5Crawfords

A New Semester Begins at EMI...

2012-01-22T20:45:00.000-08:00

ORIENTATION
EMI operates on a semester system, largely to match our intern program to the college system here in America. We have 3 semesters or trip cycles that begin in February, May and September each year.
This past week, 26 new interns and staff stayed at a local retreat center outside of Colorado Springs to go through a very intensive, 9-day orientation to EMI. Topics covered include history of EMI, future strategic planning, personality tests, culture training, testimonies, and many more topics designed to introduce incoming personnel to our organization. I teach the culture training sessions, along with two other staff members here. It's always a great week of getting to know the new people some, though it is definitely exhausting for them. We went through this orientation two weeks before we moved to Uganda, so it was a pretty stressful time of life! Still, we thoroughly enjoyed it.
PROJECT TRIP
In just over a week (January 31st to be exact), I depart on another project trip. I am heading back to Sierra Leone to work with Mercy Ships on a very similar hospital assessment project as I led in September. We'll be assessing three rural hospitals in Makeni, Bo and Kenema. We'll be traveling throughout the country since these towns are spread out, so it will be a very different trip from September. Also, the ship has sailed to the country of Togo (a few countries south of Sierra Leone on the West African coast) so we won't be staying on it this time - yes, that means no more Starbucks coffee! Ha!
Since the trip in September, I have read two books on the recent past of Sierra Leone. The books are 'A long way gone' about a child soldier's experience in the civil war that raged from the early 90's until 2002, and 'Blood Diamond', which is also about the war but how it closely relates to the world's diamond supply, some of the worst atrocities ever committed in modern times, and even about how Al Qaeda was buying as many diamonds as they could from the rebels in the three years leading up to 9/11 to liquidate their cash assets in anticipation of the US retaliating to the attack by freezing their bank accounts (which did happen).
Anyway, reading these books has really given me a heart and passion for the country of Sierra Leone, so I am very much looking forward to this trip. It is fascinating and tragic what happened to that country, and how interconnected the conflict in this tiny African country was with the entire world. For instance, at one point the author suggests that as much as 80% of the 'blood diamonds' from this conflict ended up on the fingers of unsuspecting American brides. The Academy Award winning film by the same name (with Leonardo DiCaprio) was based on this book. It's a gruesome and upsetting film, but if you are interested in seeing some of the country where we'll be working and traveling around and also learning a bit about the war itself, I would recommend the movie - but I will warn you that it's not at all for the faint of heart. It is very disturbing that most of the grotesque things depicted in the film actually occurred.
Anyway, as always, we would appreciate prayer for our family as being separated is always hard on each of us. I return to the U.S. on February 20 (we're in Sierra Leone from Feb. 2-13) after spending a few days in the UK on my way home, visiting the EMI-UK office and some of the staff there, as well as some of our friends from our time in Uganda.
Thank you for partnering with us in this work - we are so blessed to have a team of friends and family who stand with us, pray for us, and ultimately are no less a part of this work than we are.

EMI CEO Jim Hall

2011-11-28T12:54:00.000-08:00

Earlier this morning, our CEO here at EMI, Jim Hall, went home to be with the Lord. He was 57. Jim passed after a very brief bout with the reoccurrence of his melanoma cancer first diagnosed in his foot in Sept 2010. He had been given the all clear for just over a year, but unfortunately, the cancer returned aggressively in mid October.

Jim and his wife Nancy had flown to Florida to be with family a week ago Saturday and at that time he was doing fairly well with the help of medication (for pain). On Tuesday they had their family Thanksgiving dinner. But that night, he suffered a stroke and lost mobility on his left side. His symptoms then progressed rapidly, and his communication became less and less. By Saturday, he was no longer responsive and it was clear the end was near.
We are all in a bit of shock here that things happened so quickly – it was just earlier this month when we learned that his cancer had spread and that he’d be stepping away to battle it, and he joined our office Thanksgiving party a week and a half ago on the 18th seeming like the same old Jim.
Perhaps it’s an answer to our prayers that he didn’t suffer on and on, as he was getting more and more uncomfortable with each day. Nonetheless, it has struck us all pretty hard here at EMI as we process no longer having Jim around.

I know when someone you don’t know dies it’s hard to imagine what kind of loss it is for those close to the person, but I can tell you that Jim was a pretty special man. He led this ministry with an open hand, never grasping on to the power of his role or making anyone feel as if they were beneath him. He was a consensus builder, and as such, a very good listener – yet he was a man of deep conviction and could make good decisions quickly. He was equally comfortable meeting with leaders of different countries around the world through the years as he was hanging out in his swimsuit in Uganda with us and throwing our boys in the pool. He had a disarming nature about him that made him a friend to all who had the privilege of getting to know him.
I think what struck me most personally about Jim was how comfortable he was in most any situation. He was anyman to everyman, and was not at all challenged by someone thinking differently than him - in fact he seemed to enjoy the differences amongst people. His faith was strong, and as such he didn’t seem to have any of the typical hang-ups with this or that nuance regarding faith matters. He had a very personal and open relationship with God and expressed it in a way that was very natural and unrehearsed. In a few talks I had with him about God, he never claimed to have a full understanding of God and how He works in the world, but he trusted Him implicitly nonetheless based on how he had seen Him work in and through his own life. When he led our morning devotions in the bible, it was always done in the manner of "let's see what God has for us in His word this morning" as opposed to an instructional tone that might have placed him above those he was speaking to.
Of course I believe every one of us is a sinner that falls short of God’s standard. However, when I think of what Jesus might’ve been like here on earth I am reminded of so many of the qualities I saw in Jim. And in the same way that the disciplines must have felt abandoned and somewhat lost when Jesus left them abruptly at the height of His ministry, I think we at EMI all feel the loss of not having the time we thought we would have with Jim. Of course, EMI will go on. It is afterall God’s ministry that is not based on any one person. But even so, Jim will be a very difficult person to replace and his loss will be felt throughout our ministry for a long time.
We would appreciate your prayers here for the entire EMI family, and especially for Nancy. They both (Jim & Nancy) have been very solid in all of this, confident in the hope that lies ahead for Jim as he prepared to pass into the presence of God for eternity.

End of Semester update

2011-11-20T05:20:00.000-08:00

It's nearing the end of the 'semester' here at EMI (we call them semesters because we match our project seasons up roughly with the college schedule here in the US). That means projects are getting ready to finish, interns are wrapping up their time, and project leaders are ramping up for next semesters trips. Here is a summary of what's been going on at EMI as well as around the Crawford household recently...

EMI's CEO, Jim Hall
It's been a tough last few weeks for EMI. Our CEO, Jim Hall, had to step down a couple weeks ago after learning that his melanoma cancer (diagnosed in Sept 2010) had come back and spread to a number of spots and organs. We were all heartbroken to learn this news, as Jim had been given an all clear just this past August. Jim is a great leader whose relational style and steady demeanor have been a huge blessing to our organization for the past 3 years. Jim was a big factor in Alisha's and my decision to stay on with EMI after returning from Uganda. Jim is feeling pretty poorly these last few weeks because of the cancer, so please join us in praying for Jim and his wife Nancy, and all of EMI as we deal with this tough situation. They have traveled to Florida for the Thanksgiving holiday to be near family, and it's possible they may stay on to pursue doing treatment there.

Project complete
The Sierra Leone hospital assessment project report is completed, bound and in the hands of the ministry. My intern, Mike Corsetto (a UC Davis grad!), did a great job in helping get the report out the door over a month early! Mercy Ships has already expressed their gratitude for the team's work and will be presenting the report at a number of health care conferences in West Africa in the coming weeks. It could potentially be a significant new avenue for EMI as more healthcare ministries find out about us and our ability to mobilize engineers to come assess and make recommendations for the many struggling hospitals in the region.

Horn of Africa Drought and Famine
Something else that's been occupying my time the past few months has been the drought and famine in East Africa. The biggest humanitarian crisis in the world right now is the drought-induced famine going on right now in Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Ethiopia, where 12 million people are being affected by a severe lack of food and water due to consecutive record-dry rainy seasons there.
I have been coordinating with some of EMI's Disaster Response partners (CRWRC and Food for the Hungry) to mobilize 5 volunteer engineers to the region to work on such projects as rainwater collection programs and water source rehabilitation. My job has been to coordinate and track our volunteers during their mobilization. Anytime there are desperate people, the situation can be volatile. Tribal rivalries fighting over water and food can get violent, and a couple of our volunteers had to be evacuated in once instance due to the breakdown in security in one area.
All EMI volunteers have now returned home for the time being, though the impact of their work is still be realized in the area as water sources are being restored to provide desperately needed supply to the people in the region.

Next project
Well, if I would have posted this last week, I would have told you about my upcoming trip to Guinea to do the next round of assessments for Mercy Ships at the two government hospitals in the capital city of Conakry. But last Thursday evening, just hours after purchasing the team's airfare, I received notice from Mercy Ships that they were having concerns about the upcoming elections in Guinea that were now being postponed until around the time our trip was scheduled in early February. So, I spent the next hour contacting the our travel agent's emergency agent and was able to cancel the tickets for a small fee. Had this change in plans not come when it did, it could have cost the team hundreds of dollars each to make the change.

So, after a lengthy discussion with the Mercy Ships off-ship program directors, we decided to change the trip back to Sierra Leone to assess the three rural hospitals scattered around the country. This trip had been scheduled for our May/June trip cycle, but we felt it was best to switch given the unrest in Guinea. So, back to Sierra Leone I go come February! I'm excited to see more of the country - especially after just having read the book "A Long Way gone", which was written by a former child soldier about his experience in the civil war there that ended in 2002. If you are at all interested in West Africa, or in learning more about the atrosity of turning children into soldiers that is happening more and more all over sub-saharan Africa, I highly recommend this book. As a warning, it's not for the faint of heart!

Home and school
Alisha and the boys are off school this week for Thanksgiving break. Soccer season just ended for the boys so we are happy to have our lives back! We have really struggled with how to push back against the culture of busy-ness back in the States. We really miss the slower lifestyle we lived in Uganda, yet we're finding it's very difficult to try to mimic that lifestyle here. Just having the boys do 1 activity makes our life seem like a rat race - we had 7 practices and 3-4 games per week, with soccer on 6 out of 7 days of the week. And that's just one activity - most of the boy's friends are doing 2+ sports at a time. Of course, it's great for the boys to play a sport, but it comes at the price of having any kind of regular family time together. We're still trying to figure that one out.
Alisha's work is going well - she's teaching 5th grade once again. She does miss the lower grades sometimes, but is content where God's placed her for the time being. With Brodie in 5th grade at the school (in a different class), it's been a real blessing having her in the position she's in. She gets to be Brodie's history teacher too.

Sierra Leone - Parts IV and V of V

2011-10-25T02:42:00.001-07:00

The EMI team

(More pictures at end)

Monday Sept 12:
It felt like a typical Monday morning on the ship this morning. The weekend is mostly off for people on the ship (from my estimation), so things were pretty low key. But Monday morning, by 6:45am the dining area was bustling with people with a very ‘back to work’ atmosphere. For our team of course, we worked through the weekend so the only difference was breakfast started at 6:30am instead of 7:30am.
The report is coming along really well - we may come back to the office 90% done. That would be great, and would allow intern Mike to work on a number of other projects for other project leaders who have a backlog of open projects. For me, it would allow me to get an early start on recruiting for my February trip as well as work on a few other small projects I would like to get to.
This afternoon, intern Mike and I took a ride into town with our Mercy Ships host Dulce, who is Honduran (though she sounds and seems as American as we are). She has been here for a year and a half and hosts all the visiting teams. She is very outgoing and has made our time here very fun.
Anyway, we went to town to meet with a local ministry whom our CEO Jim Hall led a trip for a year and a half ago. They have almost built Phase I of the project so we had hoped to make it out to the project site to see some pictures. Unfortunately, the day we were going to go it was really stormy weather out so they had to cancel. So instead, we went to their office downtown to meet with their construction manager. It was a good chance to connect with a past ministry and get some good feedback from them as to what we did well and what pitfalls they encountered. We’re trying to do this more – connecting with other ministries (past or future) to learn how we can do what we do better or to better select future projects by meeting the ministry in country ahead of time.
At night, everyone worked on wrapping up their report sections and powerpoint presentation. This could be a very different type of presentation, as there is the potential for a lot of people to be there. They have opened it up to everyone on the ship, so who knows who will come. Either way, this represents an entirely new direction for this ministry so interest is very high with the leadership. I am very glad that we have such a well qualified and experienced team to answer questions from a bunch of doctors!

Tuesday Sept 13:

Presentation day! It’s what we work up to the entire time we’re here, so naturally the team was excited and a little nervous all day as we made final tweaks and edits to the presentation. We also did a complete mock run-through of it, which I had never done before on a trip. It was really helpful as we then all critiqued each other and did more fine tuning.
At 6:30pm, we all gathered in the room, and by 7pm around 50 people had come into the auditorium for the presentation. Overall, the presentation was really well received. The 50 people who showed up were people who didn’t have anything to do with the on-shore programs dept., which was encouraging that people from across the many departments of Mercy Ships were taking interest in this new direction of work.
But our presentation was also a bit sobering, as the precursor to any work to be done on these hospital sites is something that is extremely difficult to do: developing a maintenance and operations program to sustain the existing facilities. Right now, if something breaks or isn’t working, either nothing is done about it or an insufficient fix is fashioned.
A sad example of this happened today. The power at the children’s hospital was operating in single phase (instead of three phase), which means the power was only coming through one line. This results in a brown out, or low power. The problem was in the panel as the connection from the city was too weak to supply full power. So the maintenance worker wanted to shove his screwdriver into the connection to give it a better contact. This actually could work, however it also is extremely dangerous and could have killed him and the 4 people standing next to him.
Well, unfortunately, while all of this was going on, the hospital wasn’t receiving enough power to operate its equipment. Two small children who were on respirator machines passed away because of the brown out. Stories like that are maddening and unbelievably tragic. But unfortunately, it is an everyday occurrence. The estimate we were told is that about 4 children die everyday at the hospital, and typically the reason they die is a very preventable or treatable reason.
For our team, this has made our work seem like it has very real life consequences, but it also has driven us into deeper questions about the huge obstacles there will be for our work to have an impact. We can design a pretty system that looks good in a presentation and feel really good about ourselves, but if we don’t step back and think through the more difficult issues we will have little chance of making an impact.
The deeper, difficult issues on this trip have to do with the maintenance at the hospitals. The maintenance staff don’t seem to fully grasp the vision of their role in providing healthcare at the hospital. There doesn’t seem to be a connection for them (by our estimation) between them keeping the septic system up and running so sewage doesn’t back up on the site and the overall quality of healthcare being provided. Or, when the power goes out, they don’t seem to be connecting the dots that they are now more important in the lives of some patients than their doctors are.
But the reality is, the maintenance people at hospitals are critical to the overall success of the hospital. So right now, as raw sewage spills out on the hospital grounds the hospital’s ability to provide healthcare is being undermined. These are some of the issues we’ve been discussing – How do we change the culture in the maintenance departments at these hospitals? How do we encourage a training/mentoring program? How do we get them the tools they need to do their work? It’s made for some great conversations this week amongst our team, and ultimately will lead to our assessment report being much more practical and useful for the ministry.

Part V of V

Wednesday Sept 14:

Today was our closing day, and we decided to go to the most popular beach in Sierra Leone – ‘River No. 2’. It’s a spot on the Atlantic Ocean where a River enters into the ocean directly, without any kind of widening at the end. The beach along the ocean just north of the river is pristine white sand.
However, about 10 minutes after we arrived, the skies opened up and it rained pretty much the rest of the day. A bunch of the team went swimming in the warm ocean water anyways – everyone but Joe and I actually got in and swam. So what was to be a full day with dinner afterwards ended up being a half day at the beach with us returning to the ship for dinner. It was still fun, and we got to do some souvenir shopping at the beach before leaving.
After dinner, we had our closing team meeting, where we have everyone share their high/low points, something God taught them while they were here, and then any prayer requests they have going back. Then, we take turns sharing encouraging observations we’ve made or things we’ve noticed about the person one person volunteers to pray for that person before we move on to the next person. One by one, we let everyone share.
This meeting is always a favorite for EMI volunteers as they get to share and hear feedback from other team members, as well as to give feedback to others. This one was no different as we have had such good team unity and bonding. Tomorrow begins the long trek home. From the time we leave the ship until I get home is scheduled to be about 40 hours – yikes! But having Alisha and the boys there waiting for me at the airport is all the motivation I’ll need to get through – I miss them a ton and can’t wait to be back home again with them!

Travel Sept 15-16:

What can be said about 40 hours of traveling on airplanes? It was long and brutal but in the end all worth it to see Alisha and the boys! We did head into town during our layover in Brussels, which was fun. I know very little about Belgium, other than waffles! So, when we were in town, we stopped in and ordered Belgian waffles, so I've got that box checked. It was fun, but honestly, I think Eggo waffles are better. Please don't tell Belgium I said so. :)

Intern Mike and I with the Contractor for a previous EMI design project.

This humongous 'Cotton Tree' downtown is highly revered in Sierra Leone. It is the symbol of freedom for the city of Freetown. According to legend, back in 1792, when the first African American freed slaves were returned to this region, they met at a large tree and had a feast of thanksgiving for their new freedom.

The water in the swimming pool on the ship is kept very low to keep it from splashing out when the ship rocks back and forth from the sea.

Joe presenting his structural findings.

A pretty large crowd (about 50) showed up for our presentation.

The team arriving at the beach - it was really nice, with fine white sand...but the rains were soon to follow after our arrival.

River No. 2 beach is a beautiful spot.

My first time touching the Atlantic Ocean.

River No. 2 - what a romantic name for such a beautiful river. ;)

The team enjoying our only local meal of the trip - Barracuda with Rice. It was pretty good!

Joe was mezmorized to sleep by the peaceful playing of Dan's Irish flute!

Pouring rain all day made the dirt roads on the trip home a lot more treacherous than the trip there.

The rainy streets of suburban Freetown.

We thought we had car trouble in one of the vehicles, but it turns out the warning light was just malfunctioning. But a group of engineers hovering over a car is a scary situation to be in. Joe thought it was the spritzer falve. Geoff insisted it was the capacitor.

Sierra Leone - Part III of V

2011-10-13T16:05:00.000-07:00

The storms make for beautiful sunsets in Freetown, Sierra Leone

Saturday Sept 10:

Today was a bit of a day on cruise control. The team is feeling good about where we’re at so the urgency of getting through the work has relaxed a bit. The data gathering at the sites is mostly complete, so now it’s a matter of compiling the information into recommendations and writing the report.
When we woke up this morning, it was a very gray and rainy day. I had been scheduled to go out to visit a previous EMI project site that has now been constructed, but because of the foul weather the Liberian man who was to pick me and intern Mike up called to say that the trip was cancelled. So, we all worked on the report around the lounge areas of the ship. After lunch, I took 4 of the guys into town to do souvenir shopping. It’s always fun to see the different personalities of the shop vendors in different countries around the world – some places are more aggressive, whereas some are passive. In Sierra Leone, the vendors are a little more insistent than in Uganda, but overall they are still pretty passive.
After shopping, we ate and worked a little more on the report. Overall, it was a much more low-key day since no one had to go to the sites. It’s always nice to get to that point of the trip when the team realizes that we have ample time to complete the project, so people can relax a bit and enjoy the experience a bit more. Good conversations are much more likely to happen once people don’t feel stressed about the work.
One of the things our trip has brought out in the group is a discussion about relief and development work in places like this. The problems we see are so wide and deeply layered that it’s hard to imagine our small group of engineers making any progress at all. But as Mark Thompson, Mercy Ships’ program director, said on day 1 of our trip, when you’re faced with a seemingly hopeless situation as these hospitals appear to be in, you have two choices: you can do nothing, or you can choose to try to do something.
We keep coming back to that statement. Ultimately, our job certainly includes thinking and talking about these things in order to make sure we’re giving our best and most intelligent effort possible in the situation. But ultimately, it is really up to God to do the impossible. If you’re not sure what I mean by impossible situation, here’s one example (out of many) of a situation we’re facing at one of the hospitals:
The sewage system at the main hospital in the country consists of a few septic tanks that catch the sewage solids and allow the liquid to seep out into two pipes that drain directly out to two places: 1) the Atlantic Ocean; and 2) a fishing village on the beach (which is completely covered in several feet of trash).
Well, the septic tanks are all plugged and therefore there is a constant spillage of raw sewage out onto the hospital grounds. These tanks are located out where the hospital laundry services are located, so the service workers are out hanging clothes while standing on soggy ground with raw sewage scattered and floating around. In some places, the sewage forms large ponds (2-6 inches deep) that the workers must navigate through to get in and out of the laundry building. Of course, not only is this sewage, but sewage from patients in the hospital who have highly infectious diseases. Obviously, the hospital is creating new patients all the time simply by staying in operation!
So from our standpoint, to come in and make recommendations for fixing the septic tanks ultimately would, as one of our civil engineers bluntly pointed out, result in the sewage systems actually transferring the sewage to the ocean and fishing village quicker! What a hopeless situation – even the solution results in significant health hazards!
Well clearly, the long term solution we will be recommending will include a massive overhauling of the existing sewer system, including a treatment facility that will clean the water before it is discharged to the ocean and village. But can you guess what else protrudes from the ocean front wall just meters away from the hospital’s drainage pipes that spill into the ocean and village? A pipe that’s three times the size of the hospital’s pipes where the city’s sewage system drains out! Hopeless!
Ultimately, we have to persevere, and realize that though we’ll only be making a small dent in the problem, at least it’s a start. Who knows, perhaps others around will be inspired by the hospital’s efforts to stop these practices of dumping raw sewage into the waterways. As the main hospital in the country, it seems important that they at least make this attempt.
Oh, by the way, did I mention that the water below the village is routinely filled with people bathing and doing laundry?!

