Exchange Summit

Hey sorry I haven't written for a while - been kinda busy - most days up at 7am and collapse into bed about midnight each night....(I'm writing this at about 12.45am)

The Exchange Summit has been amazing though. We've been dancing & singing and hearing some amazing preaching, and there's been some incredible discussion sessions. I've been in a couple of 'breakout sessions' on Leadership Development where we've had leaders from Africa and Australia share about the barriers and challenges to leadership in both continents and explore ways to work within the cultures to develop leaders. Some very powerful stuff really.

This whole thing is amazing. On the weekend and Monday we had to go pick up various people from the airport as they arrived in Nairobi for the summit. Sometimes it's a 90 minute trip to or from the airport because of the traffic. (Sunday was a lot better). I went to pick up some of the guys from Congo whom I'd met when I was there. (my French is still not very good!) I picked up a man who is the Congolese Government Minister for Mining & Resources in Congo who is at the summit. Another Congolese who has an incredible story about how he grew up in a slum, had his arm cut off when he was 12 and was kicked out of home. He studied hard, got a MBA in the UK, and a Doctorate in the USA - has headed up World Vision in Congo, then Africa among other very significant roles. Some of the people at this conference are just incredible in terms of what God has done through them - it feels very humbling to be here in the middle of it all. I really sense there have been some very significant connections made here this week and it will be great to see what will happen over the next couple of years as a result.

Part of what has been scheduled through the summit has been some more "social" events. Today Daniel & I "had" to host a game of golf. We played at a club called Windsor, which was kind of like playing Royal Melbourne. It was and incredibly beautiful club - it seems very prestigious. So much so that they had a dress code to which I did not comply (and which I didn't know about - I didn't realise we were going to such a prestigious club!) Tried very hard for about half an hour to negotiate with the club management and a senior player to get on the course wearing jeans but they had had 3 'incidents' in the last month so they couldn't bend the rules for me!! So I had to buy some shorts from their pro shop which cost more than double the green fees. When I was trying to negotiate with them I told them that showing my legs in shorts would be far more offensive than my rather nice jeans! What was worse, I had to then tuck my shirt in!! Thank goodness for no video cameras being there...

I played with Daniel, Phil Camden & Apostle Zilly. I tell you, Apostle Zilly can hit a ball!! He won quite convincingly from Phil and me. The course was incredibly unforgiving - if you were off the fairway, you were in the jungle and your ball was gone - actually probably stolen by the monkeys!!! (of which we saw many)

Anyway, my brain has just about switched off. I'm putting some videos & pictures up very shortly (have to do it in the middle of the night when not many people are chewing up the internet bandwidth here)