Passion: Kampala - Ridiculous

Passion: Kampala is officially done. There is so much to say but it can all be summed up in one word. Ridiculous. It was ridiculous that this even happened, the result of someone mentioning something to a friend of a friend. Still in the rainy season, on a field large enough to hold 40,000 people but infrastructure to handle 10% of that. For so many things the only contingency plan was trust in the One that controls all.

Praise the God of all the nations whose name will be glorified by all of His creation.

Our God is ridiculous and praise Him for it!!

Passion: Kampala day 1 is done and it was like nothing Uganda has ever seen. I am sore, sunburned and exhausted and a few hours of sleep are almost a joke but it has been and will be totally worth it.

The fence was good. The weather was amazing ... even had a rainbow over the field this morning. No rain, just a rainbow in the clouds above the field this morning. No major issues and God was glorified in an amazing way.

Tomorrow starts early and will be long but it will be all good.

Nite nite.

Dan

Tomorrow is Friday ... AAHHHH!!

First off, I am beat more beat than I have been in quite some time. I'm sure that will change tomorrow when I'm even more beat. Here are some quick updates:

1. As of right now about 17000 wristbands have been given out to students. Ridiculous.

2. We had our first volunteer meeting and it looks like we are going to have about 250 on our team. Touch (that's who we are) is the largest volunteer team there is. Let me just say that God knew exactly what He was doing when He put this together. My counterparts are Sally and Brian. Sally is in marketing at home in Atlanta and is a crazy detailed, list making, little thing obsessing fool. I am none of those things but am 1^100000 times louder and can get people to move. Brian is from SoCal but has been a paster here in Kampala for 6 yrs. He is a tatted up white boy but knows exactly what to say, how to say it and what needs to be repeated over and over again to get it to stick. It's working quite nicely.

3. It looks like the LED wall might actually end up working. Whoo hoo!!!


Things to pray about:

1. Unity from within. Please pray that all will be OK with the fact that we are all here to serve God's students and that we all have to do our part and that to be a volunteer is to be a servant completely.

2. Pray against the opponent. When you are facing the stage, just off to the left you can see the second largest mosque in Africa. Islam is very strong here but our God is stronger. A local pastor that is on our event lead team said this morning that there are sorcerers and magicians that are actively casting spells against this event. I know it sounds odd but we are in Africa and it is real. Just as there is a Savior, there is an opponent and he has power in this world.

3. Pray for safety, security and order. We will have 70 armed guards in and around the field at all times over the next two days. I am pretty sure that is a Passion first. Then right before our volunteer meeting we had three cars of local police with machine guns decide they wanted to "inspect" the field. We let them do whatever the crack they wanted to. It's a whole new world.

4. Pray that God will use Passion: Kampala as a catalyst to make a radical change in this generation of Ugandans and students of the world.

5. Finally, pray for supernatural strength, patience, and flexibility with our volunteers and our lead team. We are already tired and we are about to hit two 17 hour days. Pray for wisdom, discernment and and quick thinking as we try to troubleshoot and make things work.

I'm off to bed now ... oh, also as most of you get on with your afternoon please pray that I sleep like a ROCK.


Dan

So about the rain ...

I have good news and bad news. It rained today and not Los Angeles rain, I'm talking Houston, TX rain for about 30 minutes. That's the good and bad news.

Bad news - one of our massive and beautiful LCD screens came crashing face down into a giant mud pit. The 1 1/2 person wide walking path for one of 2 gates turned into a giant downhill water slide and the "sidewalk" to get down to the largest parking area we have turned into a three ft deep rushing river which local boys were charging 500 shillings (30 cents) to cross on their plank. If it rains Friday or Saturday God will have an excellent opportunity to supernaturally save us from the shafting we will get.

Good news - Having the rain come down in the middle of a setup day gave us an opportunity to see what it's going to look like and what we are going to have to manage through rather than having to deal will all that for the first time with 30,000 people as well ... and the fence will be done by tomorrow morning.

Please pray for dry weather for Friday and Saturday. Dry Thursday would be great too, but it's just the volunteers that will get soaked that day.

We have already given out 11,500 wristbands (tickets) for the event. It looks like we are going to have the full 30,000. There will most likely be another 30,000 that show up wanting to get in that cannot. Pray that we can manage all those people and that they all have supernatural patience.

Pray for unity within the volunteers and between the different churches represented. We have almost 600 Ugandan volunteers and we cannot have turf wars within our own camp. Pray for humility and a servant's heart for all.

Finally pray for clear direction, discernment and wisdom as we figure out the best way to plan for whatever happens our way.

Time to take a quick nap before dinner.

We will have a fence ... now what do we do?

Good morning all!

Well, it's about 6am and after being totally spent last night I crashed hard. I've found that jet lag tends to hit me about 2 days after the fact. Anyway, I have an update for you.

It looks like the fence will be done by Thursday morning some time. This is truly amazing. Even the Ugandans we are working with are very impressed that it's going to happen. Now for the next step. We are told that it is very likely that we could have 30,000 students show up for the event and another 30000 people that are not students but want in. PLEASE pray that we can figure out what the best method of crowd control inside and outside the fence is going to be. Imagine a chain link fence with two decent sized openings. Then imagine trying to clear 30k people with wrist bands (10,000 of which are already handed out). Then imagine another 30k people wanting to get it but not being able to. Then imagine doing this with no perimeter space around the exterior of the fence. Let's just say the in the US a fire marshal would instantly pop a blood vessel if he saw what we are trying to do. It's a tad bit terrifying.

Pray that we would be able to calmly and logically address the concerns of managing that many people from a Ugandan standpoint not an American one. The last few days have been busy but pretty relaxed. The next five are going to be ridiculous. Louie, Francis and the bands all got in from San Paulo, Brazil last night and things are really starting to barrel along now. It's going to be a wild ride.

My partner for planning our part is named Sally. Pray that Sally and I are able to make good plans, backups and backups to the backups. We have our first volunteer meeting tomorrow evening We should have about 200 people to help us manage our part. Pray that all of our plans come together nicely today so we can get things rolling tomorrow.

There you have it. The weather has been great, the fence will be done and God is good and will be glorified no matter what happens. Pray that we allow His will to happen through us not in spite of us.

Dan

So about the "fence" ...

Well, day one is winding down and we just finished dinner.

This afternoon we headed out to the field where we are holding the event and let's just say this is going to be fun. The fence is in process and we are told that it WILL be done by Wednesday morning. Again supernatural fence building is going to be required. They have gotten the posts up around about 3/4 of the venue.

Next on the list o' things is rain. Really what we are looking for is no rain but lots of clouds. Obviously dry is good but we are only about 22.5 miles north of the equator ... where the sun is closest to the earth. I promise that in the afternoons it feels like it. Cloud cover would be spectacular. It might be a bit picky, but you can't get what you don't ask for.

The next few days are going to be very interesting ... pray that we can figure out what the best way to get people in and out of the field is going to be and that all will go well. That's it. I'm working to get to bed at a decent time as our first meeting is at about 7am tomorrow.

Greetings from Kampala, Uganda!!

Well as I just said in the mass email I sent out, this is where I will try to provide periodic updates on Passion: Kampala. My day(s) of travel were totally uneventful which is a great thing. Los Angeles to Detriot, Detriot to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Entebbe and then bus to Kampala made for about 30 hours of travel and I am beat. We are currently waiting for the hotel staff to deliver a rollaway bed and then I am crashing hard. The meetings and planning starts at 9am tomorrow (11pm Sunday - Los Angeles time).

That's it. Have a great day / night whatever time zone you are in.