Sunday Sept 11:
Today was the 10th anniversary of 9/11. I can’t believe it’s been 10 years since hearing the news on my car radio that morning on my drive into work. The televisions in the dining hall (where we’ve set up our makeshift workstation) have been playing the memorial events in New York City live all day.
As we sat here working, the background noise has been the solemn reading of the names of all the victims. I paused for a few minutes to stand there and watch as family members read the names of their loved ones. I imagined what it would be like if one of my boys was there reading my name. It made me sick to my stomach to think about the terrible tragedy that day was for those families.
I prayed for them to have comfort from God, though I’m not sure how you comfort someone on that level of despair. To have your whole existence altered forever – how do you find hope in that situation? If my family were taken from me I think I’d lose the will to live. At that point I think trying to pick up the pieces to move on with your life would feel selfish and even disrespectful to your lost loved ones – as if you were turning your back on them for the selfish reason of trying to be happy again. I think that would be my humanistic response.
I am thankful that to date, I have not had to go through that level of despair in my life, and I pray neither me nor my family ever has to.
I know God is there with us in those situations, but I don’t think God’s plan for our life includes such tragedies. I know He shows up big at these times, but why He chooses to step in and prevent some things while sitting back and allowing other things is something I’ll never fully understand about Him. I don’t believe He orchestrates such events on earth though, as it would be contrary to His divinely good nature. Somehow, in some way, I think God limits Himself, and in a way subjects himself to the horrors of sin in our world despite His ability to intervene.
Of course Jesus was a good example of this, as He hung on the cross and allowed himself to be tortured and killed all the while possessing the full power to stop his own suffering in an instant. So why would Jesus, who is God, subject Himself to such terrible forces that could be under His control if He desired? And why would God the Father do the very same thing in our world today? I think the answer could only be one thing: relationship. For Jesus, it was for the purpose of gaining us salvation, paying the price for our sins. Similarly, for God the Father, I think He does it for the sake of having true relationship with us. In other words, God limits his own ability to prevent evil from occurring in order to allow free will into the world such that we can choose to believe in him and come to know Him intimately.
If God were to intervene and control each and every aspect of life here on earth, would he really have a true relationship with us? Or, would we simply be doing what he preprogrammed us to do from before time? My belief is that God is able, in some mysterious and complex way that I can’t begin to understand in my finite mind, to both be in full control of His creation and at the same time be grieved to the point of crying and feeling sadness and despair as that same creation continues to make choices that have consequences that He oftentimes limits Himself from preventing.
I realize my view of God is a speck, just like anyone else’s is. (Maybe my speck is even a little smaller than average!) I have no desire to redefine God’s nature so I can understand Him, only to do my best to interpret and understand the small aspect of his nature that He chose to reveal to us in the Bible. Someday, every human who arrives in Heaven will see and feel the wonder of an infinite God…and realize just how limited their understanding was and that overall, their perception of who He was and how He works was somehow skewed from who He is (I certainly count myself among that group.)
I realize this doesn’t have a lot to do with the project – today was a day where we sat around the table working on the report so there wasn’t much in the way of exciting stories anyway. But in light of the 9/11 anniversary, I thought I’d share some of my thoughts on how to reconcile these tragedies with the notion of a good and loving God. I certainly recognize that others have very different beliefs about God’s nature. I look forward to one day all standing together in Heaven and laughing together as we think back on how simplistic our thought capabilities were here on earth!

In-between storms - it's amazing how much rain this place gets!

Joe and Geoff "working" with Intern Mike watching, approvingly.

The crowded streets of downtown Freetown.

(L to R) Sandra (the doctor who works at the Children's Hospital with another ministry), Intern Mike, me and Joe

Downtown Freetown

Driving through the streets is more about carving a path through people rather than cars.

Sierra Leone - Part II of V

2011-09-25T16:59:00.000-07:00

Downtown Freetown, Sierra Leone. The stormy clouds pack a punch - on average, Freetown gets over 26-inches of rain in the month of September alone!

Part II of V

Thurs Sept 8:
Today I went with the civil engineering team over to the far site, Connaught Hospital. Connaught is considered the top medical facility in the country. There is so much I could write today from our 4 hour visit to the site – the wastewater conditions were some of the worst I’ve seen on a trip: Raw sewage flowing out of the septic tanks right where the workers walk to hang laundry. The small amount of sewage that makes it into the designed system simply drains out into the ocean at the bottom of the site.

Believe it or not, this is the road we took each day to get to the far hospital. At times we had to stop for several minutes while people cleared their stuff out of the way so we could pass through. Remarkably, it's a two-way street!

But instead of telling all the stories related to that stuff, I want to share something else that happened since it had a bigger impact on me. At around 8:50am, an hour and a half after we arrived on site, as we walked through the center courtyard of the hospital I heard a young woman begin to wail in one of the hospital wards. It slowly got louder, as she was running/crying out of the building, through the courtyard and out the front of the hospital. The half-hearted cry and running struck me – it seemed that she was so emotionally devastated and physically spent that she couldn’t even muster the energy to do either full-hearted. Of course, I immediately wondered how I might feel if someone close to me died. But I was haunted by her cries, and I wondered, beyond the normal grief of a loss, what this death might mean for her? Will this be the day that her life changes forever? Undoubtedly. But with life being so difficult here, will she ever be able to recover?
Was this the loss of her husband, and now she has no means of supporting herself and her children? Will some of them be neglected and left to fend for themselves on the street, or sold into sex or slave trade? Or maybe she’ll have to sell herself for the sake of her family?
Or, was this the loss a child, and now she has to go on without her beautiful little toddler? Maybe this child was the one bright spot in her otherwise very dark and difficult existence.
Was it her sister who died, perhaps the one person who has been her rock in life since they were young girls? Had they clung to one another to survive the death of their parents at a young age? Or maybe she was the one lifeline this woman had out of her abusive marriage? These are all such common stories for the people who live in this tough place.
I don’t know the exact pain this woman was feeling, but something in me felt that it was a loss that cut to the very core of her existence. The depth of her half-strength sobbing created a momentary quiet in the otherwise bustling courtyard; I think everyone could sense that this was a monumental loss.
I’ll likely never see her again, but I’ll pray for her every time I think of those brief, haunting moments where I saw her at her rock bottom point. I’ll also pray that the work we’re doing will somehow, someway make a difference in this place. Maybe our clean water and sanitation design will prevent someone else from getting sick, and thereby save their loved ones from the agony this poor young woman faces now. It would be so easy to see the situation here and conclude that it was hopeless and therefore not worthy of any rehabilitation effort. But seeing people like this woman reinforces my belief that when faced with situations like this, if you have the ability to help you can’t just sit idly by.

The walkway at the far side of this picture is where I saw the woman, exiting the building on the left and heading right out of the campus. I snapped this picture later in the day - earlier the hallway was about 3X as full with people.

Later in the day, we were at the other site and I spoke to the Western missionary doctor who works there in a consultant’s role. She mentioned that it had been a tough week, as they had lost several kids there. The reasons for some of their deaths were frustrating to say the least – some had died because they hadn’t been given an I/V to be fed even though the hospital has those tools readily available. Why weren’t they fed? Essentially, it comes down to people not believing that they can make a difference by doing their jobs responsibly. Tragedy is a way of life here, and it almost becomes expected.
So what does this all mean? Is the situation really hopeless? As one of the Mercy Ships guys said at the beginning of the week: “The deficits here are massive. So we have a choice: We can do nothing, or we can at least make an attempt to do something. We’re choosing to try to at least do something, anything, to help.” We agree, and we’re honored to be partnering with them this week, equipping them with the technical knowledge needed to do the work they’re setting out to do.

Seeing the conditions of the wastewater system on site at Connaught Hospital was disheartening, especially given my experience earlier with the young woman crying.

Friday Sept 9:
I think I need to introduce the team before the trip is over! It is an extremely talented and experienced team and I feel very blessed to have them here as this is a very high profile and challenging project.
Dan Mason – a civil engineer from Indiana with over 30 years of experience. Dan travels multiple times a year to Africa to do development and mission work and is very familiar with working in this context. Dan runs his own design and construction business and has incredible knowledge and practical advice to offer to the local maintenance workers here.
Marlin Keel – another civil engineer with over 40 years experience. Marlin is a quiet and humble man, but has great wisdom and experience, including his participation on the EMI trips that did hospital evaluation work in Liberia in 2007 and 2008. Marlin has been the city engineer for Nashville, TN in the past and current holds that position for the city of Mt. Juliet, TN.
Austin Hewitt – a civil engineer from North Carolina with around 10 years experience. Austin has written hundreds of assessment reports for all types of facilities, so his experience with the formal report writing side of things will be a huge asset for us.
Bruce Brubaker – From Pennsylvania, Bruce is actually a Mercy Ships volunteer for this trip, but in every way he is functioning as another member of the EMI team. Bruce’s practical knowledge in civil engineering has been a big help to us.
Wes Turner – an electrical engineer with nearly 40 years of experience and multiple EMI trips under his belt, Wes’s knowledge and confidence to work in the developing world has been a great asset and brings a lot of legitimacy to our team.
Geoff Watson – Geoff has nearly 15 years of experience as an electrical engineer from North Carolina. Geoff’s knowledge well exceeds his 37 years, and his fun personality has been great for the team. He has a great laugh!
Joe LaBrie – my brother-in-law, a structural engineer from the Los Angeles area. I’ve known Joe since I was 5, but the team has quickly learned how impressive of a person he is. His energy and enthusiasm for being here has been a welcome addition to the team, and his well-spoken and passionate demeanor has clearly resonated with the ministry. Joe’s ability to communicate in a way that makes you hang on his every word has definitely won over both the team and the Mercy Ships guys.
Mike Corsetto – intern Mike has been a great help to the team, and he has proven to be a very capable engineer and person. No task is too small for him, and no task is too big for him. He’s a very talented and intelligent young man and has impressed us all in a short time. Also, he's a UC Davis grad - so with me and Joe there are three UCD grads on this team!
This really is an impressive team and I feel honored to be working with them. They also are a lot of fun to be around, and team bonding has been effortless.

The team, from left to right: Joe LaBrie, Dan Mason, Geoff Watson, Bruce Brubaker, Wes Turner, Austin Hewitt, Marlin Keel, me, Intern Mike Corsetto

One note from the day – while we were walking around the children’s hospital today, we heard another person wailing – this time a mother who had just lost a young child. It again was haunting to hear the depth of despair, but this time the people around the hospital seemed to show little reaction. In talking with the local on-site missionary, she said on average that 4 young children or babies die at the hospital every day. Oftentimes, they are dying from very simple things that could easily be prevented, such as hypoglycemia and not being given an I/V or the medication they need (even though it’s available). Or as it relates to our work, a lack of basic sanitation is causing people to become sick, or the lack of water supply is limiting the quality of care that can be given, or the lack of consistent power to the hospital prevents the necessary equipment from running. The hospitals have the equipment and basic infrastructural pieces in place, but in large part they have just not been maintained or operated properly. We could easily come in and fix a number of things that are causing the problems, but without the buy in of the hospital personnel the systems would just break down again.
It’s so frustrating to see these people suffering and dying on a daily basis for reasons that often could be easily addressed. But it does underscore the need for us to lay out the technical solutions needed so that when the human resource and mentoring issues are addressed, the infrastructural systems can be restored as well. The structure and content of our report is beginning to take shape in our minds as we are identifying where the short-comings are with the water, wastewater and electrical systems at these hospitals.

Mercy Ships project trip - Sierra Leone

2011-09-20T13:30:00.000-07:00

Part I of V

Travel days Sept 4-5:
Leaving for trips is never fun for me. My past fears of leaving home come crashing down on me as the hours tick down to departure. I know the term ‘depression’ is a very real condition that plagues people so I don’t want to minimize that by using the word flippantly, but the dread I feel of having to leave Alisha and the boys sets me into a depression-like state. I know it’s irrational and not what God would have me feel, but it’s very real and a real area of growth for me to pursue. It’s far worse than the actual leaving itself, which is quite ridiculous when I think about it after the fact.
Overall, the travel was fine. All the flights were fairly smooth and uneventful – exactly how I like them! We had 5 flights in all, so it was a very grueling trip. Denver to Chicago to DC to Brussels to Banjul (Capital city in The Gambia) to Freetown. Including our team, there were 31 Mercy Ships people arriving on the flight – all but one of us got our bags (a young Mercy Ships gal didn’t get one of hers). Stepping off the plane it felt like Haiti – quite warm with oppressive humidity. It was also raining off and on, which made maneuvering our bags from spot to spot a little tricky.
We gathered in the parking lot, which was quite chaotic, and somehow piled all the bags and people into cars driven by local guys and drove 30 minutes on very dark, half-dirt roads to the ferry dock. We arrived at the dock about 2 minutes after the “nice” ferry left. So, we had to take the “other” ferry, which seemed a little sketchy (I later learned onboard that this company had lost a ferry here a couple of years ago after overloading it. A few hundred people drowned in the rough sea water.) So, after an hour and a half wait in the hot, humid and very still air, we took the 45 minute ferry ride across the four-mile wide river mouth. The Ferry was packed with Sierra Leonians, with loud music blaring on one level and a documentary about the civil war there blaring out a tv on another level! After the ferry docked and we waited for the swarm of people to get off, we carried our bags out into the light rain and divided into 8 landcruisers owned by Mercy Ships and drove the final 15 minutes to the ship. So all told, from my front door to the ship was exactly 35 hours.

Welcome to Sierra Leone, Joe! (My brother-in-law Joe joined me on this trip. Joe is a structural engineer who has specialized in hospital projects for nearly 30 years. It was so fun to have him along, though I'm pretty sure the first few hours after arrival were a bit of a shock for him, this being his first time in Africa.)

Waiting at the airport after arriving. The fact that there were 31 people total from Mercy Ships arriving made things way more complicated and hectic than it otherwise would have been.

It was quite the chaotic scene in the airport parking lot. People were coming up to us and trying to take our bags from us so they could carry them for us (and be paid for doing so!). Then trying to get our bags onto one of the several vehicles scattered amongst the crowd - I was sure we were going to mistakenly put it in the wrong car and never see it again!

This picture in no way describes the discomfort of this shot on the ferry, waiting for it to depart. The air in the room was so warm, humid and still, not to mentioned crowded with people and blaring music. Shortly after this the team scattered throughout the ferry to search for cooler or at least moving air!

The top floor on the ferry - it was so warm and crowded in the room. It was quite a heavy dose of culture shoved in our face right from the start! Good fun.

The locals crowding their way off the ferry arriving in Freetown.

But walking on the ship, the immediate contrast of the cold and dry, air conditioned air was an amazing relief from the warm, heavy and sticky outside air. I don’t think angels were actually singing, but it sure felt like it to me! The ship hospitality people took charge right away with paperwork and process orientation. It is impressive how well organized they were and how thorough the systems they have in place are.
So after a very long journey, Joe and I were shown to our room – which was like a small little hotel room with our own bathroom. We were exhausted, but neither of us could hold back the giddiness of relief we felt after walking on the ship and seeing where we’ll be staying. We finally hit the hay just after midnight.

Unpacking our bags that first night, the smile of relief on Joe's face says it all. We could see right away that we would be living like kings on this trip. One of the first things Joe told me when we reached our room is that he had definitely chosen the right trip to come on!

Tuesday Sept 6:
Waking up in the morning after a full night’s sleep was a huge blessing. I still couldn’t get over how nice it was to be sleeping in an air conditioned room with a fan on – actually we had two fans on! The normal ‘gut check’ I have to do when I wake up on trips was not there – it is nice having Joe here with me, and coupled with staying in a nice, comfortable place it definitely softens the blow of being gone from home.
After breakfast (cinnamon rolls –are you kidding me?!), we had an opening meeting with the team and then programming meeting with the Mercy Ships guys. It didn’t last nearly as long as typical programming meetings simply because this is a different kind of trip – assessing and recommending water, wastewater, and power system improvements for the three hospitals.
We then met Dulce, our Honduran host who will be our main point of contact while we’re here. She’s a fun gal with a great outgoing personality.
Dulce gave us a tour of the ship and it was impressive – over 450 people housed on the 500-foot-long ship, a library, several lounges, a full cafeteria, a café donated by Starbucks so Starbucks coffee is served free with very cheap specialty drinks, full laundry services, and a small swimming pool up on the top deck. All of this of course exists to sustain the families who live on the ship to work in the fully functioning hospital down on deck 3.

Meeting with some of the Mercy Ships folks to kick off the trip that first morning.

The Starbucks cafe on the right with the ship store in the background. This mid-ship area was the main lounging area on the ship and where we spent a lot of time on board.

The hospital on deck 3 has 6 surgical rooms where they do eye surgeries, orthopedic surgeries, and facial surgeries (mostly to remove tumors). They work in conjunction with the local hospitals, helping to fill in the gaps that exist as well as to work on catching up with the huge backlogs there. They also provide training for local doctors on the ship and employ a number of local people to work on the ship. They are typically docked for 10 months, during which time 3000 people receive their sight back with corrective surgery that fixes their blindness from cataracts. What an amazing ministry!

Leaving the ship and entering 'the real world' was also a very stark reminder that we weren't in America. The difference in the air on the ship and the "fresh air" outside couldn't have been more drastic - the ship had cool, dry air from the A/C, and outside was warm, extremely humid and heavy air, with plenty of airbourne dirt too.

Preparing to head out from the ship to the hospital sites. Mark Palmer, our Mercy Ships contact person, is in red. Ryan, a long-term Mercy Ships volunteer who works off-ship on various development projects, is squatting down. Mark is Canadian, and Ryan is South African.

In the afternoon, we took a tour of the three hospitals in town to get an idea of what our scope of work will be. The water, wastewater and power systems will be our primary focus, as well as a structural evaluation of the buildings to make sure they are worthwhile of system upgrades.
Traffic in Freetown is terrible, so it took an hour to get to the one hospital that is 3 km (2 miles) from the ship. The other two hospitals share a site that is about a 10 minute walk from the ship, so that will be convenient. We met the important hospital players and introduced ourselves as we took a brief tour of the facilities. Doing an assessment of one of these hospitals in the 10 days we’ll be here would be a huge task. Doing THREE assessments will be a major undertaking. Fortunately, we have a very experienced team here (3 engineers on our team have over 30+ years of experience) so I am really excited to see them work their magic! Tomorrow begins the real work.
One other nice perk about the ship is that it has a phone with a Florida number. People on board can purchase a $10 phone card to call home (using the phones in our rooms!) for about 3-cents per minute! So tonight, I got to talk to Alisha and catch up with her and the boys. Things are going well back home, though the boys are always a little ‘off’ while I’m gone, and Alisha’s job is 10x harder. I do miss those 4 special people!
Weds Sept 7:
Today we broke up into two teams to visit the sites. I went with all the civil engineers and one electrical engineer to the ODCH/PCMH site. The site has two hospitals on it, but shares water, sanitation and power systems so we are treating it as a single site. We spent the day with the local maintenance guys who showed us around the property.

Walking up 'Bad Boy Lane', between the ship and the closer of the two hospital sites (about 1/2 mile). I suggested a name change for the road to help improve neighborhood pride!

