Well today is the big day. It is the day we have all been waiting for. It is the big stadium event and the launching of the 40 Days of Purpose Campaign in Rwanda. The girls and I met up with Steve’s team at about 12:30 and headed over to the stadium. Apparently when we got there some of the people were freaking out about the VIP passes into the stadium. We all had to have a pass to sit in our section, however the passes were not there. So all the people that were worried came to me for answers, of which I did not have any. So I made a call to Shawn and found out what was going on. Steve even came up to me and said, “I figure if anybody knows what’s going on here its you”. Interesting but I had no information at that particular moment. Eventually, we all got into the stadium just fine after going through a big security check.
We sat in our seats and we were seated in the section right above where all the dignitaries and Rick and Kay and President Kagame were going to be seated. We sat down only to discover we were also sitting with grasshoppers, cockroaches, and the biggest African beetle in the history of the world. Seriously I did not even know they came in this size. If I knew I could super size my beetle’s I would have just requested the small one’s. It was disgusting! The lady that was seating everyone would walk by the cockroaches and step on them and you could just hear them crunching under her feet. It was really appetizing. All we needed was a chocolate fountain and we could have had a delicacy in certain countries!
Well Rick and Kay and the rest of the White House and Rwandan government representatives and the Archbishop and other pastors and Shawn came in and sat down. Our group started yelling when Rick walked in and he waved to them appeasing their joyful yelps and frantic waving. Shawn invited me to come down and sit with them which I was really happy about since there were no nuclear sized beetle’s or cockroaches down there. They finally got started and President Kagame came in and sat down next to Rick. The had some opening speeches and prayers and then Rick got up and spoke. He spoke for about an hour or so on the Purpose Driven Life and explained what the 5 purposes are. The full stadium was really excited and they would clap and yell hallelujahs through out his speech. Then the President got up and spoke and they had a graduation ceremony for all the pastors that went through the PDL training. It was a pretty neat event. The stadium hold about 30,000 people and there was probably 20-25,000 people there. It was a free event to anyone in Rwanda.
We also found out that the 3 Rwandese girls from the other night had come to church this morning and they all came to Jesus! Including the Muslim girl! So Amy (Michael’s mom) gave them cross necklaces which they were super excited about. So after the event was over Floyd (a leader in the team) and I brought them over to Rick and told him their story. He was excited to hear it and gave them hugs and I took pictures of them with him. They had the biggest smiles on their faces!
It started raining and because this is Africa (TIA) the power went out. Well the Rwandan secret services guys just about broke down a glass door trying to get inside with a large flashlight to reach the President. They came storming past us and bolted upstairs to him. The power came back on and they walked him back downstairs past us and out him in his Mercedes and this cavalcade drove off. It is interesting to see how they protect their President compared to how we protect ours. They walk him right past us and get in the cars parked right out front of the stadium. We have secret entrances and multiple exits and nobody is allowed near him. And yet they walk him right past everyone (at least the VIP’s).
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