**There is a lot of important information in this email regarding our upcoming trip. Please read this post carefully and in its entirety if you are interested in a trip with Show Mercy International this summer**

Dear Friends,

We are excited to finally announce the information for our next trip to Uganda for the summer of 2009. For those of you who have traveled with us before, I don’t need to tell you the impact that this trip will have on your life. For those who will be joining us for the first time, get ready to experience some incredible children and see firsthand what God has been doing through Show Mercy International in Uganda. You won’t regret going. It is truly an amazing experience that will affect you for years to come.

Dates:

Leaving for Uganda on July 28^th and Returning from Uganda on August 11^th

Deadline to Apply:

The absolute deadline to apply is July 1, 2009. However, please read the rest of this post. We highly suggest applying as soon as you are able. The interest in this trip is substantial.

What will we do on this trip?

• Spend time at Hope Children’s Home with the kids. There will be scheduled crafts, games and projects to work on with the kids. We will also need your assistance in interviewing kids and possibly visiting the village homes of some of our school kids that don’t live at Hope Children’s Home. Of course a lot of the time we will be just loving them and spending quality time with them.
• Visit a children’s cancer hospital and possibly a prison where we can encourage and share with the patients and inmates.
• Village Outreaches yet to be determined
• Opportunity to encourage the Ugandans local village churches if you desire to do so.
• Show a film in an outlying village using our new generator, projector and sound system.
• “Field of Dreams” visit- Construction of our project will hopefully have begun on our 25 acres in Kaliti Village. We will most likely do another outreach to that community as well. We did one last trip to the disabled of that village.
• Outing with the kids- We will take the children from Hope on some sort of field trip. Trips in the past have included a visit to an amusement park and the Entebbe Zoo.
• Overnight trip to Jinja where we will take a boat ride to the source of the Nile River, visit some beautiful waterfalls and shop in an African craft market.
• Opportunity to encourage the Ugandans on a radio station that we sponsor to over 2 million listeners.
• Possible other activities based upon the desires and abilities of the team members who go with us.

Preparations: What should you do now to begin preparing?

• Get your passport if you don’t have one. If you do, make sure it won’t expire while you are in Uganda. http://travel.state.gov/passport/passport_1738.html
• Get a yellow fever vaccination which is required by Uganda to obtain a visa. This can often take time to schedule with your Health Department so plan accordingly.
• Submit your application, liability release form, and $500 nonrefundable deposit to SMI. Mail to: Show Mercy International, PO Box 607, Albany, Oregon  97321 or scan and email it to mike@showmercy.org (While the deposit is nonrefundable if for some reason you are unable to attend the trip after submitting the deposit, we will allow you to apply it on a future Show Mercy trip.)
• Read our old blogs to get a good idea of what we might be doing. There are a ton of them and you can reach them by clicking here.
• Watch all of our videos on Youtube by clicking here.

How to apply to be a team member:

• Fill out an SMI Missions application, liability release by clicking here. Please also read our Helpful Guidelines Handbook by clicking here. You will need to sign the last page and submit that as well with your application. We will need those forms from everyone even if you have traveled with us before.
• Submit the completed application forms along with a nonrefundable $500 deposit per person to SMI. This deposit is applied to the cost of the trip. Don’t wait. We expect this trip to fill up quickly.

Costs and Airfare: New Methods

Due to the size of our teams as well as the many different states and countries team members are now traveling from, we are changing the way we are handling these trips. Unfortunately we often have challenges arranging group travel for so many coming from so many different places. Airlines require that everyone in a group travel the exact same dates and leave from the exact same location. They also will not let you use frequent flyer miles on a group ticket. This is often difficult and more costly for team members.