The water, wastewater and power systems on the site are not functioning well, and we saw several instances where simple solutions would make a big difference. Some interesting observations from the day were:
* The main site electrical panel has no cover and sits about 20 feet from the front of the hospital. Our electrical engineer pointed this out to them as an immediate hazard and life safety issue. If anyone got to close, the power could ‘arc’ over to them and they would be dead.
* In one location, a septic tank on site had been overflowing each day. They discovered that a nearby break in a water line was filling the tank with water. To ‘fix’ the situation, the maintenance crew installed an overflow pipe that allowed the top of the tank to drain into an open-air, concrete drainage trench that runs through the site (in other words, allowing raw sewage to flow openly in the trench). Earlier in the day, one of our engineers had observed a woman who was washing clothes with the water in that ditch reach down and scoop a handful of the water into her mouth for a drink (probably assuming it was just rainwater).
* We saw several situations where the hospital had equipment (generators, oxygen systems, etc.) that was not working and had been out of operation for months or years. One generator had never been used before, just setting there next to the panel in one of the power rooms because they had run into difficulty in hooking it up.
* In one of the children’s wards we walked in, it was heart-wrenching to see all the young toddlers laying sick in their hospital beds with their mothers layed out on the ground or a small chair, sleeping beside them. I felt for these poor mothers, who love their children no less than I love mine but are unable in many instances to get their children the care they need. What a hopeless, terrible position to be in – I can imagine few things being worse.
* One little boy had a large tumor growing on the front of his face, beneath the skin at his cheekbone. The tumor disfigured his face in a manner that caused his left eye and cheek to bulge out significantly to the side of his face. I asked and the doctor said he had a form of cancer and would begin radiation soon. He was very smiley though, and I could tell his attitude on life was way happier than I know mine would be if I were in his predicament.
One positive thing about our visit is that there is a young Dutch doctor, Sandra, who is working there in partnership with the hospital. She actually grew up on a Mercy Ship as an MK (‘Missionary Kid’) and is now a doctor herself, having lived in Sierra Leone for nearly 6 years now. She works for an aid organization that has an office at the hospital, providing support and working on improving infrastructure with the local hospital doctors and administrators. She is doing great work there and is a perfect example of how missionaries can and should be partnering with locals to meet the needs of the people. She is very thankful that our EMI team is here to help sort through some of the technical issues that she has been working on while feeling deficient technically since it’s out of her area of training.

Sandra, the missionary doctor, shown here with the EMI water engineers figuring out the water delivery system on the site.

A pretty well designed water tower supporting two water tanks...both tanks sit empty due to broken pumps.

Very nice laundry facilities at one of the hospitals...except for the fact that they broke down over a year ago and haven't been used since. All hospital washing is now done by hand.

Some of the laundry is done in these trenches...the same trenches the septic tanks drain into.

Also, in the evening, we had a very productive meeting with the main Mercy Ships players. We were able to each share our expectations for the project and communicate that we’re all on the same page – what a crucial development for our team and the ministry to see that we’re all of a singular mindset on what our team is doing here. What a blessing it is to be working with design professionals who truly are at the top of their field.

The trash (including medical waste) dump site out back of one of the hospitals. The trash beach in the background is part of a housing development. The water is the Atlantic ocean, which in this case is serving as a major trash depositing spot for the city of Freetown. The pollution is staggering.

...trash from a different angle.

Figuring out the water storage system on top of the roof of a 3-story building where the main water tank is located.

A couple of the many open trenches on the site, designed for rainwater runoff, but being used for the sewer system as well. Obviously, that's not good.

Talking through things while we tour the site

Sierra Leone trip

2011-08-31T10:02:00.000-07:00

This Sunday, September 4th, I fly out on my next project trip to Freetown, Sierra Leone!

I described the project in my previous post so if you want to learn more about it, see below under 'Late Summer Update...".

The 'Africa Mercy' - Mercy Ships' floating hospital that has been docked in Freetown, S.L. since January 2011. We'll be staying on the ship and heading into town each day to assess the three hospitals (pictured below). ...It goes without saying that our accommodations for this trip will be "slightly" more comfortable than on most other EMI trips.

As always, please pray for Alisha and the boys who are left behind. In many ways, the sacrifice they make during these trips far exceeds anything I have to endure. The craziness of our Summer has now given way to the even crazier-ness of the Fall! School and soccer are both back in full swing so free time is at a premium and just getting through the day is an achievement. With me gone for nearly two weeks, Alisha will more than have her hands full getting the boys out the door for school in the morning and shuttled around town for practices in the afternoon/evenings. In some ways, going on the project trip is a respite for me...at the expense of Alisha's schedule being turned upside down! So please pray for her and the boys.

Of course, we'd also appreciate your prayers for me and the team's travel and time in Sierra Leone. This is a very different kind of EMI trip, and our scope of work for our time in-country is pretty aggressive. Pray for safety in travel, health as we tour the three government hospitals there, and efficiency and wisdom as we try to do our best to serve the needs of Mercy Ships.

The weather is also not ideal right now - it's the end of the rainy season and they get a huge amount of rain there (on average, 26 inches of rain in September alone!). Pray that our efforts won't be hampered by bad weather.

Here are some pictures of the three hospitals in Freetown, Sierra Leone that we'll be evaluating. Each campus has several buildings, so these are just a few of the many buildings we'll be looking at.

Ola During Children's Hospital

Princess Christian Maternity Hospital

Connaught Hospital

Late Summer Update...

2011-08-18T08:15:00.000-07:00

Summer Haiti Project
Interns Brett and Stacy did a great job of finishing the project report in a very shortened semester. It was completed, bound and sent off to CEDAN by the end of July! The report will make it's way to Haiti in the coming weeks as a CEDAN team heads back to the site.

Fall Project
My fall project trip is to Sierra Leone to work with a well established ministry called Mercy Ships. Up until last week, it was looking like it would be postponed until early November. However, in the 11th hour, I found an electrical engineer to round out the team so we are back on schedule for departing September 4th thru 16th. We have a smaller team of 8 due to limitations on accommodations since we'll be staying on the Africa Mercy, Mercy Ships' primary floating hospital ship.
Mercy Ships docks their ship all over Africa for months at a time, providing medical care for the local people with the help of volunteers doctors and nurses. They also provide training for the local health care practitioners, but have seen through the years that this training is often marginalized when the locals doctors return to substandard facilities. So they approached the governement of Sierra Leone and asked if they could work on upgrading the governement hospitals there.
As a result, they contacted EMI to come do an evaluation of the these hospitals (there are 5 and we'll be evaluating the first 3, which are all in the capital city of Freetown - the remaining 2 rural hospitals will be looked at by a future team). So, we'll have our work cut out for us to evaluate 3 large facilities with just 11 days in-country, but I have a very experienced and qualified team to do it. We have 3 civil engineers, 2 electrical engineers, and a structural engineer to help myself and an EMI intern. (As a sidenote, the structural engineer is my brother-in-law Joe LaBrie who will be joining his first EMI trip. I'm very excited to have Joe coming along!)
This is a different type of EMI trip and it is a very special opportunity to work with both Mercy Ships and the government of Sierra Leone. Please pray for wisdom, efficiency and effectiveness for our team.

Disaster Response
You may have read about the growing disaster in the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan) due to the drought and subsequent famine. The region only received 10% of normal rainfall this year and though it hasn't been in the news much, it is a very serious situation. One UK report released a few days ago predicts that over 400,000 children alone could die in the next couple of months due to starvation.
So, EMI's Disaster Response program is partnering with CRWRC (Christian Refromed World Relief Committee) by sending over a civil engineer to help set up some temporary water and sanitation systems to help in the region. CRWRC received a large grant from the Canadian government to fund this work, so they contacted EMI for the technical expertise.
I have been recruiting prospective volunteers for this position and earlier this week we found a very qualified civil engineer who is able to go. Time is of the essence in this situation, so the volunteer is departing for Kenya tomorrow (Friday) and will be there for 3 weeks. The need is for up to 3-4 months, so we'll continue to recruit to fill the position for the duration of the need.

EMI Staff Conference
Last week, the entire world staff of EMI gathered up in Estes Park at the YMCA camp for our World Staff Conference - the first one in 7 years. Over 130 people (staff and children) met to connect, discuss the future of EMI, and share our highs and lows. It was so neat to finally meet everyone in EMI, and especially nice to reconnect with all the East Africa staff and families.

Back to school
Alisha returned to work last week to prepare for school, which started this morning! The boys were exciting and ready for another year! Where did the Summer go?!

'Glory, Glory Man United!'
(That's the official team song, fyi!) Last Sunday, Manchester United opened the new season with a 2-1 win to begin their defense of last season's 19th Premier League title! Happy times around the Crawford household!

Go Ducks!
We are anxiously awaiting the start of the new Oregon Ducks' season - the opener is at Texas Stadium in Dallas against LSU! We're ranked 3rd and LSU is ranked 4th in the pre-season poll! ...is it any wonder that Fall is by far my favorite time of year!!

Thanks!
...once again for your faithful prayers and support! We are so blessed by all of our supporters. God continues to meet our needs through all of you and we are so grateful for, and humbled by, your faithfulness and generosity!

Haiti Trip - part III of III

2011-07-17T15:14:00.000-07:00

The main highway that bordered our site - the line of buildings at middle left is the CEDAN compound. So lush and green and full of potential.

(the rest of the pictures in this post are below, after the text)

Saturday June 11th
The only word I think I need to describe today is HOT. It was a clear blue sky all day for the first time and we suffered for it! The humidity is still alive and well though maybe a tad less, but the sun made it very hot. Nonetheless, we took a ride into the nearest town of Limbe, which is about 15 minutes up the road. We all piled into the back of the pickup truck again, which actually felt nice since it was at least moving air! The town seemed a lot like a typical African town, with lots of motorcycle taxis and a big market selling everything under the sun. We walked all around the town, visiting a local church, hospital, and lots of smaller little streets. It really was a good look at a typical Haitian town.
One significant happening this morning was that the water pump broke. The water tank had only about 1/4 tank in it when we discovered it. Volunteer Kirk worked with the guys all morning and determined that they needed a new pump (even though the current pump is just 6 months old!). The ministry was running low on cash so a couple of the volunteers donated about $250 towards the $3-400 pump. After returning from Limbe mid-afternoon, the pump arrived shortly thereafter only for us to discover that it didn’t come with the right plumbing fitting! (Uncanny how similar this place is to Africa in so many ways!) So at 4:00pm, they sent someone to fetch the right part, if possible. We rationed water all day, and tried not to use the toilet since there is no pit latrine as a backup plan! It’s funny, today is presentation day for the team and yet our focus most of the day has just been on getting the essential utilities up and running (power and water – oh yes, I failed to mention that the power was out all day as well).
We were very ready for the presentation today – in fact we easily could have presented yesterday. But a couple people had some last minute work to finish, so it was good that they weren’t rushed.
The presentation went well, but was definitely an interesting experience. We all piled into a pickup truck with a number of Haitians along as well – 21 people in all in a truck about the size of a Toyota Tundra! It was about a 20-minute ride to the nearby university where we were to give the presentation. When we got there, it was still very hot and muggy, but we got introduced to the university president (who is on the CEDAN board) and he wanted to give us a tour of the site. Well, the site was huge – maybe 20-30 acres of lush jungle that had been knocked down into a beautiful setting. We ended up walking around for nearly an hour, carrying our computers and wondering when we’d ever get to the presentation!
Finally, Nicely came and got us and led us to a computer room that had a projector. One big, pleasant surprise for us was that the room had a window-mount A/C unit! It was like heaven in there – I immediately instructed the team to increase their 5-minute presentations to 15-20 minutes to maximize our time in that room! :)
The presentation went very well – they were speechless. They didn’t ask any questions (which always makes me a little nervous) but they were overjoyed. At the end of the slideshow, Phyllis played a ‘fly-thru’ movie of the site – I’ve posted it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP6GVBIFOBg . I’ve never had one of those done before on a trip so it really was a fun thing to show them. It’s basically a 3D computer model of their site, which she had rendered (colored) and even added people. You then film a movie that’s as if you were a bird, flying around and thru the site and showing it from every angle imaginable. They were amazed and very happy – Phyllis and Jeremy really did a nice job on it.
The one bad thing for the team though is that we’re out of water and the new water pump is not working. So, we have no toilets and no showers for the night – that’s never a fun situation to be in. They did manage to get us some buckets to flush a couple times with, but no showers. Oh the joys of missions work! Maybe someday God will lead me to minister to the rich and famous and we’ll do project trips in their mansions – anything for the cause! :)
Sunday June 12th
With no water and toilets available to us this morning, I awoke at just before 5am to see if I could find a way for the team to use the restroom when they woke up (there’s no daylight savings time in Haiti, so it starts getting light around 4:30am and gets dark at just after 7pm – it made me realize how much sense Daylight Savings Time makes).
So I brought the four empty buckets from the bathroom down and asked the guards if they could find water somewhere nearby. Thankfully, they were eager to help so they immediately left the compound to find some. In the end it all worked out, but with a number of team members feeling the effects of a stomach bug not having a toilet was not an ideal situation!
We hired a large flat-bed truck to pick us and our luggage up and transport us into Cap Haitian for our closing time. The driver of the truck was used to trying to make time on his route from Port au Prince to Cap Haitian, so he was driving like a maniac! Since we were all standing in the back of the truck, it made for a thrilling and exhausting hour-long ride back to the city as we held onto the metal railing for dear life while the driver swerved and sped his way down the bumpy dirt road!
When we arrived at the hotel, it turned out to be pretty nice – especially since the rest of the city is in such poor condition. We checked into our air conditioned rooms and almost decided to skip the planned trip to the beach because it felt so good after a week of being hot and sticky with no relief. But 8 of us stuck with the beach plan, and though it meant another 40 minutes (one-way) of time in the back of the truck, it was well worth it as the beach was very fun. It was really the only glimpse remaining of yesteryear, when Haiti was once a wealthy destination spot for European vacationers. The beach was nice and the water was beautiful and warm. I’d never been to the Carribean Sea before, so it was a nice treat. We also took a pretty large contingency from the ministry along with us – the 5 guards who came at Henri’s insistence to make sure we were safe (I didn’t feel threatened at all), as well as a number of gals who had helped during the week. It was really fun to see them enjoy something that they rarely if ever get to do.
That evening, after returning from the beach, we had a nice team dinner at the hotel and then gathered for our final closing meeting. Game 6 of the NBA finals was on in the bar in the room next to us, so I know a few team members were a little torn! But the meeting went very well and was a great way to wrap up our time together. This was a special team (aren’t they all?) and some of the relationships formed will surely extend beyond the trip. Conditions-wise, it might have been my toughest trip to date. But the people God gathered together to form the team made up for any physical difficulties we encountered. The meeting lasted about 3 hours, so our beds in the air conditioned rooms were calling our names pretty loudly by that point.
Monday June 13th
After a quick breakfast, we were picked up at 7am by ‘the truck’ to head to the airport 25 minutes away. While at breakfast, they had brought out a bag of sandwiches for us which we hadn’t ordered. When we told them we hadn’t ordered any, they just said that they were for us. Well, we really didn’t want them, so when the truck showed up with the 5 CEDAN guards, the team had the idea to give them to the guards. The guards undoubtedly hadn’t eaten breakfast, so they devoured two sandwiches each. But shortly afterwards, the waiters came out and informed us that the sandwiches weren’t for us afterall. Well, knowing what I know about Uganda, I figured that although we could have gotten out of paying for them – afterall, they told us they were ours – I knew that these two waiters (gentlemen in their 50’s) could very well lose their jobs over such a mistake. I decided to just pay them the $40 for the sandwiches even though the local ministry guy along with us insisted we shouldn’t have to pay. It was one of those times where you throw ‘theory’ out the window and do what your gut tells you, and mine told me that what was ‘right’ in the situation wasn’t what was best.
The travel day was just like any other, though it was nice to not have so far to go. We were very pleasantly surprised at how smooth the flights were on the small turbo-prop plane (30-seater) that took us from Fort Lauderdale to Cap Haitian and back. As we were landing back into Florida, it was amazing at the stark difference in skylines of those two cities – with the miles of high-rise hotels along Miami Beach greeting us.
One other thing of note was that for the first time in a long time, I got sick at the start of the flight back to Denver. We didn’t fly out until 6pm, so the thunderstorm activity had rolled into the area by then. It was a little bumpy going up and the plane was dodging storms most of the trip, but I quickly started feeling pretty sick. When the seat belt light finally went off 45 minutes into the flight, I got into my bag and took one of my pills (I’d taken one before the morning flight but didn’t take another one before this flight, which was nearly 10 hours later). Well, much to my surprise, about 45 minutes later I felt perfectly fine. I have never recovered from motion sickness while in flight before – usually once I’m sick I’m sick for the whole day, even after I’m back on the ground. I really felt like it was an answer to prayer though as the pills have never helped me ‘recover’ before.
Landing back in Denver, Alisha and the boys were waiting for me. Since I hadn’t shaved in 9 days, I stood for nearly 10 seconds just feet away from them as they looked straight past me into the crowd trying to spot me. When they finally recognized me, the looks on their faces were priceless! Despite looking dirty and disheveled, it was so good to be back with them – it’s always my favorite part of the trip! :)

The streets of Limbe (about a 20-minute ride from our site) - it was very similar to Uganda but with a slight Caribbean feel mixed in.

We're on the right, walking the streets of Limbe

The downtown market in Limbe - it was amazing to see this in that it is exactly how the markets are in every city in Africa I've been to. It's remarkable that a place 1000's of miles away from the continent could feel and look so similar to Africa.

This was one of the main churches in Limbe -there was a small choir of people singing down below that was impressively loud given their numbers. You would've guessed it was 30-40 people singing!

The truck that drove us from the site into Cap Haitien, and then to the beach and back and finally back to the airport.

This billboard is warning of the impending doom that was to come on March 21st. Sad that people who are struggling just to survive were dragged through this mess as well. It shows how deeply the people believed that man, even spending money around the world to warn people. I hope people around them are reaching out to help as I'm sure it's pretty disorienting to find out you've been believing a lie.

In the pickup truck (not the one pictured above) on the ride into Limbe. I am straddling the tailgate of the truck - not recommended for comfort or safety!

The new pump's arrival was a joyous time...until we couldn't get it to work.

At the presentation, architect Jim explaining the 3D model of the master plan in the slide with Nicely interpreting.

The crowd was our team of 12 with around 20 Haitians.

Just before we left the site, we snagged a team photo

In the truck on the way back to Cap Haitien. Volunteer Brent (pictured here in the middle, with sunglasses) turned to me somewhere during the trip and repeated (with the hope of convincing himself to believe it), “There’s no safer place than the center of God’s will. There’s no safer place than the center of God’s will…” We all got a good laugh out of it.

The beach on the other side of the mountain from Cap Haitien - beautiful. Well mostly - there were some coves that were full of plastic bottles and other trash.

The security guys from CEDAN stayed with us whereever we went. One time, this local guy (who appeared either stoned or drunk) was smoking and came over near us. So the guard on the left walked over to him and whispered something I couldn't hear, and the guy turned around and left. I have no idea what was going on with that, but I know I wouldn't want to mess with this guy! The guards were very nice to us and took great care of us all week.

Me with my new friends (two of the CEDAN guards) - they loved practicing english so we talked a lot during the week.

Intern Stacy (on the right) was a big hit in Haiti. This group of Asian guys came over and wanted their picture with her - then a couple of them wanted individual shots with her too. We were laughing - they would put their arm around her without touching her, as if they were sneaking or something!

Cap Haitien from the ground...

...Cap Haitien from the air, on our way out

Copying pictures during the waning moments of the trip, back in Fort Lauderdale - it was nice to just be in an air conditioned building! We also noticed that the building we were in was much larger than the entire CEDAN site where we'd been living for the past week!

Haiti trip - part II of III

2011-06-30T17:44:00.000-07:00

Part picture, part rendering looking into the site with the model of the new building shown.

Wednesday June 8th
Another good night of sleep in the tent makes it official – I’m glad I bothered to pack the tent even though we were limited on baggage allowances. The water tank was overflowing when we woke up, so apparently they just let the pump run all night. What a difference a day makes – feast or famine!
Mid-morning, the contractors Kiki and Don returned to pick us up as promised yesterday. Structural Volunteer Brent and Architect Jim joined me as we piled onto motorcycles (I can’t help but call them bodas) to head out to their site. We drove up the road, which climbs a good sized mountain just a half-mile up the road from the site. The house they are building is on the other side of the mountain about 10 minutes from our site. It was fun to see more of Haiti, and doing so did nothing to discourage my opinion that it is virtually indistinguishable from Uganda (other than the roadside signs in French and Creole).
At the site, we were pleasantly surprised at how well they were building the house. As Brent and I walked around we noted the many things they appeared to be doing well, while at the same time seeing a number of small things that would be easy to do better and could potentially have a significant impact on the performance of the building in a seismic event.
At the end of the tour and after we had told them how well we thought the building was being built, they asked us to please teach them so they could learn to build better. They had mentioned this as the reason for bringing us to their site yesterday, and their humble attitudes seemed to back up their request. So it felt to me like the perfect chance to show them the few small things we had seen that could easily make a huge difference in the safety of the building. So Brent and I showed them things like how and where to overlap their rebar, how far into the concrete to place the rebar from the surface of the concrete, and how doweling can help the building stay together in the event of an earthquake. We also explained to them that using a mixture of 1/2 to 1 to 2 to 4 of water, cement, sand and rock can make their concrete much stronger than simply mixing it up by ‘feel’ or ‘eyeballing it’.
We tried to do it in as culturally sensitive a manner as we knew how, mixing in compliments and pointing out things we noticed that had been done well. In the end, they seemed moderately interested in our recommendations, so it’s difficult to know if we stepped over a cultural line somehow. Maybe they really were interested but were embarrassed to act like they didn't already know what we were saying, or maybe they only brought us to the site to show off their work!

