up in the packing. I also want you to know we are not unaware of things that are happening here. We will take our responsibilities seriously - have extra fuel and go-bags ready, but we know our lives (and Uganda) are in God's hands. We are alert but not worried.