kenya: international convention 2009 - part 1
As most of you might probably know, we had the international convention here in kenya the weekend of december 3-6. the last time we had one was 1998, so it has been 11 years since. in 1998, many things were not up to par so this time all were determined that it would work out well, and much preparatory work was done. the weekend before the convention, almost 3,000 showed up at the convention for cleaning, giving the stadium a cleaning so thorough that a local news station ran a segment about the cleaning. what a witness that was! i always have a frisson of excitement when during the program you look out onto the absolutely spotless field - contrast this to any other sports or political event.
we expected 30,000 people and ended up with 35,000 total attendance. friends from alaska to zambia visited. many who we knew from sudan, ethiopia, uganda, tanzania and many other neighboring countries were here. this of course meant a lot of work for all departments involved - so there are not as many pics as i would have liked.
the brothers worked hard making the 'african style' hut for the platform - they had to use a lot of ingenuity to do it since they were not allowed on the field, and nothing could be dug into the track, so it had to be self-supporting. btw, if you look closely, its dad giving the talk in this picture!
after the program, everyone was happy to mingle, take pictures, meet old friends or make new ones.
in case you were wondering, the side across from us was swahili section. the small platform you can see to the right was used for joint parts such as the reports from different lands, and talks by our governing body representative....
...who happened to be brother herd.
i guess i took more pictures than i thought - more to come in part 2!
we expected 30,000 people and ended up with 35,000 total attendance. friends from alaska to zambia visited. many who we knew from sudan, ethiopia, uganda, tanzania and many other neighboring countries were here. this of course meant a lot of work for all departments involved - so there are not as many pics as i would have liked.
the brothers worked hard making the 'african style' hut for the platform - they had to use a lot of ingenuity to do it since they were not allowed on the field, and nothing could be dug into the track, so it had to be self-supporting. btw, if you look closely, its dad giving the talk in this picture!
after the program, everyone was happy to mingle, take pictures, meet old friends or make new ones.
in case you were wondering, the side across from us was swahili section. the small platform you can see to the right was used for joint parts such as the reports from different lands, and talks by our governing body representative....
...who happened to be brother herd.
i guess i took more pictures than i thought - more to come in part 2!