Just like in Uganda, motorcycles are the taxi of choice in Haiti. The ride to Kiki and Don's work site was about 20 minutes up and over the mountain - a beautiful ride. (By the way, I'm not driving, I'm the second of three people on the boda!)

Me, Brent and Jim with Kiki and Don and a couple of their laborers at the site of the house they're currently building.

We boda’d back to the site, but on the way we stopped by each of the guys’ houses. They were very excited to show us their homes and meet their families. They were very modest homes – wood and mud shacks and extremely poor by Western standards. It was an honor though that they invited us in to see where they lived. They also tried to gather as many people nearby to introduce us to!
The rest of the day was mainly a typical work day, though just before our 8pm dinner the water tank ran out again. Fortunately, the pump was working so we started refilling it. But we still had to wait for 2 1/2 hours before there was enough water in the tank for us to start taking showers. Just another day in the life of living in a developing country. It makes you think sometimes, why was I so lucky to be born in a country where I don’t have to deal with such basic concerns day in and day out. I am grateful for it, but it’s hard to comprehend fully. These are people just like you and I, yet they have been dealt a very harsh reality to have to live with. Seeing the builder’s houses today drove this point home even further. Here are a couple of guys who are skilled laborers and have pretty good jobs, living in these mud/wood houses that are dark, reek of mildew and have very few of the conveniences we not only have but seem to replace every few years to get the latest and greatest model of. But I’ve noticed that the Christians I meet in these countries have joy overflowing from them in ways that a lot of people back home rarely or never experience. So really, I suppose it’s reasonable to ask who should pity who? It does bring up a lot of unanswerable theological questions though, such as why I was lucky enough to be born into not only a "wealthy" (by the world's standards, not by American standards) home but in a country where I have every freedom imagineable to work my way up the development ladder. Do these people in Haiti get more grace than Americans do since they've had such a tough life to live? It would seem right to me for that to be the case, but who knows.
Thursday June 9th
I supposed I could’ve mentioned the team members by now. It’s a great team and they are really smoking through the design quickly. I’ve never had a team this big so I was concerned about how it would work out, but so far it has been great.

The EMI team: (L to R by faces) Kirk, Brent, Jeremy, Stacy, Clare, Jim, Phyllis, Brett, Gary, Alan, me and Ken

The team at our dining table in the church.

The architectural team is Jim, Phyllis and Jeremy. Jim lives in Eagle, Colorado up in the mountains and is a really great guy who has really added the confident experience in design that the team needed. Phyllis is a former intern who has been amazing in modeling the site in 3D. Jeremy is on staff with EMI as a draftsman. He was on my very first project trip in Uganda back in 2006 and this is our third trip together. He’s also really good at the modeling and will be an instrumental part of us finishing the project this summer.
The civil design team is Alan and Gary with intern Brett helping. Gary is a semi-retired professor from Ohio University who is one of those guys who has a positive attitude about everything. His experience and knowledge are only surpassed by his humility. Gary also helped by doing the survey. Alan is also a really solid guy from Oklahoma who is outside the U.S. for the first time in his life. Like me, he battles missing his family on the trip but he has done remarkably well for a first-timer. Intern Brett is a very willing helper with a servant’s attitude. He’s a really solid young man.
The electrical data gathering is being handled by Kirk Singleton, who is actually a trained aeronautical engineer. Kirk is gathering the data for Jim Cathey, my long-time volunteer electrical guru who has designed my last 7 or 8 projects. Kirk wanted to come in a learning role since it was outside his normal discipline, with hopes of being able to do the design for a project next time after he learns from Jim on this one. Kirk is a really nice and capable guy who reminds me a little of my brother Bret, which of course makes me naturally drawn to him.
The structural design is being handled by Brent, another former EMI intern who originally served in the India office. Brent is a fun guy to have around with a great sense of humor (it's 'great' of course because I think he’s funny!). It is really nice to have him along so I don’t have to do the structural design! He is being helped by interns Stacy and Clare. Stacy has added a lot of comic relief to the team too (she reminds me a little of my niece Danielle who lived with us in Uganda). She has also been doing a great job leading the team during our worship times. Clare is on her second trip as an intern (she’s been in our office since January). She’s from the UK and has given some balance to us crazy Americans.

Interns Stacy, Brett and Clare (L to R)

Last but not least is Ken, as in Ken Berry, my father-in-law. It’s been really fun to have him along on the trip. As the senior member of the team, he has been fully game for whatever the team is doing – even sleeping in the tent camp in the back building and going on a walk/hike up a steep road with some of the team to see some of the region from above. His role on the team has been varying day to day, but he’s had a great attitude and willingness to do about anything. So, that's the team.
We had a busy work day today, but by the end of the day we are in really good shape for finishing most all our work by the presentation on Saturday. It’s really fun to be a part of a group of talented people using their skills, especially when it’s for the noble cause of helping this local ministry. I do feel blessed to be a part of what this EMI team is accomplishing here.
Friday June 10th
This morning we awoke to a sunny day – the first one of the trip so far. The weather has been pretty uniform – cloudy and high 70’s/low 80’s with 90% humidity all day and night, but with afternoon rain that knocks the humidity down a bit and cools things off ever so slightly. So seeing the sun this morning isn’t necessarily a good thing – it makes me wonder how uncomfortable it might be this afternoon.

Overlooking the Acul du Nord area in northern Haiti. Beautiful, lush, and green .

By comparision, Cap Haitien is a pretty dirty place that appears to difficult to live in.

It was amazing how dirty it was, even compared to Kampala (Uganda) which I thought was very dirty. The harbor in Cap Haitien gave new meaning to the word.

In my bible reading and devotion time this morning, I was praying about being a better father (as I often think about on trips when I'm away from the boys). I was thinking about how most of the time it seems that I get stuck just living situation to situation with my boys, instead of being more intentional about imparting wisdom and building depth into their lives. I feel like one of the biggest responsibilities I have as a father is to model living a life of faith for them and encouraging them to become first and foremost, young men whose hearts and lives are patterned after that of Jesus. It sounds kind of flowery when I write it out like that, but it really is not. It’s a practical reality of learning to live each moment with God involved in your life. Spending time with Him reading the bible and praying each day is important, but I think far more important is involving Him in our lives throughout the day. One of the volunteers on the trip, Alan, quoted something his pastor said that really stuck with me. His pastor said, “I rarely spend more than 20 minutes at a time praying. But I also rarely go 20 minutes without praying.” I think that’s perfect! Too many of us Christians feel that how long or well spoken our prayers are determine their worth or even effectiveness. But I think a brief, bumbled prayer communicated from our hearts is what God is really eager to hear.
Today being our last full work day, everyone got to work in the morning after our devotion time. (Actually, 4 or 5 team members have been going on early morning hikes with Nicely, the #2 guy here at CEDAN who grew up in America and speaks perfect English. They’ve been getting up to leave at 6:30am to hike up a couple of the mountains around here.) We are really in great shape work-wise, and probably could present today if necessary. But having this ‘extra’ day will really help us finalize the report in this shortened intern semester – our goal is to complete the report before the end of July.

Me with Nicely, the guy who gets stuff done at the CEDAN site. He's about my age and is a really neat guy, speaks perfect English and has a great sense of humor.

Workin' in the work room - it was pretty dang hot and muggy in there, so it was nice when the power was on so we could have the fans blowing on us.

I’m really impressed at not only how fast the team has pulled everything together this week, but at the quality of work that’s been produced. I’ll attach pictures of the 3D site model Phyllis and Jeremy worked on – it’s amazing! Funny story – many of the Haitian workers for the ministry have seen some of the drawings the architects have produced on the computer. So today, a few of them gave us hand drawn floor plans of the homes they hope to build someday for themselves to see if volunteer Phyllis would draw them up on the computer!

The wet area of grass at the lower left corner of this picture was still wet after 3 days of no rain. The cap for the existing septic tank is near the lower right corner of this picture. Since it's never been pumped, we suspect the wet spot may be from seepage from the septic tank. The kids you see in the picture play in the grass everyday.

The wall at the bottom, made out of mortared round stone, was existing on the site before CEDAN moved there. It had actually failed just beyond where the building above was built. Still, the builders built two and a half stories of the new building on top of this wall! The rebar you see is the beginning of their idea to stregnthen the wall, which isn't a bad idea but should have been done before the building above was built! We are providing them with a design for how best to fix this situation.

Volunteers Kirk and Gary guest lectured at in an English class for adults offered at CEDAN. Gary is a retired professor from the Univ. of Ohio, and Kirk teaches some at a Jr. College in Colorado Springs.

This is how we were transported around the country all week - crammed into the back of a pickup truck. This is me, straddling the back tailgate as we drove to town, sometimes at up to 40mph. I stayed ready to jump at all times!

CEDAN - Haiti Trip June 2011

2011-06-20T12:14:00.000-07:00

From the air, Haiti is a lush Island in the Carribean Sea, some of the most beautiful water in the world. The small agricultural crops mixed in with the dense bush in the low lying areas are a hint of the potential of this once tropical paradise...

On the ground, sadly, it's a much different story. This is the view our team was greeted with as we drove through the Cap Haitien harbor on our way out of town to the CEDAN site.

Part I of III

Sunday June 5th
The interns and one of our volunteers who lives in Colorado Springs showed up at our house at 7am to leave for the airport. For the first time, Alisha and the boys drove me to the airport since Alisha’s mom was flying in later that afternoon. It was nice seeing them for a little longer this time. After dropping me off, they parked and then came in just in time to give me another hug and kiss goodbye before I headed into the security line. They watched from above as I got selected for the ‘special screening’, and then as me and the others disappeared down the escalator to head to the gate.
When we landed in Florida, stepping off the plane was my first experience with humidity (something I would become very familiar with over the coming week!). We shuttled to the hotel and waited for the team to arrive, which happened over the next couple of hours. After walking across the street to get dinner, we met and shared our stories to get to know one another before heading to bed early – the shuttle was coming at 3:30am!

Monday June 6th
Waking up at 3:00am (which was actually 1:00am Colorado time) wasn’t fun, but the team was all up and ready to go for the shuttle. We arrived 10 minutes early at the airport to find that we weren’t even the first people there for the flight! Another group looked as if they’d stayed at the airport all night. Check-in didn’t take too long, so we had plenty of time to kill. But as we were waiting, these two Haitian guys carried in two crates of chickens who were making all kinds of noise to voice their displeasure! It was funny, sitting in a US airport and hearing roosters crowing (even before dawn!) – it was a reminder that soon we would be landing in a place that was a world apart from the US.

In the airport in Fort Lauderdale. Each of the two wooden boxes contain 5 chickens, all of which were noisily notifying us what time of day it was! I wouldn't have thought anything of it if I were in Uganda or Haiti, but it was a little surreal experiencing it in Fort Lauderdale, Florida!

The flight to Cap Haitien was surprisingly smooth given the small, double-prop plane (30 seater). When we landed and checked in with immigration, we discovered that our bags hadn’t made the trip – we were told they would follow on a later cargo flight. We finally found the ministry contact, a young guy named Nicely who had grown up in Florida but returned to Haiti after college. He spoke perfect english, so that was nice since most everyone to that point spoke very little. We all piled into a large pickup truck bed and held on for the hour-long ride to the site.
Driving through Cap Haitien I couldn’t believe how much it reminded me of Uganda. Everything from the sites, sounds, smells – even the boda bodas everywhere. In fact, as the day went on, the only difference I noticed was the language.

Riding through the streets of Cap Haitien with ministry contact Scott and Nicely, a Haitian-born US citizen who was a tremendous logistical help for our team throughout the week.

I could have easily been in sub-saharn Africa. The similarities with Haiti were striking.

Arriving at the site, we were greeted with a lot of busy-ness. Kids running and playing everywhere, adults sitting around in the shade watching – privacy was definitely not going to be a part of the next week of our lives! The site is about an acre or so, with three large existing buildings and several small ones scattered around the perimeter. The guest house is at the front of the compound, with the front wall being the perimeter wall of the site. The road passes just outside the wall so it can be very loud with the trucks driving by. Because of that, Scott recommended that we bring tents and sleep in the new, open-air church building in the back. Some of us will do that while others are choosing the guesthouse.

From the Guesthouse at the front of the site looking to the back. It is a rare picture to not have 100 kids plus adults filling the site. The white building is the one being torn down and redesigned by the EMI team. The concrete building in back is where we pitched our tents.

We dubbed this 'The Boy Scout Camp' - me, Brett, Alan and Alisha's dad Ken each slept in tents. The ministry brought out some carpet to put down to protect out tents - fortunately the rainstorm on the first night showed us exactly where and where not to set up our tents.

Every morning, a group of arriving school kids would come and just watch us in our tents around 7:00am. Since I only had screening for walls, it made getting dressed tricky. I finally just started waking up earlier to avoid the crowds!

Some notable events of the day:
* Their new wireless internet connection wasn’t working, so who better than a bunch of engineers to fix it! After a few hours of tinkering, a couple of our volunteers had it all setup and working great.
* It poured rain right before dinner, so we all got drenched running from the guesthouse back to the church to eat dinner. Soon water had covered most of the site and was even seeping into the church building. Fortunately for us, we had yet to set up our tents so by the time the rain was over we could see exactly where *not* to set them up! I think that little blessing was from God, as He knows how much I hate camping in the rain. If my tent had been drenched on day 1, that would have made for a long week!

The site, under seige from a big rainstorm. By the time it finished raining, the entire area you see was underwater. I heard the next day that some people had died down in Port au Prince from mudslides caused by the storm.

* I never knew what humidity was until now. It’s between 90-100% humidity at all times here right now. Even though the temperature is only in the 80’s, it is very uncomfortable!
* I used a big chunk of my baggage weight allowance on a 10-inch fan with 8 D-sized batteries. I was thinking it was excessive, but when I layed down in my tent to sleep with the heavy, wet air, I was so happy with that decision!
* We did our usual walk-through and programming meeting, and the architects were already plotting their schemes at night. Tomorrow will be the first main day of work.
* The team is great – my biggest yet at 12 people. We have a lot of professional experience here so that is a big blessing. They all have really good attitudes too, which is crucial since Haiti is not an easy place to come live for a week.
* Funny story: One of my jobs with EMI now is to teach the cultural training session during our 10-day orientation for new staff and interns. In this training, we talk about many of the different cultural continua that exist around the world, including how in some cultures ministry leaders or business CEO’s do not delegate tasks to subordinates, but rather do everything themselves. Haiti is very much one of these cultures, and we have seen this first hand. We had been trying to get ahold of Henri, the director of CEDAN, for over an hour today to start our programming meeting, but we could not get him over to the room. Every time we got him, he would get a phone call or someone would stop to ask him something. Well, when we finally got him to the table and started the meeting, but sure enough about 10 minutes in he got a phone call. He answered it and was quiet for a second, and then proceeded to spell, “B-u-s-i-n-e-s-s”, and then hung up! We were in hysterics - someone in the ministry had actually called just to ask him how to spell a word! I realized then and there that his time would be at a great premium this week.

The work room.

Tuesday June 7th
Sleeping in a tent in the back building turned out to be a good idea. Bringing a 10” battery powered fan turned out to be a great idea as I slept straight through the night. Without the fan, I probably would have really struggled to go to sleep in the hot, muggy and still air. After reading a bit and writing up the blog from the day before, we gathered as a team and sang some worship songs before doing a devotional on Psalm 139. The team continues to impress me with their openness and good attitudes. It’s always nice when people are willing to be vulnerable early on in the trip – it makes for quick relationship building and unity on the team.

Work-wise, today was a very productive day, with all 12 team members plugged into their roles and getting to work. It was still very muggy but not quite as hot as the day before – mostly because it started raining early on and that keeps things cool.

Alisha's dad (left) with volunteer Gary surveying the site, the 'old-school' way!

Volunteer Alan and I explain the percolation test procedures with CEDAN ministry director Henri. Henri spoke pretty good English, but Creole is the native language to Haiti so most people we met outside the CEDAN compound didn't speak English.

Working on a site with 160 school kids running around much of the day was challenging, as volunteer Alan and intern Brett learn first hand in this picture.

Checking in with Henri after some initial design concepts were created. Henri was so thankful to have us there that he didn't want to give us any negative feedback on the preliminary, even though we essentially begged him to tell us what he might like to do differently. In the end, he remained in that posture despite our best attempts to reassure him that we wanted him to critique our plans to ensure our design met their specific needs.

So here are some more highlights (and lowlights).
* The two contractors who built two of the existing structures showed up on the site today – Wildon (‘Don’) and Daniel (‘Kiki’). We walked around with them for a couple of hours, talking and asking them questions. They were very humble and wanting to learn, but I explained to them that we wanted to learn from them too so our designs would be useful to them when it came time to build. They asked us to come visit another work site tomorrow to see a house they were building right now.
* The power was out all but an hour today, so we were consistently having to turn on the generator to charge laptops.
* The water ran out this evening too, and then the pump broke, so we were without water for a few hours. We weren’t sure if it would be on tonight, so we had nowhere to go to the bathroom for awhile and couldn’t shower. After a muggy day, not being able to shower would make for tough sleeping, but not having a toilet to use for an extended time could have been really bad. Fortunately, they were able to get it fixed around 9:30pm!
* I’m really enjoying getting to know and observe some of the Haitian people, especially the guys working within the ministry. There are so many similarities with the Ugandan culture I very easily forget where I am.

The new building we're designing includes a medical clinic so procedures like this one don't have to take place in unsterilized environments.

Off to Haiti!

2011-06-05T18:20:00.000-07:00

Me and 11 other team members have landed safely in Fort Lauderdale for the night. We awake at 3am to go to the airport to fly out to Haiti at 6:30am. We'll be in Haiti until next Monday June 13th. Your prayers for a safe and successful trip are appreciated! Updates of the trip to follow after we return...

Update - May 2011

2011-05-11T13:38:00.000-07:00

Sunrise on the ARU site - a new day is dawning on this land in more ways than one. (Sorry, I know that's corny, but it's still a beautiful picture!)

After nearly three months of design work after our project trip in early February, the Africa Renewal University (ARU) report is now complete, bound and in the mail! I thought I’d include a few pictures of the final documents to show the good work our volunteers and interns did in finishing this report. ARU is up and running on the site, with capacity for nearly 300 students in session. Some of the work outlined in our report has already begun, and they are planning to fast-track the building process to complete the master plan in the next 5 years. It is really exciting to be a part of such a fast growing ministry!

The project report cover sheet

Some of the work outlined in our report has already begun, and they are planning to fast-track the building process to complete the master plan in the next 5 years. It is really exciting to be a part of such a fast growing and motivated ministry! If you're interested in following along with them on Facebook, search for 'Gaba Bible Institute' (the previous name).

The Master Plan for the site developed by the EMI team

An aerial view of the proposed site plan

Another aerial view - our model doesn't fully account for the slope on the site since it wasn't necessary to include for planning purposes (of course, our design drawings that will be used for construction clearly show the slope on the site)

The recent graduating class at ARU. The next class of students is even larger. A great quote taken from ARU's facebook page that underscores the importance of this project: "If every Christian training institute in the world operated at 120% of capacity, less than 10% of the unequipped leaders would receive training."

Haiti trip update: On June 5th, myself and 11 volunteers will head out to Limbe, Haiti, for my next project trip. We will be working with CEDAN, a Haitian ministry that is serving the needs of the people in the Acul du Nord region outside of Cap Haitian in Northern Haiti. The primary focus of the trip will be designing a new multi-use building for the ministry, as well as giving them water, power and site master planning recommendations to maximize their capacity to minister in the area. The trip is relatively short (we return home on June 13th) and so is our turn-around time (we need to finish by the beginning of August), so we’ll be working hard this week to complete most of our work in-country.
Here’s a pdf booklet we put together for the trip, including pictures and biographies about the ministry and each of the EMI trip participants. Thanks for your prayers during our trip! (note: some of the text got jumbled in the pdf to jpg conversion process, but it was just the title information so I posted it anyway. Also, because it's in Microsoft Publisher's 'booklet' format, the pages appear out of order though they wouldn't be if you were binding this into a booklet! Probably TMI, but in case anyone's bothered by it!)

