We had absoluting amazing worship before the initial session this morning... one of the Ugandans led us in a rhythmic clapping song where each of the three parts of the room were clapping to a 
different rhythm... we then started singing worship songs along with the clapping... one thing I learned is that you can't help but smile when you're clapping -- so our day started out with an extremely upbeat mood, praising our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ!After the initial session about customer care, I had tea with another civil engineer named Francis who is a member of Uganda Christian Business Partners (the second one)... he owns his own structural engineering firm here in Kampala. I'm so pumped about discovering a couple of Christian-owned engineering firms here in Uganda -- while these guys may be young, they're on fire for God and just desire someone to discuss the ups and downs of the consulting business with someone who's been there... This really, really intrigues me -- we'll see what might come of it...
During the second session, a pastor from here in Kampala spoke, and even though he was a little long-winded, his message was very, very powerful! He talked about seizing opportunities, which he defined as "doors that open to close", and how to identify when it's the right opportunity to seize... he had one quote that really stuck with me -- "Wisdom is the ability to turn surroundings into resources!"
Several of us then had lunch with the different attendees at the conference from Tanzania and talked about our visit there next week and their thoughts about the overall Partners Worldwide effort throughout the country. The photo on the right is of Joseph from SISA, the group we'll visit on next Wednesday. This should be an interesting upcoming week -- the two groups we're going to visit are really well-established, so we'll be curious to see how we can attempt to help them.
The group dancing...
But, how do I get myself into these situations??? Well, it was kind of a dare... After Lou from PW and I went over to take some photos, he dared a lady from Uganda and another lady from Kenya that I was sitting at dinner with to go dance with the kids, and that he and I would go with them if they did... What?!?! And before I could say anything the ladies took him up on the dare, and all of a sudden, I'm over there dancing with the kids... It was both fun and exhausting! Plus, the lady from Uganda had said something like, "Mutakas (I think that's us white people) don't have any rhythm anyway." So I kinda had to show her that some of us do... I don't know how those kids did it for about an hour, though -- I was sweating profusely and just about beat after about 10 minutes... Oh, well! I will have to say, I had more Africans come up and compliment me on my willingness to get out there -- I think it made me a little more of a person to them, by showing them I wasn't afraid to have some fun... Yes, there were plenty of photos being taken of me dancing, so I'll post them once I get them from the others...
Signing off from Kampala! Usiku mwema (Good night)!
Oh, going to the headwaters of the Nile River very early in the morning, so no post until late tomorrow...
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