Day 1 of the Convention: Friday, August 22, 2014

Let me preface by saying that it is like no place I have ever been.

Brothers in the back of a truck outside of the site.

People packed in vans to get to the convention, no seat belts. People crammed in.

Some walked for hours/days to get here from the remote villages around Zimbabwe.

Our poor bus captain that is in charge of us for the weekend. He and his wife had to be at our hotel at 6:45am to meet the bus.

Bus lot.

National sports stadium, seats 60,000 in colleseum seats.

The children are everywhere! Most people have very large families. 

Ali and Sasha looking very excited! We sat in section 16, at the edge of the English section. It was right next to the Chinese group. We barely heard anything because the English section sound wasn't working well, the Chinese sound was loud, and Ndebe also was very loud and overpowering. I do remember that 4 planes flew over the stadium in formation, and it was slightly terrifying. 

Attendance: remember that they expected somewhere between 40,000-45,000. The stadium can fit between 60,000-62,000. 

Zimbabwean Sign Language (ZSL): 827

Ndebele: 5,988

English: 12,093

Shona: 47,883

TOTAL: 66,791

21,000 extras! Incredible. I can't believe it. If we start like this on a Friday, can you imagine what Sunday will be?!

Our bethel speaker was Brother Morray, and Brother Geoffrey Jackson was our GB member. He is so animated! He really knows how to get this crowd excited. 

After the session, we tried to make our way immediately to the buses, because our captain told us to be back at 5:15 pm. Unfortunately, with the amount of people present, there was a major gridlock at the gate, so we didn't get back to our bus until much later. Then, we still had to wait for everyone else who was stuck in the crowd. Our group at Kutandara consists of 12, and 10 of us arrived with quite a few from MTB Lodge (we shared a bus with them, since they were larger and needed 2 buses). We waited for a long while on the two sisters from Pensylvania, thinking they were stuck in the crowd. The bus driver decided we couldn't wait any longer, so we hoped they had somehow already gotten back to the lodge. The way out was much like the way in, with people lining the streets to wave goodbye and to say "mangwana" (this is how it sounds, I don't think it's the correct spelling), meaning "see you tomorrow!" We were stuck in a lot of traffic, and didn't get back to our lodge until a little after 8pm. When we got back, we found the 2 sisters! They weren't able to find our bus, so a brother drove them back to the lodge. There have been 96 buses rented out for the delegates this week to cart us around, and it was difficult to find a small number in the corner of the window in the sea of buses. We then took showers, and met back in the courtyard to order take away from Antonio's. We got pizza, surprise, suprise. It was none the less delicious. Then we all went back to our rooms and passed out for the night. Another excitement tomorrow, I'm sure! I can't wait for the baptism. 

Keishel posing with her bag of candy!