What's going on with the Crawfords...

2011-04-20T08:28:00.000-07:00

Part II of II

The Thorn
Every year around Easter, New Life Church here in Colorado Springs puts on a production called ‘The Thorn’. It’s the story of Jesus in theatrical form, and covers a brief synopsis of the history of the bible with the focus on Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Last week, I went to see it while Alisha took the boys to a similar but rated-G version of the production called ‘The Crown’.
I have to say, it was one of the most powerful things I’ve experienced. The quality of the production was on par with Broadway – I couldn’t believe how well done it was, with a cast of nearly 400 and professional dance-fighters, pyrotechnics, and other special effects.
Seeing the reenactment of Jesus’ flogging and crucifixion in person was something I’ll never forget. In the production, Jesus wore a lead vest to protect him from the whipping, but apparently, it doesn’t protect him from 100% of the blows. Anyway, it was very graphic and violent so it was certainly not for kids, but the overall message of hope in the production was very moving. It really brought the story of the gospels alive for me and for that reason I am very glad I went. Alisha and I actually returned the next night so she could see it too.
For some reason, seeing Jesus depicted as a normal guy, with excitement, anger, a sense of humor and passion had an impact on how I view him. I think too often we see Jesus portrayed as a meek and ‘holy’ person, but an honest reading of the bible shows much more of an everyday guy, with sarcasm and wit often mixed into the stories he told. I guess I’ve always pictured him to be kind of like a young pope, but I think that’s not at all how we was and seeing him portrayed as a normal guy in ‘The Thorn’ was a good visual reminder for me that Jesus was fully God and fully 'man' - not fully pope! I’m even convinced if he were living on earth today he’d be a Manchester United fan, and possibly even an Oregon Ducks fan too! ...Ok, I sense that I may be getting a little carried away.

Church
We’ve decided to make New Life Church our regular church here in Colorado Springs. It’s a giant church (around 10,000 members), but both Alisha and I feel that the teaching of the pastor Brady Boyd is a good fit for what God is doing in each of our lives at this time. If you’ll remember, this church has gone through two major ‘death blows’ in the past 5 years – first with the widely publicized moral fall of its founder and head pastor Ted Haggard, and then with the shooting one Sunday where two people were killed (three including the young gunman).
But Pastor Brady (though he asks to be just called Brady) came in about 3 years ago, up from Gateway church in Texas, and has really done a great job of bringing humble leadership and a very down to earth preaching style that we both really appreciate. Our boys really like the children’s program too, which was of utmost importance to us coming back from Uganda. Finally, looking ahead, they have a very active and impressive junior high and high school student ministry, so we are happy to have landed there. Actually, it's the first church we tried and we really didn't feel compelled to look around much (we attended one other church for a Sunday, which was also good but not the 'fit' we were looking for).
We weren’t necessarily looking to be in a mega-church, but with intention we have started to meet people and are excited to get involved with serving. Last week was our first time at a couple’s bible study at the church, so we’re excited to finally be meeting some people our age with kids of similar age.

Soccer
All three boys have started soccer practices with games on Saturdays. Alisha and I are playing as well, together in an indoor league on Saturday nights, and me on an outdoor mens’ team Sunday afternoons. We can’t complain too much as we do all love soccer, but the past couple of weeks have started a new phase of craziness in our lives as this is the first time that we have all three boys signed up for different teams. Brodie and Jonah each practice twice during the week and Graysen practices once, and on Saturday’s all three boys have games. I had to make up a spreadsheet for the game schedule to figure out how we get all three to the right fields at the right times! We’re not too excited about the sudden busyness of our schedule though, and we are ever mindful of our intention upon returning to the U.S. to not get caught up in the hecticness that plagues so many families in our culture. We thought that limiting each boy to one activity at a time would be a good strategy, but this soccer schedule has shown even that to make for a challenging schedule.
Beyond soccer, Alisha and I have each been mentoring an EMI intern this semester. Alisha’s intern is a young, engaged civil engineering intern so they’ve been able to connect a lot about her upcoming marriage.

Strategic Development
I am a part of a team of 6 or 7 EMI staff who are working on a 15-page document that will outline EMI’s new strategic development program. Initiatives that we are researching include: providing professional development for developing world design professionals; implementing sustainable/renewable technologies in the developing world; poverty reduction projects; emphasizing working with asset-based mission organizations; and expanding our roles in both relief and development projects, to name a few. The EMI board of director’s has requested us to produce this strategic plan for the next 10 years of EMI as we look to improve and significantly broaden our involvement in ministering to the poor around the world.
Specifically, I have been tasked with researching the state of design professionals in the developing world and reporting to the committee on what trends exist in that realm. We’re looking at that to determine what further areas EMI might be able to assist and what some appropriate steps might be that we could take to implement some of the initiatives we’re considering.
I know this sounds like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, so a way of summarizing all of this is: EMI is looking at two things - how we can do what we do more effectively, and how we can do even more to help bring both the gospel and physical relief and development to the developing world.

What’s going on with the Crawfords these days...

2011-04-04T06:51:00.000-07:00

Part I of II

Winter Project trip (Uganda) update
Interns Phil and Alex have been working hard at finalizing the project report from our trip to Uganda in February. Our goal is to finish by mid May, but we are well ahead of schedule and should be done by the end of April. The volunteers did a great job of getting the majority of the design work done in country, so we’ve just been working on putting together all the drawing sheets, writing the written report, printing out the colored renderings and making sure all the different components are in place and consistent with each other. As we’ve been working on it, the ministry has been forging ahead with the work on site, so we’ve been feeding them individual documents such as the site grading plan to ensure that they can move forward while they are waiting for our final design report. It’s great to be involved with such a proactive ministry who has already started implementing our design!

Disaster Relief
EMI’s Disaster Response (DR) program is currently standing by to hear from some of our partners about the potential areas where an EMI DR team might be needed in Japan. At this time, there has been no formal request for help made to EMI. However, we have been in close communication with our relief partners and there is the potential for a future EMI DR team to be needed once the unique obstacles of this disaster are overcome. Some of these obstacles include: difficulty with access due to the limited number of Christian organizations operating on the ground prior to the disaster, a fuel shortage that is limiting movement around the country, the rapidly evolving threat of radiation exposure, the Japanese government’s control of the relief effort, as well as the difficulties with access due to the extreme infrastructural damage in the north.

The spiritual situation in Japan is quite unique. Though it is one of the most developed nations in the world, less than 1% of the Japanese people consider themselves Christians. It has historically been a very difficult place for the gospel to take root for a number of cultural and systemic reasons. The triple catastrophe (9.0 earthquake, 33 ft. tsunami wave and damage to multiple nuclear power plants) that is still unfolding in this nation of nearly 128 million citizens, though unthinkably tragic, is an extraordinary opportunity to demonstrate the love of the gospel with the Japanese people in their greatest hour of need.

Our ministry with EMI
These first months in Colorado Springs, Alisha and I have been really seeking God’s will for our future with EMI, wanting to remain open to his leading in this ministry. As the months have gone on, we have really felt like God has given us a peace about being here for this time, and has given me some specific passions about my involvement with EMI. First and foremost, I feel like God is using my experience in the East Africa office to help improve the project work we do around the world. In a nutshell, amongst other things, that means phasing and refining our project designs so they become more applicable, efficient, get out faster, and encourage the ministries to involve us in the full life of their project so the designs we provide are most useful.

Also, with the new directions EMI is headed with our strategic initiatives, this will give us more capacity to explore and implement some of the exciting ideas now being researched. In short, a number of things have confirmed in my heart that EMI is where I should be for this time in life. Whether that means I’m here for 3 years or 25 years, I don’t (and really shouldn’t know) for sure. I am very excited about my developing involvement with our Projects department (more on that in future posts) as well as our HR department (more on that later too). I have felt that my involvement with our disaster response department is something I should pull back a bit on, so we are currently looking for a disaster response director who would largely take over my duties there (though I certainly could be involved in a DR trip at some point in the future).

Anyway, thank you so much for standing with us in this ministry. As an office, we have been going through a book called ‘When Helping Hurts’, meeting weekly to discuss what implications the book has for our ministry. It is a very insightful book which provides a good assessment of some ways missions-work needs to change going forward. I would highly recommend anyone involved with missions work to read the book. But as we’ve discussed this book in detail, I have become more and more convinced that the mission of EMI is uniquely situated to have a big impact on the greater mission effort of our time. I am constantly evaluating the work we do in light of what we experienced in Uganda as well as what we’re learning about missions work in general, and the more I learn the more I am excited about what EMI does and the double impact it’s ultimately having: 1) the spread of the gospel and discipleship amongst the nations; and 2) the global humanitarian effort aimed at relieving and reducing poverty.

Next project trip: Haiti, in June
My next project trip will be a first for me – the trip is not to Africa! In early June, I’ll be leading a team of approximately 10 design professionals to Limbe, Haiti, about 40 minutes west of Cap Haitian, on the northern end of the island. The Haitian-run ministry is called CEDAN (http://www.cedanmission.org/), Centre for Evangelism and Development of Acul du Nord. CEDAN operates several schools in the area and has a variety of different ministries in operation, including medical clinics, food programs for the hungry, and bible teaching. We will be designing a new multi-use building on their ministry base site. The site is small, about 1-acre, with several existing buildings on it. One building has been condemned (unrelated to the earthquake down in Port au Prince), so we will be designing a replacement building that will house a medical clinic, school classroom, ministry offices and other ministry functions. I am really looking forward to finally going to Haiti and helping this wonderful local ministry. (Sorry no pictures this time - we'll add some soon!)

Uganda Trip - Part III of III

2011-03-05T06:20:00.000-08:00

An aerial shot of the master plan for ARU

Thursday, February 3
Sleep has been hard on this trip. I’m not totally sure why, but maybe it has something to do with bunking in the same room with 9 guys – at any point in time, at least one of us is snoring. I can’t complain too much as I’m sure I’ve probably taken my turn.
This morning after breakfast, the two interns, Alex and Phil, and I went into Kampala to return the hand auger to our office.

Overlooking Kampala - our old 'hometown'

This time, when we got into the area where we used to live, I saw a number of my Ugandan friends around. It was so fun to see these people who were such a big part of our daily lives when we lived here. The looks on their faces were so fun for me to see. Their eyes widened and huge smiles came on their faces. I saw our head of security Stephen, our administrator Semei, Joyce the seamstress down the street, Martin and Nasser the boda drivers (Martin bought my boda (motorcycle) from me when I left and it still has the Oregon ‘O’ sticker on it – he actually asked me for two more of them, which I promised I’d send to him!). I saw Sekandi – the guy who sold soccer shirts in the downtown market called ‘Owino’, and a lot of other people who I know by face only but who instantly recognized me. For instance, as I walked into Owino, which is a very large, busy and bustling market downtown, a number of vendors on the aisle where I always entered stopped me and said, “Hey, you’ve been lost! Where are your boys?” The ‘you’ve been lost’ comment is the Ugandan way of saying ‘we haven’t seen you in a long time’. I stopped and talked with each of them and told them I was living in America now, and that the boys wished they could’ve come. How strange to come all this way and feel more at home in this city than I do in my own home town (nothing against Colorado Springs, we are just still settling in here). Walking in a crowded, downtown market in a busy African city of over 2 million people, and running into a half dozen or more people who know you after 8 months is pretty amazing. It made me feel good that I had connected with those people enough that they knew me by sight after being away for so long. I also was touched just seeing these people and it really made me miss our life here.

The jersey stand in 'Owino' market, downtown Kampala. Owino is made up of hundreds if not thousands of these small second-hand and imported items. You can find a 'knock-off' version of almost anything you can imagine at Owino, and if you can bargain (i.e. not allow yourself to be bamboozled by the clever shop owners), the prices are dirt cheap!

Something I really miss from Uganda - the pineapple! They are the best I've ever tasted and they cost about 80 cents for a big one. You can just stop on the side of the road and buy fresh cut wedge slices for 10 cents each!

Things are winding down towards the presentation, and it's looking really good. The team has made great progress these last two days and we’re in good shape for finishing the project pretty quickly back at the office in Colorado. The civil engineers are almost completely done with their work, and the architects are really far along now too. So for a trip that’s working on my most difficult site yet for a project, things are in really good shape for this stage of things.
The presentation tomorrow will be for Jeff as well as the local board for the ministry. It’s the first time the board will be seeing this so hopefully things will go well – that’s a little unusual as far as presentations go, since we’re typically presenting to people who’ve seen the project work throughout the week. But the board appointed a ‘development committee’ of three persons, who then appointed Jeff (who was one of the three) to be the point person for contact with us, so he had all the authority to make decisions.

Presenting our work to the ARU board.

We did the presentation in the current Library, which will eventually be converted to a classroom.

Tonight, the power went off for a couple hours after dinner, so we decided to play an impromptu game that intern Phil taught. It was actually a drinking game called ‘21’, but obviously we played it without the drinking! It was really funny and turned out to a great team-building activity. The team has really bonded in the last couple of days so that’s been really neat to see. We have a good, diverse group – diverse in age, diverse in spiritual background, diverse in personalities, and diverse in just about everything…maybe except gender, since Anna Rose is the only woman! But it’s always fun to see who God picks for these trips, and even more fun to find out about the people and see all these different people come together to work so well. A common comment we get from locals here is astonishment that none of us knew each other before the trip. The fact that it always seems to work out pretty well is a testament to God calling people to come and those people answering that call. Either way, it really is a privilege to get to work with such incredible and talented people!
Friday, February 4
Presentation day is here! It’s been a fast week in some respects, though whenever I’m away from Alisha and the boys time always seems to go by slowly. We really were in good shape by this morning so it was just a matter of fine tuning what we had. The architects had the most to do, so they were working from early morning finalizing the master plan. We had hoped to model the entire site in Google SketchUp, a 3-D modeling program that gives you amazing 3-dimensional views of the site from any point on the site (you can even ‘record’ a fly-through movie). But, because of the steep slope and all of the grading that will have to happen on the site, one week was not enough time to complete it. Architect Gary did model everything, but only in 2-dimensions. It still looks very cool and will be an impressive part of the final project report. If it was a flat site, or even a site with only a little grade change, he would have easily been able to model it in 3-D. Intern Phil put together the powerpoint for the presentation, so people were getting him their slides throughout the day to add in. It was a very smooth day and by 5pm, we were ready to go.
We presented to the board of the school, which is made up of about 8 or 9 Ugandan men and women who are the ministry directors of their own ministries here. Some are pastors and some or directors of other organizations, but they meet about 4 times a year to discuss the business of the university. The presentation went well and was a bit unusual in that they didn’t ask very many questions. Jeff had warned us about this, that they would discuss the plans later after we were gone and that we could expect little feedback.

Volunteer Gary presenting the some of our architectural work

Volunteer Jonathan reviews the proposed water design for the ARU board.

Volunteer Rhett explaining the drainage.

But as far as we could tell, they seemed very pleased and were very complementary of us. They did ask some good questions, which was nice since it allowed us to go a little deeper and show that we had indeed done a thorough job and covered our bases. After it was over, they thanked us with a some very nice words, acknowledging the fact that this was the 4th or 5th project we’ve done for this ministry (2nd full team project, the others were smaller in-house projects the East Africa office did). They then stood up and shook our hands, and we left after just over an hour. Easily the shortest presentation I’ve had. Later this evening, Jeff stopped by and said that the presentation couldn’t have gone better! He said they were so excited they wanted to move forward with everything as fast as possible. So wow, that was very good feedback. We were a little vulnerable since they hadn’t been with us the whole week, but in the end they really loved everything we did, so it couldn’t have worked out any better.
Also, another cool thing that was different this time was that we hired David, the guy who had been our driver for the week (contracted by the ministry), to take pictures during the presentation and then to collect all of the team’s pictures from the week and put them together on a disk. He had told me earlier in the week that photography was his main interest and that he often took pictures for teams. It gave me the idea to ask him to come take pictures during the presentation as it’s always awkward for us to be trying to take pictures of ourselves while we talk to the local ministry. It really worked out well as he did a great job and we didn’t have to worry about it. Plus, we’re supporting his business by giving him work. I think I may hire him for future trips to Uganda so the team will have good quality photos and we won’t have to worry about collecting and copying them before the trip ends.
We head out tomorrow morning at 9am for Kampala and will hang around the Emmaus Guesthouse most of the day. I made us reservations at my friend John’s Japanese restaurant for dinner, so I am looking forward to that. It was one of our favorite places when we lived here.
Saturday, February 5
We drove in to Kampala early to try to miss the traffic and heat. We stopped by the Italian Supermarket for a bit to pick up some things, then continued on to the guesthouse. We spent a lot of time at that supermarket back in the day. After we had pizza delivered for lunch, we had our closing meeting under the outdoor gazebo at the guesthouse. The closing meeting is a time for the team to share with each other what their high and low points of the trip were, what God has shown them or taught them on the trip, and then how the team can be praying for them as they head out. After that, the rest of the team takes turns encouraging the person with some of what they saw during the week.

At our closing time dinner - my friend John Prado's Japanese restaurant in Kampala. It was great food!

The closing time is often people’s favorite time of the week, as it really cements the relationships between the team members and serves to bond everyone together very close as we all share a deeper side of ourselves with the team. This time was no exception – it went very well and we realized how much our team had bonded together. It really was a great group – very diverse and balanced in everything from age, talents, personalities, spiritual backgrounds and experience. We had a very difficult site to work with, but in the end we’re heading back to the office as far along on the project work as I’ve ever been after a trip.
We went out to my friend John’s Japanese restaurant here in town and it was amazing. He is a very talented chef and his food was an amazing gift after a week of eating all Ugandan food (which was good, but there is not much variety in the Ugandan diet). Unfortunately, I ate way too much and especially ate too much meat. On the way back to the guesthouse, I got a terrible stomach ache and had to run to make it to the restroom when we arrived. I am certain it wasn’t the food as after many years of many stomach aches, I’ve learned to distinguish them. Also, once I was done, my stomach felt weak but not sick, so I’m certain I just ate too much protein after not eating it for over a week.
Sunday -Tuesday, February 6-8
My time in Kampala has been really good. I’ve been able to connect with so many of our dear friends both muzungu and Ugandan, visited so many places we used to frequent, and just experienced life as we used to know it. Not very much has changed really, with the exception of the paving of our road and a few other small things. I’ve been telling everyone my reaction being back has been split: half of me thinks we were crazy to ever move away from our wonderful life here, and the other half wonders how we ever lived here at all! It’s very strange. But I have really enjoyed seeing everyone and just living life again as it once was. I feel bad for Alisha and the boys who would’ve loved to have come back with me. I think everyone here would’ve much rather had them come back for a visit than me! I’ve been apologizing to people for the fact that the least fun person in our family was the only who got to come. :)

The road we lived off of - Kiwafu Road (said "Chi-wa-fu"), now paved! Darn!

At our old church downtown - Calvary Chapel Kampala. I happened to be there the Sunday when our old next-door neighbor Brian Kelly, the head pastor there for the past 9+ years, announced to the church that their family is moving back to the USA in May. It was a big deal for the church and I was glad to be there for it. We're also looking forward to now being able to visit our good friends the Kelly's from time to time in San Diego!

Our old next-door neighbors the Kelly's (Brian and Lynne - Brian is BBQ'ing in this shot) threw a BBQ for me with many of our old friends. It was so fun to see everyone - it was strange to be there as we had many of these BBQ's at the Kelly's house while we were living there. (Our old house can be see in the background - Jonah & Graysen's old room is the far right window).

Old next-door neighbors Brian & Lynne Kelly - we miss these guys a lot, but are excited they are moving back to San Diego in May!

Some of Alisha's old friends - I'm sure they were wishing Alisha had come instead of me!

Matt, Angela and Alexis ("sugar bear") Catinella - Matt, Joe (now back home in the UK) and I used to hang out most every weekend, playing soccer for the Irish team on Saturday mornings and then watching Premier League soccer at the ARA club on Saturday evenings. He's a great friend, even though he unfortunately supports Arsenal. ;)

Many of the boys' friends - they were sad the boys weren't back visiting too. We've recently realized how much the boys miss their friends as they're now at an age where it takes a little more time to make friends (especially Brodie).

Head of Security Stephen and our househelp Monica - it was so fun to see our local staff members. Many of them had become like family to us since they were at our house so much. I brought over a small bonus/care-package from our family for each of them to let them know how much we appreciated them and how much we miss them. (Stephen never smiles in pictures - it's a cultural thing. It's ironic because he is probably one of the smiling-est people I have ever met!)