The cost of the trip will be $1250 per person (your $500 deposit is deducted from this total leaving a balance of $750 which will be due by July 1st) and will include the following:

• Hotel Accommodations in Uganda for 12 nights (Hotel Equatoria in Kampala)
• Ground Transportation while in Uganda
• Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner in Uganda
• Bottled drinking water while in Uganda
• An overnight trip to Jinja where we will visit the source of the Nile River, Bujagali Falls and an African craft market in Jinja town. All park entrance fees and hotel costs are included for this trip.
• Costs for basic village projects or outreaches.
• Administrative Fees

A visa is not included in the cost and can be purchased easily at the Entebbe, Uganda airport when we arrive for $50. The only other costs that you will have other than your airfare would be for souvenirs and possibly a couple of lunches when we are away from the hotel or Hope Childrens Home.

The costs of traveling with Show Mercy to Uganda to volunteer is tax deductible since we are a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We will issue receipts for all payments made towards your trip. If you have any questions, please see your tax professional or accountant or for details.

Please note that we can accept credit cards for payment for this trip, however, a 2.5% fee will be added to the total amount charged to cover the fees that will be charged to Show Mercy. We appreciate your understanding in this.

Airfare:

Team members will be responsible for obtaining their own airline tickets to Uganda. This will enable you to use frequent flyer miles if you have them and often search and find rates much lower than the rates often provided by group tickets. We encourage you to call travel agents specializing in travel to Africa or missionary travel. If they ask, our Tax Exemption ID is 20-1306704. This new arrangement will also enable those of you who live in or near a hub city to eliminate the need for an additional domestic flight. We will be glad to give you suggestions on where to look for tickets.

The travel agent we typically us is Consolidator Webfares. You can reach them at 888-476-8705. You can ask for Cammy or Klaus. Tell them that you are traveling with Show Mercy International from Oregon. They are familiar with us and have helped us obtain very good rates and flights in the past. You will fly into Entebbe (EBB). I am sure there are other great travel agencies out there. Check around. Prices will often change from day to day. Some people have found tickets at a lower cost than we have. Be persistent and look often.

If you would like for us to help you purchase your airline tickets, we would be happy to do so. We will purchase them at the time that the full payment for the tickets is received. Please note that ticket prices typically increase dramatically the longer you wait to purchase them. Space will also fill up due to a team of our size traveling the same days.  The sooner you are able to purchase your tickets, the better your rate for airfare will often be. Ticket prices will often depend upon the flight path you take, the amount of layovers, etc.

Unity- We are a team:

Please note that everyone must arrive on the same day (Arriving July 29^th in Uganda) and leave on the same day (August 11^th) unless other arrangements are made in advance with SMI. Team members must all stay in the same hotel provided by Show Mercy, no exceptions. We have been there many times and trust the staff, the food and have had a great experience with this hotel. They treat us well and have quality accommodations as well as wireless internet access. (We are not staying in a jungle, at least not yet.)Team members are also not allowed to venture off on projects unrelated to the mission of Show Mercy or the team. We are going as a Show Mercy team and will stick together in unity from the beginning until the end of the trip. Thanks in advance for your understanding in this.

Fundraising for this trip:
We encourage you to contact others that might want to be a part of Show Mercy by sowing into your trip financially. Once you are signed up for the trip, Show Mercy will create an account or fund for you. People CAN make tax deductible contributions towards the cost of your trip via cash, check or credit card. Show Mercy will deduct a 5% administration fee from your fund balance to cover the costs of handling those contributions that come from others.  Please ask your supporters to make a note stating that the donation is to be used for your trip. We also encourage you to attempt to raise additional funds that can be used for outreaches on the ground while we are in Uganda. Any funds that are received on your behalf that are over and above the cost of your trip will not be returned to the donors or distributed to you. They will be added to the General Fund and used for ongoing projects and new projects.

We are very excited about this upcoming trip and know that it will be a life changing experience for both yourselves and the incredible people of Uganda that you will meet.  We look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible.

Useful Links:

Show Mercy Missions Application/Liability Release

Helpful Guidelines and Handbook Download

Show Mercy Blogs

Show Mercy International Youtube Channel

---