08/21/25 The Saga of the Luggage: How Satan Fought
On our recent trip to Uganda, we felt overwhelming opposition from the moment we left home!
Consider these:
-We boarded our flight in Orlando, Florida, and were grounded by a storm in Washington DC. We missed our international connection that took off with 9 members of our team from Two Cities Church. 
-We arrived in Washington DC 5 hours late to find lines hours long to get help rebooking. We found an agent who had just sent off a flight and begged for help. This was now late Thursday night. The agent could find two flights out on Tuesday. There were 7 of us! She gave us the number for reservations. It took four hours to get an agent.
-During that four hours of waiting, we tried about ten area hotels. We had three young children, we were all exhausted, and we hadn’t any food since early in the day! We found two hotels with two rooms, but only for 6 people. We found other hotels whose shuttles had stopped running at 10 pm. We finally found a hotel with two rooms for 7 people and a shuttle and headed there. Now to find food. Everything in the airport was closed. All the area restaurants were closed. Lex found a pizza place that was closing at midnight (it was now 11:45). We ordered a couple of pizzas delivered to the hotel desk since we didn’t have room numbers yet.
-We got to the hotel, got the pizza, and sat together waiting for the airline to answer. The kids fell asleep, and the four adults sat quietly waiting for the airline to answer to hopefully get new flights. There was a loud bang at the door. When Bruce opened the door, a hotel employee, obviously just awakened, yelled angrily that he had a noise complaint about this room. He yelled, “Don’t make me come back or I’m bringing the police!” We had no tv or music on, we were whispering because the kids were asleep. It was totally unfounded. At this point we began to realize the real source of all this trouble.
-The airline agent answered the call after 1 am. We were able to get on another airline Saturday morning routed through Dubai, adding 7-8 hours to our flight time. But, we had a flight.
-We all got some sleep, got up and headed to airport to decide what to do with our 12 checked bags. These bags were taken to a “re-flight room” when our flight got interrupted. They were filled with supplies for our trainers, clothes and shoes our grandchildren brought to give away, and 2,000 wordless book bracelets made by the ladies in our Bible study group in Florida and intended for Ugandan children in schools! 
-We went to the original airline counter with our bag tags to see what we needed to do to ensure the bags were in our new flight. The agent assured us the bags would be automatically transferred. We asked about getting the bags and rechecking them ourselves. She said it would take several hours and suggested we trust the system.
-On Saturday morning, we were waiting when the new airline counter opened three hours before our flight. We gave them our baggage tags and watched as a supervisor entered them one at a time into our record. He assured us the bags would be on our flight.
-We arrived in Entebbe about 40 hours later than originally scheduled. The 12 checked bags didn’t arrive! It took us four hours to leave the secure area of the airport because of the reporting required for the lost luggage. We had a 7-8 hour drive to Western Uganda, and we needed to ensure the luggage would be delivered once it was found and delivered.
-We hit horrendous traffic on the way to Western Uganda. It is a two lane road, dangerous driving conditions, and a lot of dirt sections, and dangerous sites along the way! While we were driving, Naboth informed us that the electricity had been out in their entire area for several days. This meant no electricity but also no water. We arrived at 2:30 am, and the line generator died just as we got out of the car. For the first day, we had no electricity and no water. 
Why go into detail telling this story? To show how Satan fought and God won the victory.
-The water and electric returned Monday night.
-Our son-in-law, Todd Scheid, preached in Bruce’s place on Sunday morning. God greatly used him and two young men can to faith in Christ.
-The training of 53 trainers from 11 countries was amazing!
-We were able to witness to flight attendants on our new flight. We are still in touch.
-The luggage arrived in Entebbe Tuesday afternoon. Kato drove overnight to deliver it by Wednesday morning. (Enroute back with the luggage, a semi had overturned and blocked the entire road for several hours.). There was great rejoicing when the luggage was delivered. See the video!
-We were able to revisit each school and deliver bracelets personally 2,000 children and reiterate the gospel message through the colors on the bracelets! Overall, through village and school evangelism, in partnership with local church plants, over 800 people professed their faith in Jesus Christ.
And that is the saga of the luggage! What was intended for evil turned out for the greatest good we can imagine! What a joy to partner with nationals for just a few days as they reach their countries for Christ.
Do you want to be more involved? We have two needs right now: five trainers need motorcycles to be able to travel to training and church planting ($ 2300 each). We also need to have phones for about 150 trainers and church planters. This total cost is about $ 15,000. We don’t often mention financial needs, by the rapid growth and multiplication make the needs also multiply! Go to www.globaltrain.org to read more and to donate.
Bruce and Grace Snavely
Global Baptist Training Foundation
The Luggage Arrives
Thank You for the Bracelets