The Tuesday night basketball crew - now with a brand newly paved court! I planned the dates of our trip, in part, around being able to make it to a Tuesday night basketball! Again, so weird to be back there playing - it felt like I had never left (except for the fact that I hadn't played basketball in 8 months, so instead of being mediocre I was terrible!). It was a lot of fun playing with the guys again though - mostly the same group is still there playing. I really miss it.

Finally, last week I received this picture from Jeff at ARU. Apparently, they found a metal recycling company who actually paid them over $1000 for the tank (for scrap metal), and they even came and took it down and hauled it away! That was a lot better deal than our 'engineered' solutions for taking it down...we learn something new or creative on every trip!

Uganda Trip - Part II of III

2011-02-25T09:51:00.000-08:00

A couple of the nearby village kids who delivered our food supplies each day. It's always amazing and humbling when the local kids help out in hosting the EMI teams. The kids love interacting with Westerners and the team is always so blessed to talk and play with the local children.

Monday, January 31
Today was our first real work day. I think everyone was a little anxious to get to it, so after morning devotions and breakfast, the team split up into their various disciplines and went to work. The civil engineers split up – two of them took the hand auger out to dig bore holes for the percolation tests (these are the tests we use to figure out how well the soil will disperse the wastewater), and the other two went down the road to test the closest water sources, which happened to be the well at the church we visited yesterday and a nearby neighbor’s well. The architects got back to work on the master plan and drainage plans. We got a great look at how things are currently draining later in the day when we had our first major thunderstorm blow through.

The civil guys performing the ground percolation tests - studying how well the soil will receive the wastewater seeping out of the soak pit. If it seeps too fast, we could contaminate ground water. If it seeps too slowly, their septic tank could back up all the time.

The electrical engineer Tom started collecting data on the existing electrical systems, and Anna Rose (structural) walked the site looking at the various existing buildings to evaluate their structural integrity.
Things went pretty well for most of the day with a lot of progress in all areas, but around 4pm it clouded over (after a morning without a cloud in the sky) and an authentic Ugandan thunder and wind storm blew in, effectively shutting us down. It was the first wind/rain storm the ministry has experienced since moving onto the site in December, so they found out where blowing and flowing water is going to cause problems on the sloped site…which is basically everywhere! The windows have glass louvers that don’t close, so most every building got soaked on the inside – including the computer lab and the room where we’re staying. Fortunately, the workers moved the computers and we moved our beds to the middle of the room before they were too drenched.

It's amazing how quickly the dust and dryness can almost be overwhelmed but the massive quantity of water falling from the sky.

Something I really miss from our time in Uganda - sitting out on a covered veranda and watching the violent thunderstorms blow in.

Earlier in the day, there wasn't a cloud in the sky!

One of the best pictures taken by our group. I'm not sure who snatched it, but it captures how awesome and beautiful the mixture of storms and sun can be in the Uganda sky.

I suppose I should introduce the team before I get too far into this trip report:
me
Jonathan – volunteer civil engineer from Indianapolis
Ryan – volunteer landscape architect from Denver
Gary – volunteer architect from Georgia
Anna Rose – volunteer structural engineer from North Carolina
Rhett – volunteer civil engineer from Ohio
Tom – volunteer mechanical/electrical engineer from Ohio
Ben – volunteer civil engineer from Denver
Alex – EMI engineering intern from Wisconsin
Phil – EMI engineering intern from Northern Ireland
Jeff – the American ministry contact and also a friend of mine from our time in Uganda
The team is getting along great and it was great to have our first full work-day.

The team: Top row (l to r) Rhett, me, Jonathan, and Tom. Bottom row (l to r) Alex, Ryan, Anna Rose, Ben, Phil and Gary

Tuesday, February 1
Well, last night was interesting – came close to one of the worst-case scenarios (in my book) for a trip! No danger or anything like that, but as far as my anxieties go on trips, it’s one of the worst-case scenarios. I went to bed at 11:15pm, but couldn’t fall asleep until around midnight. At 1:15am, I woke up to go to the bathroom (short-call), but started realizing quickly that I wasn’t feeling good. This feeling of nausea and general stomach unsettledness continued progressing for about an hour. In the meantime, a thunderstorm began to brew pretty quickly outside and before long it was raining hard and windy with lightning strikes were all around.
I started thinking about what my plan was if I continued on this path of getting sick. The toilet we’re using is a pit latrine that is about 150 yards away, down a little dirt path that has a couple of steep parts that are a little tricky to navigate even when the ground is dry. Add a heavy downpour and it becomes quite a slippery mess, not to mention the fact that I’d be drenched inside of 10 steps out in this kind of rain storm. There really was no solution – if I suddenly had to throw up or go to the bathroom, there is no way I’d have made it 150 yards in the pouring rain to the pit latrine (which is not exactly an ideal place to be throwing up or sick, I should mention!).

This shot, taken from about halfway to the pit latrine, shows how far of a walk it was from our sleeping quarters (the far end of the building on the left) to the latrine.

Our toilet for the week - not the most hygenic thing to use, but compared to the first couple of days of not having a seat to sit on it felt like the lap of luxury!

The pit latrine before we upgraded it!

So, the only thing I knew to do was to pray. I prayed that God would somehow make this sickness go away as I had no good option for how to deal with it. So for the next hour or so, as the heavy rain turned to a more steady rain, I layed there praying (after moving my bed away from the window to avoid getting wet). And by no small miracle, I slowly started feeling better.
I never did throw up or have to leave the room to make it to the pit latrine. In the end, I only got about 4 hours of sleep (including that first hour before all the fun). But given what it could have been, I was just fine to be feeling alright come morning and not having to battle sickness on a trip. I figured out afterwards that I think I had done it to myself – right before bed I realized I hadn’t taken my malaria prevention medicine, so I took it even though I knew doing so right before bed and on an empty stomach was not advisable.
The rain hung around but gradually decreased to a stop around 10am. It was nice that it cooled things off and cleaned the air, though everything on the ground turned to mud.

One of the outdoor stalls where we took our bucket baths during the week.

The main problem for the day was power though. It had gone off during the storms in the night, and stayed off all day. Jeff (the ministry leader) tried calling the power company, but as we experienced so many times while living here, they were largely unaware of what was going on (or at least claimed to be largely unaware!). Jeff even commented, “Don’t you miss this Brad?” We had a good laugh…and the answer is ‘no’, I don’t miss that aspect of life in Uganda!

Ministry rep Jeff Atherstone with structural voluteer Anna Rose

Finally, around 4pm, the power came back on and we were able to get going again. We lost more than a half day’s worth of time though, so that will be a setback. The ministry has a generator, but since they’ve moved onto the site they have never lost power for more than an hour at a time. Consequently, they hadn’t yet bothered to hook it up, and today was the only day the electrician on staff was not on site! Gotta love how things always seem to go here – when one system breaks down, the three backups to that system will be typically be down as well!

Wednesday, February 2
I finally slept through the night…mostly. I woke up once around 4am but was able to go back to sleep within 15 minutes. That’s the first time in a week I’ve got as much as 6 hours sleep, and it felt good. We had a good discussion during our devotion time about how we are called to give up our liberties sometimes in order to minister to other people (based on 1 Corinthians 9:19-23). It’s a great passage that I think we Christians should think about more often. There’s kind of a dual application for the verse: 1) we need to be willing to lay aside the common things in life that we call ‘rights’, such as our right to justice or our right to hold people who aren’t Christians to the same standard we as Christians try to live by (key word is “try” to live by, as all too often we hold others to standards we ourselves aren’t even able to keep); and 2) we need to be willing to lay aside our liberties we gain from our faith in Christ in order to not offend other Christians who have different convictions. It was a good conversation that brought up a lot of good thoughts.
After the devotion time and breakfast, I spent a lot of time trying to make sure everyone knew where they were heading in their disciplines and to be aware of what we needed to present on Friday. I think we’re on a good track, but there is still a lot of work to get done before then. The architects have been doing a lot of background work to make sure the master plan is accurate given all the various grades and slopes around the site. Consequently, while we are now pretty ahead on what we have done as it relates to the final project report, we are behind as it relates to our presentation on Friday. I’m not too concerned yet though, as both architects seem to know what they’re doing and what they need to get done.
The afternoon and evening was all spent working in the work room. All the field work is done so the whole team was in the room.

Architect Gary working hard on the 3D model of the site.

The closest thing we had to a mad scientist on the team was landscape architect Ryan! There is genius hiding there amongst the chaos of paper, colored pencils and drawing aids!

The work room in action!

It’s a fun team with a lot of good personalities that make for interesting conversations. Tonight, we played a little game called ‘Ask the group’, where someone asks the group a question and everyone answers it. Ok, so I pretty much made up the game on the spot, but it sounded good and worked out well. The question I asked was: Have you ever experienced a miracle? There were some very interesting stories told – pretty amazing actually. I shared our story of Jonah’s skull miraculously rounding out overnight (thereby avoiding a very invasive and potentially dangerous serious of tests and surgeries) when he was a baby, and others told stories of unexplained medical success stories that they’d experienced too. It’s always interesting to hear a little more about other people’s lives and what they’ve experienced and how they’ve seen God work in their lives.

The team having dinner one night -they were all good sports but by the end of the week we were all ready for anything but Ugandan food!

At night, volunteer Jonathan and I walked volunteer Anna Rose down to the house where she’s staying. We’ve actually done this each night since the place is about a quarter-mile from our workroom on the site. Jonathan has come with me each time so I don’t have to walk home alone. He’s a real quality guy and I’ve very much enjoyed having him on the trip.

Volunteer Jonathan - I'm hoping he becomes an EMI regular!

It’s actually been a fun little time each night to connect with both of them. Afterwards, it was just me and the architects in the work room working on getting stuff finalized – mainly the architects working on their drawings and me working on, well, this! This site is easily the most challenging site I’ve worked on as the grade change is severe and the existing buildings were not laid out in a manner that makes grading around them very easy. Add to the mix the requirement of adding accessibility ramps throughout the site and you have the perfect storm for difficult sites! (Don’t get me wrong, I think the fact that the University is providing a campus with accessibility for disabled students is an amazing blessing to the country of Uganda and it’s disabled citizens! …I just wish they had a flat site to provide it on!)

This was a funny thing - the previous owners of the site had purchased a vertical, metal water tank and a horizontal stand...then installed the tank diagonally! What's more, if they had simply moved it about 100 ft up the site the grade sloped up enough to where they wouldn't have needed to purchase a stand, they could have just set it on the ground! Anyway, needless to say, it is worthless to ARU and they actually asked us for advice on how to safely take it down!

Gaba Bible Institute (GBI) – Uganda Project trip Jan-Feb 2011

2011-02-17T12:26:00.000-08:00

Looking down on part of the site from our work room. The pit latrine and showers that we all used during the week are seen in the middle distance (small grey buliding with red roof).

Part I of III

Travel – January 27-28
For some reason, leaving this time was especially hard. I should look back at previous blogs to see if I’ve said that before! Part of the reason I think it was hard this time was because of how it went down. Since my flight wasn’t until late in the afternoon (5:20pm), I had much of the day to kill before leaving for the airport. So I decided to go to the school to say goodbye to Alisha and the boys. Well, I think that was a mistake as it made me sad to see them in their school environment and realize that I really knew little about their normal school day (since I never see them there). Then seeing them get choked up saying goodbye to me was really hard too. In the end, Alisha walked me to my car and I drove off a blubbering mess!
I decided that the best remedy for this was to pray for them, so I went home and I walked into each of their rooms and prayed for them. That was very soothing, and though the tears flowed as I did it, I really felt God’s peace come on me as I realized I needed to put my trust in him instead of my own ability to take care of them.
Anyway, we got to the airport and the three of us (me and two interns) met up with two of our volunteers, who happened to be from Denver. The flight to London was so nice. The plane was very empty so I got a full three seats to lay down. Out of the 8 1/2 hour flight, I estimate that I slept at least 6 hours! In London, we basically had just enough time to get to the gate for our next flight. Actually, I was the next to last person on the plane. So I walked through to make sure all 10 volunteers were on the plane too – but I couldn’t find one of them – Anna Rose, the only woman volunteer on the trip, was missing. I spoke with the flight attendant and after checking for me, he told me she was booked on the flight the next day. He let me borrow his phone so I called and left Anna Rose a message letting her know that I would be there to pick her up at the airport the following day.
I actually slept really well on the flight to Uganda too – sleeping another 4 hours. This proved to be a problem later that night as I wasn’t able to sleep for more than 3 hours once we arrived at the site.
Arriving in Uganda was weird, surreal, and fun all wrapped up together. It felt a lot like home of course and very good to see the familiar sights, sounds and smells. It took us an hour and a half to get to the site, so by then we were good and tired as it was well after midnight. And that began the rough night of sleep!
Saturday, January 29
I woke up at 8am after a restless night – I was up from 3-6am. I was the last one to wake up, so I felt a bit panicked as we were to start the morning worship and sharing time at 8:15am. Because one of our volunteers wasn’t there, I changed the schedule to do testimonies the following day so Anna Rose could be a part of it. Instead, we just shared how we came to know about EMI and what we hoped to get out of the trip. The worship time was great too as intern Phil (from Northern Ireland) is a very talented guitar-player/singer.
After that and a quick Ugandan breakfast – ‘rolex’, which is basically a Ugandan version of a tortilla (think thicker than a ‘normal’ tortilla and moist from grease) with an omelet-style egg all rolled up with grilled cabbage and tomato – we met with the ministry representative, Jeff Atherstone, to begin discussing the program for the site. They had had a previous EMI team come to their former property and master plan a new campus for them, however, after everything was done the local community rejected it outright and that essentially killed the project right then and there. The community apparently was unhappy about the project because they felt it wasn’t the best use of the land as far as the community’s financial interests were concerned.

Walking the site with Jeff (front right). As you can see, there are many buildings and partial buildings on the site, which made our job much more difficult.

The upstairs room of this building served as our work room.

Our work room during the week. It was so nice to actually work right on the campus.

Of course the ministry was very discouraged about this, but Jeff explained how this new site was something God had worked out as they raised the large amount of money required to purchase the land very quickly with a few large gifts. They also quickly made some key connections in the area, with a powerful governmental official living very nearby. They are involving the community in this new project by encouraging people to build hostels all around the site since they are hoping to have up to 1000 students at the University, but only 250 will live on site. The hostels will be a great source of income for the community, and allows them to develop something themselves that will greatly improve their lives by giving them a steady income. Anytime we can help people create business and income on their own, it’s really the best case scenario for mission-work.
There are a number of existing buildings on the site, which always makes master planning much more difficult as we have to tie in the new with the old. Fortunately, the survey on this project was done ahead of our arrival so that has given us a huge headstart.

Volunteers Tom (left), Rhett (center) and Jonathan (right) got right to work!

Volunteer landscape architect Ryan was like a mad scientist all week - spreading out his sketches and drawings all over the place, and thinking with a pencil. In the end, he developed some amazing sketches, and worked hard on figuring out the site drainage and handicap ramps.

Jeff explained that they are wanting to expand their current campus of 50 students in a two-year accredited program to a full, four-year accredited, Christian university that offers such programs as public health, agriculture (to give the students a practical skill), and disabilities studies. The disabilities studies is particularly interesting and exciting as it will give opportunities to people who otherwise would have none, as people with disabilities are very often tossed aside as worthless in this culture. The university is in touch with ‘Joni and Friends’ from the US (Joni Erickson-Tada) and they are planned to help GBI install ramps and other disability-friendly improvement on site.
At night, I went back to the airport to pickup Anna Rose. Traffic was terrible as this is the first weekend back for schools in Uganda (follows the British system of running the school-year with the calendar year). It took 2 hours and 20 minutes, but I was there plenty early and Anna Rose was in great spirits as she walked off the plane. Because she missed her flight, British Airways put her up in a nice hotel and gave her 3 hot meals! Apparently, she arrived in London just 20 minutes after our flight had left the day before.
We made it back to the site around 12:30am again, so it was another late night. But since I had powered through all day, I slept very well until around 7:00am.
Sunday, January 30
We finally had our team all together this morning so we took the chance to share testimonies as a team. I know I say it every time, but it is always such a blessing to hear people’s stories – each one is so different and personal, but in each case it’s a life that God has touched in a special way that has made them want to do something crazy with their life like getting on a plane to come to Africa to serve alongside complete strangers for two weeks. This trip is no different, as our group of 10 comes from all over the country (and Northern Ireland!) to meet up here and each one felt God’s leading in joining the team.
After testimonies and breakfast (the cook Sam is a great guy, though he gravitates towards the local eating schedules which has pushed our breakfast later and later – this morning’s was at 10:15am), we headed off to the nearby church. The building was actually pretty big and mostly full of women and children. I’d estimate probably 150 to 200 people. We came in and they sat us in front, and immediately asked one of us to share something. Volunteer Jonathan – a civil engineer from Indianapolis – had agreed beforehand to share if we were asked, so he got up and shared a bit about the importance of the bible in our lives. Next intern Phil got up and led a song with his guitar. It was a cool experience for both of them. Ironically, the local pastor’s message was on the same topic Jonathan has spoken on.

Walking to church - it was probably our hottest day.

Volunteer Jonathan sharing a message - I was glad that for once one of my team members volunteered to share a sermon message since I usually end up doing it!

Intern Phil leading the local church in a worship song.

Church was about 2 1/2 hours long, but afterwards they had a drama presentation that they performed for another hour. It was funny, but in the local language so we didn’t really know what was going on. As we were leaving, the pastors asked us to come for a drink in their home to visit with them, so even though we were quite anxious to get back to the site to work, we couldn’t say no. We had a soda with them, and they told us about the history of their church and asked if we could help them with their building. I told them that was a question for our local office, but first we had to ask Jeff since we are here as his guests. They agreed to come meet me tomorrow to discuss it further. I was pleased to be able to tell them we had an office locally, as it would have been very tough for us to fit in more work during our time here, but also because I was glad that EMI would be able to help this little village church.

The church building was actually pretty nice looking for as remote as it was, though the quality of construction was not what you'd hope for.

This guy was part of the drama show, which included a funky dance group. He reminded me of a Ugandan Elvis - good moves and the faded hairstyle!

(Funny sidenote: We learned a new word in church today – “anyhowly”, as in, “Some people eat this way, some people eat that way, some people eat anyhowly.”)
Returning to the site, I had a quick lunch as the driver was there to take me to the EMI East Africa office in Kampala to pick up a few tools we need for our trip. Driving into town got more and more surreal as we went. The guys who came along with me (volunteers Rhett and Tom, two engineers in their mid-60’s from Cincinnati, Ohio) were probably getting tired of hearing me talk about the many familiar things I was seeing the closer we got to the office. It was bizarre to drive on the roads and streets where I had driven many, many times during our time living here. In some ways, I was feeling very sad that we weren’t still living here, and then in other ways I couldn’t believe we had actually lived here. But mostly, it made me miss living here and the slower-paced, relaxed and family-oriented lifestyle we were able to live.
Arriving at the office, I got to see one of our old guards Patrick and current staff member Phil Greene. I gave Patrick a big hug and we exchanged “how are you’s”. It was so nice to see him, it made me a little sad that the boys couldn’t be here since they (especially Jonah) spent so much time with the guards. They really were good to our boys and did a lot of things for them.
We saw a number of familiar spots and I noted a few changes that had occurred in the past 8 months – most notable was the fact that the main road leading to our house (Kiwafu Road) was now paved. What a huge difference that would have made in our standard of living – no dust, much less dirt in our house, and a much faster trip to wherever we were going!

Me and volunteers Rhett and Tom (far right) with part of the EMI East Africa crew.

We stopped by a few places for various errands, and I was able to say a quick ‘Hi’ to a few of the people who worked in the various stores where we shopped (I was both amazed and touched that so many of the local people remembered us). We returned back to the site shortly before dark, so I took a shower (actually, a ‘bucket bath’ in an outdoor concrete stall) before dinner. At night, we plotted the next days’ work schedule as these first two days had been pretty choppy work-wise with church and the trip into town. The architects were making some progress on the master plan so the team was ready to start plugging away at some of the engineering data collection – percolation tests in the soil, evaluating the buildings, testing the nearby water wells, and dissecting the existing electrical systems. I’m really happy to have another structural engineer here so I can focus on the project leading side of things as well as help the architects move forward with the master planning and coordinating the team needs with the ministry.

A candid shot of the team looking out on the site below, charting out their various plans.

...the same shot, except this is what happens when you tell a bunch of engineers/architects to 'act' candidly and ignore the camera. Hats off to intern Phil (far left) who pulled it off nicely.

