The weekend events

Hi all,
I'm very pleased to be writing in this new blog that Stephanie set up for me last week! It was Steph's 22nd birthday yesterday (the 22nd of May). The mosuitoes really like her- her one leg is so red from all the itchy bites. They really like the asians for some reason. I haven't been bit much, but I have quite a few bites on my hands for some reason.

Friday and Saturday were packed full of activities: One team organized a leadership dinner for the students who are part of the Darfur leadership team. This event has been put on other years. Mike Woodard gave his talk on the 7 distinctives of highly successful people. About 140 students showed up! (we ordered food for 150) The whole time Mike was speaking, the generator was on, so he had to shout. There were way more guys than girls- we reasoned that the girls are more commited to studying. Josephate announced the leadership conference in Nigeria over the Christmas break- hoping to send a whole bus full of students from here to the conference. I ended up praying for the food- more like shouting the prayer so that all could hear. We passed out comment cards and many were interested in learning more about life ministries. All these contacts from the comments cards are keeping the two guys on my team really busy.

After we ate (and part of one of my fillings came out) we went to the Love, Sex and relationships talk. It was done very well and we even had a time at the end to answer some questions from the comment cards. It's a different culture here. They ask you "why aren't you married?" Everyone gets married- single people are not considered good leaders unless they're married- this is important for Pastors. Joanna and I had a good chat with a student named Julianna who explained a lot about the culture here. She said that she's leary of getting married 'cause you never know if your spouse cheats on you and gets HIV- then you die or your babies die. Before you can get married in a church here you have to be tested for HIV- so that helps to reduce transmission.

I think about 100 students showed up Friday night to the chaple. We originally wanted it to be at the Theatre 1, but it had to be moved to the chaple where we had to use this crappy sound system- the microphone chord crackles when you don't hold it tight into the microphone. Brian MCed the event and started by bringing a picture of his girlfriend up on stage with him- I mean his special friend. (girlfriend/ boyfriend is associated with having sex in the relationship) Suzanne, Mark, Steve and Jeremy put on a drama- Suzanne recieved a paper heart from Jesus (Jeremy wearing a sash). Then Mark comes around all cool and takes her heart from her and then trows it away. Suzanne is sad but then is reconciled by Steve who acts like a nice guy at first, but then rips her heart in two and walks away. Suzanne is devistated and can't stop crying (she really did a good job of this) when Jesus comes back and replaces her broken heart with a new intact (paper) heart. I think it conveyed a good message of getting burned in relationships and how Jesus is the only ally we can count on.

Then Jen Clark and Ryan K talked about relationship advice- they did a bit of research on what guys and girls want from a relationship and hit on some key areas. Friday night seems so long ago- I'm having a hard time remembering what all they said. We sang some worship songs and then passed out comment cards. Many wrote encouraging comments - that they were so thankful that we came and how they love Jesus and such. Oh, before that Ryan L and Leah gave their testimonies- both had delt with bad relationships in the past and talked of how Jesus healed their broken hearts...Then the questions were answered.

Our bus ride back home was full of singing and being loud- while we ballance about 50 5 litre bottles of water on our laps.

Saturday was another day on campus. My team was organizing the event that night- showing of the Passion of the Christ. Earlier that weeke we put up a really sweet banner over the bridge from the Caffeteria to the lecture halls. We were hoping for 500 students to show up, but about 30 students showed up. The actually showing of the movie was a miracle in itself! We had a DVD, labtop and projector to use (and a screen that we use for the Jesus films). The labtop battery wasn't fully charged - Suzanne and I had hoped to charge it that day, but we didn't have the power cord or power converter with us. So an extension chord from the church using british power and some sort of power converter was used and Helawi spiced some wires together to give us power... it was a crazy set up. The chords were just long enough. And to top it off, the screen on the labtop wasn't working, so Rayn K had to navigate using the main screen and they couldn't figure out how to maximize the screen but then Jeremy fiddled with it and some how by mistake got it to maximize. We started showing the movie around 7:40pm. I was the MC- and yet again we had the crapy sound system- I mean crapy mic and chord, but it all worked out. Almost half way though the power cut out- just perfect timing for our intermission we wanted- Joanna said her testimony and then we continued to watch the rest of the movie. I really couldn't watch most of it- I just had to look away. It really struck me how Jesus modled his life for us- the whole time- he relied on the strength from God to live a completely righteous life. I was able to chat with a few people after the movie was over. We also did comment cards that night- and Josephate gave a small message of how you can personally receive Jesus. It was a late night- and a very sombre bus ride back to the Mzimbasi centre.