All roads lead to Nairobi

Welcome to part three of “What in the world does Kerri do all day?” Today I get to tell you about how I coordinate conferences when most the speakers come from other countries and I am never sure of who exactly is showing up each day. Its a crazy life.

For those that aren’t aware, DOVE Africa, is just one region of a larger body called DOVE Christian Fellowship Int’l, or DCFI for short.  So when we can get other leaders from throughout DCFI to come in and teach at a leadership conference, we jump at the opportunity.  In fact we have one happening in August.  Two speakers are Americans but one is arriving from the US and the other is coming from Malaysia. Another speaker is arriving from The Netherlands, another from South Africa, and one more from Uganda.  This means coordinating four different airline pick ups and transportation to the venue.  I’m glad our Ugandan friend knows the city and is taking care of his travel arrangements!  

Of course, I also have to find out who is planning on attending, so its the invite email, various follow-up emails, and finally texts and phone calls to get all the info from the various regions of DOVE Africa - 3 regions in Kenya, then Rwanda, Uganda, and India. Oops, India’s another airport coordination and transport to figure out.

Now that’s just for this coming August.  I also helped coordinate a business expo we held in March that had people from Europe, North America, Africa, and the Middle East.  That was a paid conference, which meant figuring out prices for hotel stays (resident vs non-resident) in various currencies and calculating it into Kenyan shillings.  Email invites, phone calls, schedule planning, and hand-out booklets were also part of the package.

In June Ellel Ministries came and did two seminar/workshops which we helped administrate.  At least this time, people interested in coming contacted me! But I got to man the table each day taking registration fees, keeping track of expenses (Where’s the receipt?) and selling books.  Oh, and of course being aware of timing, and whether or not lunch was on time and how many people we were feeding that day!

Its always interesting how time works here.  As Ibrahim (my boss) has said to me more than once, “We make time here in Kenya,”  and I believe him.  It amazes me how often I’m anxious about getting somewhere on time, but then others are late, the meeting runs long, and yet everything still gets done... 

Next meeting on the agenda after August is the DOVE Africa Annual Convention in December.  At least there’s a few months in between to get it all done!