Heading out to Uganda

2011-01-26T19:58:00.000-08:00

On Thursday evening at 5:20pm, I will be flying out of Denver bound for Uganda (via the UK). I'm leading a team of 10 design professionals from all over the country (Colorado, North Carolina, Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin) and even one intern from Northern Ireland. We will be working 15 km outside of Kampala on the Gaba Bible Institute project Master Planning a Bible college on their new site.
A surveyor from British Columbia has already been on site surveying so we have a jump start on the design. We'll spend 8 nights on site gathering information, performing tests on the soil and water and learning all about the ministry so we can help them plan for the future development of their site.
I'm really excited to be going back to Uganda, and will spend some time in our East Africa office and visit with friends for a few days after the project trip is done. You can pray for our team's safe travel, unity, good decision-making, and most of all that we can be a blessing to the ministry and serve them well during our time on site.
The 9 other volunteers/interns on this project are first-time EMI trip volunteers, so that is exciting and they'll hopefully get a good glimpse of the work EMI does so they can come on more trips in the future!
I'll be stopping over in the UK on the way home so I'll be gone for 18 days total, arriving back on Valentines Day. I would appreciate prayer for Alisha and the boys as well since this is the longest time I've been away from the boys. Alisha is using mileage to fly over to the UK for that portion of the trip so the last 6 days we'll be together. :) We're going to visit the EMI office in the UK where I'll teach a class to their incoming interns on designing in East Africa. Then we'll spend a couple of days in Luton with some dear friends from our time in Uganda, hopefully catching a football (soccer) match in the process!
As always, I'll be keeping a trip journal and will post those in the days/weeks after we return. Thanks again for your prayers! :)

Our calling with EMI (and holiday pictures)

2011-01-16T12:26:00.000-08:00

In our Ducks' gear, at kickoff time for the big game. The Ducks didn't win, but it was a great game and we had our chances. We can't wait until September 3 - the next Ducks' game!

This past week, we have had a 'staff week' around the office. Each day, we've spent half of the day in worship, prayer and other bonding and team-building activities. It's really been a great time to connect with the other staff here - something that happens much less naturally than in the East Africa office. Why that's the case is not for any single reason, but for a number of factors that serve to make connecting as a staff here more difficult:

Geography - we all live many miles apart since Colorado Springs is a large, sprawling city
Cultural - working in an office in the US is naturally much more formal than in Uganda
Situational - everyone has their own lives here, with many having family and friends surrounding them (as opposed to life in Uganda, where we were all stripped of our past relationships)

Anyway, this past week has been a valuable time for us to all connect - for me, it was the first such experience since arriving here.
But I was also very much challenged in a couple of ways. First, I was convicted that I have been holding back from fully pouring myself into EMI, primarily because of fear. Coming to Colorado Springs was very much a calling for us, but a scary one at that. Because of the support raising side of things, I have been very hesitant to fully plug into life here, and in some ways, at work too (at least mentally). Though I continue to grow in my love for, and calling to, EMI, I have resisted it at every turn. I basically have been unwilling to trust God that He will provide for our needs where He calls us to serve, and have also resisted wanting Him to provide for our needs out of pride and humiliation. Needless to say, I never dreamed of one day relying on others to support our family - it really flies in the face of everything we are taught in our culture - to be self-sufficient and not be a burden on your loved ones. But as I am learning, this is a completely securlar view of money and flies in the face of the bibilical world view of our personal finances. This really came to a head on Wednesday of this past week, when we had a guest speaker come in and share with us about His philosophy of why support-raising is not only a biblical model of financial stewardship, but also is a chance that we provide to our supporters to be blessed by managing their finances from a biblical world view - i.e. giving away to God as a means of securing our own financial well-being (paraphrased).
The gentlemen who came in to speak was named Dave and he works for a very large mission organization helping their missionary staff raise support. He came out of the financial sector as a financial planner and left a very lucrative, 6-figure job to help people raise support. He himself doesn't raise support, so he came with credibility in the fact that he didn't have a dog in the fight. He says that once his eyes were opened to why every Christian should be in the constant practice of sacrificial giving, he felt compelled to spend his life encouraging and informing people of this paradigm shift that is necessary. By the way, he made a point of sharing that even we as supported missionaries should be practicing this giving too.
It was an open discussion, and I peppered Dave with questions that I've had for some time about support raising.
How do we go about talking with people about this when our personality isn't typically so direct? His answer - if we truly believe God has called us to this ministry, it is our responsibility to give other people the opportunity to be a part of what God is doing, regardless of whether it is 'comfortable' for us. Is living in the US and raising support legitimate? His answer - the work of EMI is strategic and critical. Far too often, missionary work has focused on that which is 'popular' as opposed to that which is effective from the kingdom's perspective. But we know how effective EMI's work is, and therefore it's our responsibility to communicate that to people to allow them the chance to join in the amazing work God is doing through EMI. It's not about us as EMI staff, but rather about what God is trying to do through us and it can never happen if we are too caught up in pride and humiliation to give people the chance to join in God's work.
His passion is really to see people change the way they view their finances. In his opinion, the current financial problems in our country are a direct result of a distorted view of how to handle our finances from a biblical worldview. If people saw sacrificial giving to God as a means of ensuring their financial well-being, Dave feels that there would be no economic crisis. Instead of thinking of how much God wants us to give away, we should be thinking of how much he wants us to keep for ourselves, and then give the rest away. He sees missionaries like us at EMI and many other mission organizations as the people who are charged with spreading this biblical principle - and if we are unwilling to do so, we are not willing to fulfill our full calling in our ministry. I've heard this general philosophy before, but for some reason the way he said it resonated with me and I was really convicted that my own fear, sense of pride and desire to be independent is limiting my usefulness to God.
The truth is, we have lost about 15-20% of our financial support over the past year in moving back to the US, and I have really resisted trying to add more supporters to our team. We have also assumed that Alisha teaching was to be a part of our financial solution for working for EMI, instead of putting that too on the table and seeking God's will about it. It's a scary place to be as we look ahead to the future and this calling on our lives. Do we try to work it out ourselves and make it work, or do we seek after God's will in this calling and trust Him to do 'immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine"? Of course my preference is to retain as much control as possible in the situation...but is that what this calling is about - me relinquishing only 'some' of our lives, or is God calling us to trust Him fully? If God calls us to, are we willing to step out and seek more financial partners in order to make it possible for us to fulfill this calling?
To be completley honest, even though I love working for EMI and fully believe God has called us to this ministry, the financial side of things has really made me wish I had a different calling in life, almost desperately so. I honestly have dreams and daydreams about applying for 'paying' jobs so I can stop relying on others for our financial security. Is that a biblical worldview, or is that a secular worldview? More specifically, have I equated an American worldview with being God's worldview? It's not like I don't have any options for a job - in coming back to the US I had a number of possible avenues to pursue job-wise - some of which were very exciting and could have provided great financial security for our family. However, we felt strongly that God was not releasing us from EMI - quite the opposite actually.
So this is where we find ourselves right now, Alisha and I - in the middle of this tension in our hearts. In the coming months, we'll be seeking how God wants us to respond to this message we've received. Are we really called to EMI? Do we need to see our financial support team as another aspect of our ministry that we are neglecting to nurture and grow? Are we willing to put everything on the table and seek His plan for our family, even if that means relinquishing all control over to Him? Are we willing to swallow our pride? Please be praying for us, as this really gets to some deep issues of how we'll live out our life and this calling. Leaving EMI before God calls us away because of a lack of faith and unwillingness to swallow our pride could bring devastation to our family, so we are keenly aware that the stakes (financially) couldn't be higher.
It needs mentioning that we feel so completely blessed by our financial team for the past three years. Your giving to our ministry has been such a humbling blessing. We have often said and felt that we would so much rather that the checks were going in the opposite direction, but are so grateful for how so many of you have stood beside us in this calling and taken it on as your own. It is humbling, a blessing, scary, a little humiliating and so many other emotions, but overall it has drawn us closer to you all and to God, and for that we are so very thankful.

UPDATE: I leave for my next project trip to Uganda on January 27th, so please be praying for me and the EMI team from January 27-February 9th. Also, on the 9th, Alisha is using credit card mileage to fly over to meet me in the UK on my way home. We'll join the EMI office in the UK for some of their activities for their arriving interns, and also visit some dear friends from our Uganda days who are now living back in the UK. Alisha and I will return to the US on Feb 14th.

And now, some pictures from our trip to the West Coast over the holidays. We had a great time visiting with family and friends!

We started our trip in the Bay Area at Grandma & Grandpa Berry's house. We went to San Francisco for the day - it was a lot of fun! We were realizing our kids had seen more of London (during layovers) than they had of San Francisco.

We walked up and down Lombard Street - amazing that people actually live on that street and deal with the non-stop tourist traffic.

Next, we drove down to San Diego to visit with Alisha's brother Brian's family. He has a friend who works at Sea World, so we all got to go for free!

Sea World is a fun place - funny story though. When we were in Uganda, one of the stores in town that sold big screen TV's had a video loop that included a stretch of the Killer Whale show at Sea World. So weird to be at Sea World in San Diego and be reminded so strongly of Uganda.

We went to the beach on Christmas Eve and had a photographer friend from Brian's church come take pictures.

This was the group shot - naturally our family dressed in Oregon green.

After Christmas in San Diego, we drove north to the LA area to visit the Crawford side of the family. My Mom and Dad drove their RV down so we got to spend some good time with them, the Morrows and LaBries. Alisha got a private workout session with TV personality Traci Morrow from Beachbody/P90X (aka Aunt Ta!) I probably won't be too popular for posting this picture! :)

The boys playing a lego boardgame with Uncle Joe on New Year's Eve - we didn't get a group shot of our family party, but it was a fun time playing games and hanging out.

The boys with some of the Morrow cousins on New Year's Eve. Cleaning up Silly String on a cold, moist night is not something I'd like to experience again.

Christmas Greetings

2010-12-21T07:50:00.000-08:00

Being a part of the ministry of eMi back in Colorado Springs has been both a challenging and eye-opening experience. I have to say, God knew what He was doing. The more we learn, the more excited we are about the impact eMi has on people and ministries around the world.
Last week, we had a guest speaker during our morning prayer time – a former client-ministry director from India who is visiting the US right now. She shared how the design report eMi did for her orphanage ministry 6 years ago has been a huge part of her sustaining an onslaught of persecution from the government as it has cracked down severely on Christian ministries in the past year. Because they had our project report, including a master plan with extensive plans and specific details of their plans for their site, the government has been unable to shut them down. And when the government tried to steal land from her by providing a false survey of her land that made it look much smaller, she was able to prove that it was her land due to the survey eMi had performed for her!

Also, two volunteers have just returned this past weekend from Haiti who played a critical role in helping Samaritan’s Purse's ongoing response to the growing Cholera epidemic. The press has grown bored with the story, but the problem is growing and could become another major disaster there. Our volunteer civil engineers tested the water at the Cholera Treatment Centers setup by Samaritan's Purse and verified that the waste was being properly disinfected to prevent further spread of the disease.

Unfortunately, they also found that a number of emergency water systems they tested in various locations around the country had been contaminated with e-coli. They were able to quickly respond and get the chlorination levels up to take care of the problem, but thousands of people had been drinking from these water systems thinking they were safe.

Anyway, all of this to say, sometimes it’s hard to relate exactly how far reaching the effect is that your support has, but we feel honored to be partnered together with our friends and family to do this work. We really feel blessed by our supporters, that the work we're doing is part of a small group of people who make it possible through their generosity and committment to God calling them to participate in His work. Our support team is small in size compared to most in eMi and other support-based organizations, so we feel especially close to our support team. It’s very humbling to be the ones receiving the support, but God has shown us that dependance on Him through others is a blessing despite it flying in the face of 'the American Dream' and our natural, inner desire to be independent and self-sufficient.

We love you and thank you again for being on this ministry team with us.

We pray you have a Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year!

Love, Brad, Alisha, Brodie, Jonah & Graysen

Santa Claus was not very happy about being caught putting stuff in the stockings.

Update - project closeout, et al

2010-12-04T07:36:00.000-08:00

The Samfya Bible School Master Plan and project report is almost complete!

Well, the last few weeks aren’t the most glamorous part of my job here with eMi, but they are amongst the most important as we’re in the process of finalizing our design report for the Zambia trip. Between the volunteers, interns and myself, we’ve spent over 1800 hours working on this project so far, and it all comes down to these last weeks before the intern semester ends.
So, while the project trip makes for more exciting and interesting blog posts, as is the case with so many things in life, the real nuts and bolts of the work we’re doing for the ministry takes place back here in the office. We have been finalizing plans, sending things out to the volunteers and the ministry for review and comment, and now we are incorporating all of those comments and making the final changes to finish the report. We’re really excited about this project and how our design ended up, and are especially excited that the ministry will be starting construction of the first new student housing units very soon (they might already be underway).

Interns Rachel (top) and Melissa hard at work at finalizing the project report.

Other update items…
1) I have been working with some of the disaster response stuff in my new role. We have two volunteers on the ground in Haiti right now working with Samaritan’s Purse in the Cholera outbreak in Port au Prince. SP is setting up Cholera Treatment Centers and our volunteers are working to ensure safe drinking water is available and than sanitation is being handled very carefully to prevent further spread of this disease. The latest count I’ve heard is that 1700 have died in this outbreak and they fear this number could rise drastically in the coming weeks.
2) I have been recruiting for my next project trip to Uganda at the end of January. My team is just about full so I am excited and thankful that once again God has provided a great team for me to work with. It looks like there will be 9 of us on the trip this time.
3) We spent Thanksgiving with a family who is originally from Germany but lived in Uganda for 12 years before coming to Colorado Springs 6 years ago to work with Compassion International. They invited us over since we are new to town and don’t have any family. It was so nice of them and we really enjoyed our time, though we found it a little funny that our first major holiday back from Uganda was spent in much of the same way we spent our holidays in Uganda – separated from family and with new friends from another country!

Alisha and Brodie with Andrea, the nice German woman who invited us over for Thanksgiving.

Brodie and I with Wolfgang, Andrea's husband. They are really nice people and we enjoyed our evening with them.

Earlier in the day, we went to Starbucks as a family - we couldn't do that on Thanksgiving in Uganda!

Jonah & Graysen built this 'Zoo'

4) We hosted Janet Strike for a few nights this week - Janet worked with me in the East Africa office and has just moved back to the U.S. after living 5 1/2 years in Uganda. She will be working in North Carolina with Samaritan's Purse now - so given my new role with eMi's disaster relief program we should be in fairly regular contact!

5) We are coming back to the West Coast for Christmas and New Year’s. We are excited to spend some time with friends and family, though sadly we won’t make it up to Oregon so we won’t get to see everyone.

We took Janet to dinner - just like old times, except on a different continent!

After receiving over 100 packages in Uganda from family and friends back home, we decided to take our turn to send some. These are 3 of the Operation Christmas Child 'shoeboxes' we had the boys shop for and pack.

Brodie's class is 'traveling around the world' in Geography, so they decided to stop off in Uganda so Graysen could share all about his time there and bring in some Ugandan toys and things to show the class. Alisha went down for a few minutes from her class to help (and make sure Graysen got the facts right! :) )

Intern Rachel came over to babysit the other night...dressed up as a gorilla! The boys loved it!

Joining eMi's Disaster Relief team

2010-11-12T14:12:00.000-08:00

The boys out trick-or-treating on Halloween - their first time ever trick-or-treating (it doesn't happen in Uganda)!

I have been asked by eMi to be the interim Disaster Response (DR) Coordinator while the current DR Director is on Administrative leave through the end of the year. Being fresh off the training conference in North Carolina, I feel like I have some idea of what's going on but it's definitely a new program to me with lots for me learn. I am excited to be a part of this aspect of eMi's ministry, especially because it is working closely with some other great ministries such as Samaritan's Purse, Food for the Hungry, Water Missions Int'l, and others.
So, new to this position, I received a call yesterday afternoon from Samaritan's Purse requesting a small team of water and sanitation engineers to come to Haiti this next week to help them set up a base camp for dealing with the Cholera outbreak that is on the verge of exploding into a big problem since it's now reached the capital city of Port au Prince. I was thinking this was going to be an immediate test in this new position, trying to mobilize a team to Haiti in a matter of just a few days!
But fortunately, after talking with some of our other disaster relief people within eMi, the America Latina (Costa Rica) office was already anticipating this so they had a couple of volunteers waiting in the wings for this call. I was a little glad to not have to jump into the mix right off the bat, and also glad that eMi has a solid team of people working on this. It's also really great to see all of these different Christian ministries working together, even before the catastrophe strikes. We've all seen the telethons on TV where the Hollywood stars come on and raise a bunch of money. This is of course good and it's great that they use their fame to help people in need, but what's not as fashionable to report on the news is the way that some of these Christian ministries are on the ground full-time and are ready to respond in a uniquely positioned way that allows them to have a lot of access and clout in disaster zones. This is why it's exciting to me that eMi is building partnerships with these organizations - we are now becoming a part of the on-the-ground, immediate response to disasters all over the world (in the past year, we've sent teams into Haiti, Pakistan, Peru and Indonesia to help with the disasters there).
It's certainly worth mentioning that all of you who are our supporters are becoming a part of this strategic effort as well, meeting the needs of the most needy in their greatest hour of need and by doing so gaining access to the hearts of the people to share the love of God with them. I have no idea why God chose to have us be a part of this ministry for this time, but I do know that He did so by calling some of you to be a part of it too by financially supporting us. So thank you to all of you who stand with us!
Here are some pictures of life these last few weeks:

Alisha's 5th grade teaching team dressed up as pirates for Explorer's day.

Graysen's homemade costume for Egyptian day at school.

Jonah with a teammate on his YMCA basketball team.

Graysen's playing too - we call him 'touchdown toot' since several times a game he gets the ball at one end, and runs with it (no dribbling) the entire length of the court to shoot a basket (he made 1 out of 11 shots this past game and thought he was ready for the NBA!). Brodie's playing too and I'm coaching his team.

I went with Brodie's class on a field trip to the Glen Eyre Castle here in Colorado Springs a few weeks ago.

From Oregon to North Carolina

2010-10-25T11:44:00.000-07:00

Graysen in the Portland airport, proud to be a Ducks' fan!

This past week, for my birthday, Graysen and I flew out to Portland, Oregon to see the #1 ranked Ducks' football team play UCLA in front of a nationally televised audience. My parents picked us up from the airport and drove us to Eugene, where I went to the game with my dad while Graysen stayed back with Grammy at their RV. It was just a quick overnight trip, but we packed it in with a lot of fun and had a great trip. Most importantly, the Ducks' won big and we were loving being at ground zero of Ducks' fever!

Now this week, I will be travelling to Asheville, North Carolina to attend the eMi Volunteer Conference and Disaster Relief (DR) training seminar. Attending the conference was a last minute decision but one I am excited about. I will be learning about water purification in a disaster relief context, as well as completing a course on structural assessment of buildings after an earthquake. Beyond that, it will be a chance to meet new prospective volunteers and staff.

As you may or may not know, eMi has been developing it's disaster relief program over the past couple of years, and I am excited to receive some training to help prepare me to become involved in this work. eMi has partnered with Samaritan's Purse and Food for the Hungry in past disasters, and we are expanding relationships with other ministries who all serve to form the front lines of helping people around the world after a natural disaster has occured.

Please pray for safe travels and for the conference to be a valuable opportunity for me to learn and connect with other eMi volunteers. You can also pray for Alisha and the boys who will once again be flying solo back home while I'm gone. This is somewhat of a new direction for me within eMi so I'm excited to see how God will use this training in the future.
A few more pictures from Graysen and my trip to Oregon...

On the shuttle at the airport - I'm not sure if you can tell or not but Graysen was kind of excited for this trip!

When we landed in Portland, we had just enough time to stop by Erinne and Travis's house to see them and cousin Traci as well!

Graysen had way too much fun with Grammy in the RV!

The top ranked Ducks doing their stuff! This is a rare picture because it actually shows them at the line of scrimmage - they snap the ball so quickly from one play to the next in their no-huddle, quick snap offense, it's hard to catch them when their still! As you can see, Mom & Dad's season tickets aren't too bad! :)

It was all smiles for Dad and I on this night, as Oregon cruised to a 60-13 pasting of UCLA.

Trip Closing Time - Victoria Falls!

2010-10-07T07:57:00.000-07:00

Part IV of IV

At the end of all eMi trips, we try to have a day or two of ‘closing time’ where we spend time together doing something fun and also have a chance to talk through and process some of what we’ve experienced on the trip. On my past trips, this has typically been an overnight at a lodge or something small like that. Other eMi trip leaders have done larger scale activities, such as 3-day safaris or other sight-seeing trips. Well, since we were going to be in the same country as one of the seven wonders of the world, I thought the team would be mad if I didn’t get us over to see Victoria Falls. Since it was around 1200 kilometers from the project site, we had to add in a couple of travel days. But when I went to purchase our airfare, the travel agent told me that we would save about $400 per person if we waited to go home the next day! So, we ended up with a four-day closing time that included two full-days of travel!

