Sustainability, Transition and Moving Our Stuff

It is well past time for an update. I hate it when life gets away from me and I neglect my blog updates. If you missed the big announcement (read about it HERE), our family is moving to Kampala, Uganda on August 5^th! We will be expanding the work of Walk In Love while continuing to support the current centers in Tanzania. Since making the decision to move to Uganda, we have divided our efforts between getting the current centers functioning independently, arranging the logistics of an international move, and trying to transition our family well on both a physical and emotional level.

Here is a bit more depth into all of those things: We have been working like crazy to get the daycare centers running independently. It was always our goal for the centers to be able to eventually function without our assistance. We just never expected the transition to be so rapid. In preparation for our departure, we have been working with our employees to determine what management structure will work the best. It was just a long process of identifying everything either Matt or I did on a daily basis and delegating that to the right person. We have settled on having the two managers and the social worker as the management team. They will handle all of the day to day issues of running the center. We have done extra staff training to make sure that everyone knows and understands their jobs. We have hired a new teacher at the Market Center.

The money situation has been one of the trickiest issues. We will still be funding the daycare centers through donations to Walk In Love. We have hired an accountant here that will monitor all of the money spent on a monthly basis. We have trained and drilled into our staff that every penny received and spent must be documented. In July we are doing a test run of our procedures to work out any kinks. With all this, we still plan to make multiple trips per year to the center to ensure that everything is working. We have learned so much in the last two months about what sustainability and NGO handover looks like in reality. These lessons will definitely change how we start and run new centers in Uganda. Sustainability must be the foundation upon which all procedures are built.

The move to Uganda is a physical thing. Sometimes I want to ignore that, but someone has to pack up our stuff, and physically get it from one place to another. We will be taking a truck, our van, and our Subaru.

The girls and dogs and a friend to help drive will be riding in the Subaru with me. Matt will drive the van with the more fragile of our belongings and the truck will bring the rest. Somehow over the last five and a half years, we have amassed SO.MUCH.STUFF. I am definitely in the mindset to burn it all down and start over.

Luckily Matt is more level headed, and so we pack. But seriously, I want to Marie Kondo this house. Matt is headed to Uganda on July 22^nd to hopefully find us a house and finalize some of the legal stuff regarding the NGO. We are almost done with establishing the NGO in Uganda. This is great news and has been so simple and smooth. We will still need to get temporary visas to enter the country but should be able to get our residence visas in a short time.

On transitioning well. Our hearts are deeply embedded in the soil of Tanzania. Our home is here, our memories are here, our friends are here, and we are comfortable here. It is hard to transition, especially if you are 9 and 11 and have lived more than half of your life in this place.

This is HOME. We are trying to do everything we can to make sure that our hearts are in one piece as we drive away. We are doing the parties, taking the pictures, saying the words, and visiting the last places. We have four more weeks, and I know that we are entering the gauntlet of transition. Please pray for us in this area. It is much harder than we expected. Have you ever made a big transition and lived to tell the tale? Do you have any tips? We would love your suggestions.

Our major prayer requests are as follows:

1. That we would have the wisdom to transition the centers to independence, and any problems would be revealed and addressed before we leave.
2. That we would be able to transition our hearts in a healthy way. We would all, but especially the girls, feel closure as we leave Tanzania. That we would be able to look back on this transition and see God’s leading and grace.
3. That we would be able to find or create a good situation for Maria, who has worked in our house for the past five years. She is like family to us and at this point we do not know how to ensure that she is in a stable position when we leave.  
4. That the NGO in Uganda would open quickly and that we would be able to get our visas with no difficulty. We are not expecting any problems on that front.
5. That Matt would be safe on his trip to Uganda on July 22 and that he would find us a great house. Specifically, we are praying for a house with some outdoor space and a safe neighborhood that is in our price range.
6.  That our physical move would go smoothly. That the border crossing and customs would be easy. That our dogs would handle the trip well and that we would not have any trouble getting them into Uganda.

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