Incredible Music and ZACU's cutting edge plan

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend service at the Chilenge Brethren in Christ Church. Dr. Thomas was asked to deliver the sermon and afterward there was a question and answer session about Zambian Christian University and lunch at Pastor Munachoonga's home and a brief meeting after our meal.

The Chilenge BIC youth choir won 3rd place at a choir competition earlier this year. During the service they did a couple of traditional Zambian acapella choral selections. I don't want to inadequately describe the sound with words. I was fortunate enough to have been allowed to record video on my phone, and smart enough to buy a 200gb memory card before I left. Let's just say that I have watched the videos with headphones on more times than I can count since last night. The lead singer's voice was effortless. The harmony, including that of the congregational singing, seemed almost innate. The church has solid concrete walls, so the sound reverberated and seemed like it was concentrated to go directly into our eardrums. I had the opportunity to go up and sing with the men of the congregation, luckily they selected a song that I knew. The older women of the congregation also performed two songs, they pretty much brought the house down and marched off with a presence that said "yeah, we still got it!"

I was honored to have been introduced to the congregation as a guest and travelling companion to Dr. Thomas and the computer "expert" that is going to set up the administrative center at ZACU. After the service ended I greeted the congregation outside of the church on Dr. Thomas's behalf, it would have been difficult and painful for him to make it to the back of the sanctuary and then back to the front for the question and answer section. It was amazing to be able to shake hands with everyone that attended the service, especially the little ones.

I had been primarily focused on technical issues in my communication with Dr. Thomas prior to the trip and even up until yesterday. After sitting in on the question and answer session and the meeting after lunch, I now have a more complete view of the overall strategic vision of ZACU and have become even MORE excited about being a part of what is happening. ZACU is looking to be cutting edge in every way possible from the beginning. Without going deep into details, it will be a distance learning University from the beginning so the council wants a system that can support the 3 campuses that will be opened initially, Nahumba, Sikalongo, and Macha. This means that files and resources need to be available to anyone from anywhere. Dr. Thomas laid a out his vision for a library that has ebooks and is accessible from the internet. He also wants to have a system whereby students could logon to a website from anywhere and request books and twice a week or more a vehicle would transport books to and from the different campuses. ZACU wants to also establish partnerships with Universities both in Zambia and globally, they see ZACU as a global University from the start and they certainly have the right people and minds in place to make it happen.

I will post videos of the incredible music on Facebook when I get home in the interest of saving on wireless data, but here is a picture of Dr. Thomas delivering his sermon.