Note: In lieu of pictures in this post, I've uploaded a slideshow (with captions) of our project 'closing time' onto YouTube. Go there now by clicking this link: Closing Time Slideshow Link

...If you'd like to get the full story, read on...

Sunday 9/12
So today was the second travel day, and we got up early to head down to the bus depot to catch the bus to Livingstone. To my surprise, the bus was very nice (we had paid the extra $3 to ride the business bus!) – here is a list of some of the amenities: it had only two seats per row (on each side of the aisle) and they were nice, plush seats; it had air conditioning (unbelievable!); they handed out a small snack and a drink; and best of all, the bus stopped 3-4 times for us to use the bathroom! Each of these things differs significantly from my past bus experiences in Uganda, so it was all a big surprise to me!
The trip only lasted just under 6 hours, which was ahead of schedule so that was yet another surprise. The place where we’re staying in Livingstone is a backpackers hostel and it’s comfortable with free wifi in their lounge. In all, 1200 kilometers (about 750 miles) travelled since we left the project site in Samfya! Tomorrow we’re off to see Victoria Falls. It should be fun to see, but personally I’d rather be heading home to see Alisha and the boys! 
One thing I didn’t mention the other day about the closing meeting was that at the end, Watabu (the chairman of the board) got up to say a few words. He talked about the important need for their ministry in the rural, village areas. (If you recall, the Samfya Bible School targets pastors who either return to their rural villages or pastors who want to go church plant in rural villages. There are very few Christian workers in these villages (where Bembe is the native language) and they have little access to bibles or good bible teaching.) Anyway, Watabu explained how the Luapula province (where Samfya is) is the largest province in Zambia and there is no other bible training facility available. Consequently, it is very tough for pastors to get a good knowledge of the bible – which results in substandard teaching to the people.
In addition, the agricultural training program will give these pastors a tool to bring to the villages in some cases to help gain access for planting a church, but in all cases to improve the lives of the people. So Watabu thanked the team very graciously for our work and for helping them take their vision from thoughts and conversations into a master plan to move forward. Since they already have some money to start, the first building we designed – a housing unit for married students – will be under construction in just a few weeks!
Monday 9/13
Today was an amazing day. I love seeing ‘water’ landmarks, so seeing one of the seven wonders of the world and one of the world’s largest waterfalls was a real treat. We took a taxi in the morning out to a very nice hotel near the falls. Once there, we walked out to the back deck next to the Zambezi River to board a small, 8-man motor boat that ferried us out to Livingstone Island (an island about 100 meters long that ends at the falls). We got off the boat at the far end of the island, about 100 meters from the falls, and then walked on the Island to the falls. It’s in the low water months, so we were able to walk out right to the edge of the falls on the island (during the high water season, much of the island is submerged in rushing water). It was surreal. I knew Victoria Falls was going to be impressive, but nothing could prepare you for seeing it in person.
This is where is got a bit interesting. We were told that we could swim in a “pool by the falls”, so 8 of us had brought swim suits to swim. We walked over to the North end of the island, took off our clothes down to our swim trunks and water sandals, and then were told that we’d be swimming across to the pool location – yikes! So following the guide, we jumped in and swam across the current about 30 meters from the falls! There was a safety rope downstream about 20 meters from the falls that was there in case the current was too strong for any of us. When we reached the small rock outcropping, we walked over to the Devil’s Pool – all I can say is, wow! The guides gave us specific safety instructions, showed us where to jump, jumped in and then called us out one at a time to jump in and float over to the edge of the falls. I was second to jump. Once we were in the water and up against the think rock ledge that kept us from going over the edge, it really wasn’t as bad as it looked. Sitting up against the rock you could feel the current of water going by and over the edge, but as long as you stayed down in the water it was easy to stay there. After lots of pictures (one of the guides took one of our cameras and did all the picture taking for us), we departed the pool, swam back across the river, and had our breakfast on the island, just meters from the falls. It was quite a morning. We then ferried back to the mainland, somewhat in disbelief over what we had just done!
We hitched a ride on two of the hotel golf carts over to where the falls viewing park in Zambia was (maybe 1/2-mile from the hotel). After perusing through some shops (the vendors were much more aggressive than in Uganda), we headed out on foot to Zimbabwe to see the falls from the other side of the chasm. It was just a couple hundred yards to the border post, and then about 3 km walk to the Zimbabwe immigration building. At the beginning of that walk, we crossed over a very tall bridge over the Zambezi River flowing below in the gorge created by the falls. They have bungee jumping and swinging from the bridge, so we watch some poor lady do a tandem jump on the swing with one of the local guides – talk about crazy! Once in Zimbabwe, it was only another 100 meters or so to the national park entrance to see the falls. The view of the falls from the Zimbabwe side is much better, so we were all thankful that we’d crossed over. Seeing the amazing beauty and power of those falls made it well worth the visa fees and long walk – seeing the spot where we swam earlier in the day was a little scary though!
Tuesday 9/14
Today the team went into Botswana on a one-day safari. We actually were originally supposed to leave today, but we saved $400 each on the airfare by staying an extra day, so it worked out well. In the morning we took a boat ride to see the crocs and hippos, and in the afternoon we did a game drive seeing lots of elephants. Also, for the first time, I saw a leopard! We just caught it from behind before it disappeared into the brush. Chobe National Park, where we were, has the largest concentration of elephants in the world at over 90,000 elephants in 11,700 square kilometers. Elephants make me very nervous since they are able to flip a safari vehicle over with one little flick. But our driver did not share my sentiments, so we found ourselves very close to the elephants on a number of occasions, including once where we stopped 10 feet to the side of the one of them that turned and stared us down (we were in an open-air safari vehicle and I was sitting closest to this 10-million pound beast). I just sat there not looking at it, and thinking about how I think I am more of a fan of zoo’s than I am safari’s.
During the boat trip, I actually got to set foot in Namibia as well, since the other side of the Chobe River is Namibia. So I could say I’ve “been” there (still deciding whether it counts as a flag on my backpack or not), I asked the boat driver to pull over to the bank and let me get out for a picture! Fortunately, he found a spot with no Crocs or hippos near by, though they weren’t too far away down the bank!
I think by the end of the day we were all pretty exhausted and ready to head for home, even though that 18-hours consecutive on a plane is looming in all of our minds.
Traveling - Weds. 9/15 to Thurs 9/16
The long trip home finally came! After a brief trip to the local markets for some souvenirs to take back home, the team was picked up and taken to the airport in Livingstone to begin the trek home. Overall, the trip home took 34 hours. There’s not a whole lot to report from the plane, other than to recommend that if you ever fly to Africa, try to route through Europe where you’ll have two 8-10 hour flights instead of a single, 19 hours on a plane! Including time on the ground for boarding we were on the plane 19 hours straight from Johannesburg to Dakar, Senegal, and then on to Washington DC. Let me assure you, it was as fun as it sounds! The plane was mostly full, so that made it even more fun! Overall, it was a fairly smooth flight except for the last 2 hours or so coming into DC. I have fortunately become good friends with Bonine (motion sickness pills), so I really do well on planes now for the most part. When we landed in DC, we had to pass through immigration, then collect our bags at customs, then pass through security again before heading to the gate for our flight to Denver. So even though we had 2 hours and 40 minutes between flights, we really only had about 15 minutes at the gate before we started boarding. Oh well, I guess it’s good to get it all over with.
Flying into Denver, I could see Pike’s Peak in Colorado Springs out my window – it’s funny how I was really excited to be ‘home’, but at the same time felt weird that this was home. In many ways I felt much more at home in Zambia than I do in Colorado, of course excepting the fact that Alisha and the boys were here. I am very excited to see them and can’t wait for school to be out at 3pm so they can come home. I spent 2 hours unpacking and doing my laundry so there wouldn’t be a big mess when they got home. This is my favorite part of project trips – finally seeing the 4 faces I love most!

Zambia Trip - Part III

2010-09-29T14:16:00.000-07:00

The new Samfya Bible School Master Plan

Part III
Thursday 9/9
This morning during our devotional time we had asked Donald (the pastor from New Zealand who has been our main point of contact) to give his testimony. One of my favorite parts of eMi trips is hearing the team member’s stories. When it’s someone from another country it’s especially interesting to hear how God has impacted a life in a distant land. After his testimony, he also shared a verse with us from Colossians 3:2-4: “Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.”
It was a good reminder for me to not focus so much on the world around me, but focus on the things God would want me to focus on. I was thinking how much time I waste thinking and talking about things that really aren’t important, and how I could do a much better job of thinking about ‘the things of heaven’. I’m not even sure I know how to do that or what exactly that means, but somehow I feel like I need to spend some time figuring that out. I think this verse will become my ‘theme’ for this trip and when I get back home I need to unpack it all.
Anyway, work-wise we had another meeting this morning with the ministry and had some more fine tuning to do. On one hand, we’re making changes pretty late in the week, but on the other hand the changes we’re making will ultimately simplify the project completion process. The only drawback will be that we didn’t get as far through the design as I would have liked, so we’ll just have a little more to do once we get back home. But ultimately, the bottom line is the changes we’re making will make it much more likely that the work we do is helpful to the ministry. This is one project where we don’t have to worry about them building it – they plan to start on the first building not long after we leave and have funding for the first 3 to 5 buildings. A big pile of bricks is already on site for the first building, so that is exciting.

Problem-solving on site

Working late to finish for the presentation

Reviewing architect Gene's work while finishing up one of my favorite meals - white rice with sauce.

The couple hundred trees on the site made the survey much more difficult than it otherwise would have been. We located each and every tree so the architects could place the new buildings in such a way so as to minimize cutting down the beautiful trees.

Pounding in a control point during the survey

One other note – yesterday volunteer Gene saw a 12 foot long, green snake hanging from a tree. We aren’t sure what kind it was, but we were all about to make him sleep with the dogs because he didn’t tell any of us about it (we were all outside in a meeting with the ministry at the time, so he said he didn’t want to interrupt!). Making matters worse, he didn’t snap a picture of it! It’s Ok, we forgive you Gene. Apparently Gene sees snakes all the time back home in Florida so he didn’t think anyone would be that interested in seeing it. Also, earlier in the day, Donald had found a skin (about 5 feet long) that had been shed from a spitting cobra. He found it about 20 meters from the front entry to the guesthouse we’re staying at, right next to where we had set up the survey instrument just 2 days earlier!
Friday 9/10
Presentation day! Finally all of our work culminates into a presentation to the ministry. We finished the final touches (volunteer Robert stayed up most of the night finishing the master plan) and presented at 3pm. Overall, it went very smoothly with only a few questions and ideas from the local board. That’s good as it means we can just go to work once we’re home and don’t have to worry too much about making changes. The master plan looks really good and the ministry was very thankful for our work. It gives them both excitement and a physical way to begin fundraising – Donald is leaving the same day we are to begin a fundraising trip to South Africa, the UK and the US. And even more exciting, the first buildings will begin construction in the next few weeks!

Presenting our preliminary designs to the minstry for one last chance for input before we return home and finalize the report.

Civil Engineers Jason P. (L) and Jason C. (R) present the water and wasterwater findings.

Interns Melissa (L) and Rachel (R) explain the site survey

Volunteer Roger presents the preliminay Agricultural design, while I play Vanna White with the computer since the power went out briefly.

Architects Gene (L) and Robert review their design

That evening, we went out to dinner to celebrate and I had a very interesting conversation with Wathabu, the chairman of the board. We were talking about the difficulties of westerners coming to Africa and understanding and being accepted by the local culture. It was fascinating to hear him speak so candidly about something few Africans I’ve known have been willing to open up about. What’s interesting about Wathabu is that he gets to experience both sides of the dilemma, as his main ministry currently is to travel deep into the bush to disciple the local people in the remote villages. He said when he goes into these places, he is very much an outsider just as if he were a westerner. He said that getting to the point of the village accepting him is ry, very difficult and takes many years. Just as it is for westerners coming to Africa, it’s such a hard circle to cross into that it’s likely not the initial missionary’s generation that will be accepted, but rather his children! He spoke of how many westerners come and think they are figuring out the culture, but really it is almost impossible for them to do so even after many years of living there. He said that the differences in the two cultures run so deeply that he couldn’t even explain to me how or why things work the way they do in his culture.
The example he gave was about relationship, which is very important in the African culture. In fact, it’s everything. So much so that oftentimes minor little conflicts can shape the relationship between two families for years. He said if he were to have a small disagreement about something, even as small as mistaking a cup of water as his when the other person thought it was his. If they have a brief disagreement about it and then move on without resolving it, all relations between those two families would cease – they wouldn’t work together, spend time together, or associate in any way with them. To our culture, that seems petty and silly, but to them, it’s very important.
The conversation with Wathabu only lasted about 30 minutes, but it was a lifetime’s worth of golden nuggets, and ones that I’ll surely use when I teach the cultural training aspects at the eMi orientation for new interns and staff beginning this January.

Some of the drawings the architects produced during the week

Saturday 9/11
I was mindful today of the anniversary of 9/11, and all the lives lost in New York and Washington DC. It’s hard to imagine that was 9 years ago. So much has changed since then – particularly in air travel. I don’t think 9/11 would be possible anymore as no one in their right mind would sit passively by as terrorists flew their plane. It seems like the days of hijacking planes and holding passengers for days at a time like used to happen back in the 80’s are over. I suppose it could still happen, but I think a passenger revolt would keep it from lasting more than a few minutes. Anyway, I digress!
Today was a travel day - we got an early start at 6am. It was a very long drive (9 1/2 hours with stops) and I was really battling sleepiness the whole way. Fortunately, God watched over me and kept me awake, but I was really fighting it. It was like a form of torture really – I was so tired but was trying to will myself to be awake. But there was nothing I could do to get rid of the sleepiness – very frustrating to be so tired when you don’t want to be.

This was our view for over 9 hours today - not much change in terrain so this is pretty much what we saw the whole time.

This was one area that was different, right before we crossed the sprawling but shallow Luapula River an hour and a half out of Samfya. Those sharp, needled mounds are actually termite mounds. Much different from the mounds in other parts of Africa that I've seen. The sandy soil presumably is the reason.

The dry landscape along the road - much different from the countries that lie a bit further to the North along the equator.

Everywhere, people were burning the dry brush. We learned later that this is primarily to prevent overgrowth that would bring snakes when the rainy season comes.

We arrived at the guest house in Lusaka and for the first time in 11 days, I shaved! I have never grown my beard as long as that, so I was very happy to shave it off. I was going to try to make it the whole trip but I couldn’t stand it any longer. I snapped a few pictures – it looked terrible!

Judge for yourself...

You will probably never again see a picture of me with a mustache - this one only lasted about 3 minutes, just long enough to snap a photo. I think I look like a crooked used-car salesman! Terrible!

We had dinner in town tonight, and much to my surprise there was a Subway here! We didn’t eat there, but it was amazing to see it here since Uganda had no American chain stores whatsoever.

Volunteer Jason C. in front of the Subway in downtown Lusaka. The fact that Zambia is so close to South Africa means they have easier access to Western products. The prices at this Subway were surprisingly cheap too - about $2 for a sub.

The food we ate was really good, and then afterwards we stopped in at a grocery store to buy snacks for the bus ride tomorrow. Much to my surprise, there were a lot more American items for sale than there were in Uganda, and they weren’t exorbitantly priced as they were in Uganda. Overall, it does seem a little more developed here in Lusaka compared with Uganda, though Uganda has many more people in a much smaller area. It’s pretty clean here and the roads are very orderly. It’s weird to see the differences, even though many things are obviously the same (friendly people, the way certain things work, electricity outages and poor water quality to name a few).

Zambia Trip - Part II

2010-09-22T09:46:00.000-07:00

The smoky skies make for beautiful sunrises at Samfya Bible School, overlooking the waters of Lake Bangweulu

The eMi team with the Samfya Bible School Board and Pastor Donald and family from the partnering church in New Zealand

Part II
Monday 9/6

We had our first devotional time this morning since all the testimonies were done. We studied Psalm 139 about how God knows us so completely, down to every action and thought, and the ramifications of that. It’s both comforting and a little scary to know that the creator of the universe knows every thought we have and has our days numbered. For me, it’s been a part of the process of letting go of fear, which plagued me for most of my life. But getting rid of that fear and placing confidence in God’s will for my life has allowed me to do things like this project trip – it wasn’t too many years ago when I wouldn’t have been caught dead flying overseas for 2 weeks.

So today, we met with the ministry leaders (four local Zambian men who comprise the majority of the Bible School Board) and Donald, the pastor from the church in New Zealand that partners with the school. We reviewed the preliminary master plan options volunteer Robert had developed in order to get their input on any changes. It went really well, and they gave some good feedback that will help us move forward.

After the meeting (around lunchtime), I went out and helped the interns survey for the rest of the day. We really started moving fast, and much to our surprise we were able to finish the bulk of the survey by dark (6:20pm here). We still have a few random points and trees here and there to pick up, but we’re pretty much done. If you would have told me on Saturday that we’d finish this survey in two full days (two half days and one full day) I wouldn't have believed it. So we were thrilled to have made such good progress. The next big hurdle to jump is to get the survey downloaded. It’s a new program we’re using and it’s fairly complicated, so we’ll see. But the rest of the group is now waiting on that, so we really need to figure it out quickly.

I spoke with Alisha (we purchased a calling card ahead of time as it’s much cheaper that way) and she has an even worse cold than I have. I feel so bad for her being home sick with the boys while I’m gone. It’s been good to talk with her each day though and keep up with what’s going on back home, though it does make me miss the four of them. I know people leave their families all the time but I just never get used to it. Someday I would love to bring Alisha on a project trip with me, and maybe the boys too when they’re a little older (one at a time!).

One other side note – the New Zealand family hosting us has fed us like kings and queens! We really aren’t toughing it one bit in the food department!

Me with Pastor Donald from Riverbend Church in New Zealand

Tuesday 9/7

It was nice to finally have a work day in the work room without having to be out in the heat surveying. We had a morning meeting with the ministry to continue hashing out a few issues. Apparently, the local leaders of the ministry made a deal with a nearby church to give them a piece of their land to build a chapel on. So, the church has been slowly building this chapel over the past few years as funds have come in – so far just the foundation and brick foundation walls are in place. Well, the chapel is located in a terrible spot, eating up probably 3 or 4 acres of space (even though it is a small building) when you factor in access and such. So we are trying to get the ministry to renegotiate with the church to move the chapel – which will likely require them to reimburse them for the work already done (probably just a couple thousand dollars, which is fairly small in the grand scheme of things). Anyway, the chapel and the location of the soccer pitch are probably the biggest remaining issues to be resolved. The biggest hurdle in resolving them has been finishing the survey drawing. We’re still trying to work out the survey kinks, so unfortunately the architects still don’t have an accurate site plan to work from. I think I’ve learned my lesson and will try to recruit a surveyor on future trips, even though interns Rachel and Melissa have done a superb job filling in!

We had dinner at one of the chapel elder’s houses tonight. It was a small house with 2 bedrooms and a living room. We all crammed into the living room and really enjoyed our time. The food was of course traditional Zambian food – white rice with a few sauces, fried chicken and fish, various greens (pumpkin leaves, cassava leaves and another spinach-like dish), some local breads and peanut sauce. We all really enjoyed the food and it was fun to be invited over to one of the local people's houses.

Me and Justin, the local church leader who invited our team over to his house for dinner.

The spread served to the team at Justin's house - way too much food!

Wednesday 9/8
One of the things about project trips that is ever-present but hard to predict is the cultural aspect of working with multiple cultures. One thing that can further complicate things is the donor side of things. Oftentimes, the ministry board is comprised of a mix of mostly local but some Western members. The donors, typically, come from the West. When it gets down to making decisions, the local board has the final authority, but donors have a lot of say too as their money is what allows the project to move forward. If the plan deviates from what the donors thought they were giving money for, the money may dry up and the ministry left with nothing. This can be a good thing - somewhat of a system of checks and balances, but it can also be a delicate situation to balance.

Often, part of our job is to bridge any gaps there might be between these two sides to make sure that the project goes forward. It’s a tricky balance and certainly has nothing to do with engineering, but it’s often one of the biggest roles we play in a project – we are consultants for the ministry and our job is to help them think through all aspects of their project. If we just show up and provide engineering and architecture, that is very often not enough to get the project moving forward. We have to provide a whole host of other services that include (but aren’t limited to) cultural context, strategic planning and fundraising direction. Many times, just being present and talking and thinking through ideas and plans with the ministry brings up these issues. It’s a good thing, and a vital part of what we can help a ministry with, but it definitely keeps us on our toes.

Me with Watabu, the chairman of the Samfya board and a very wise man. Listening and learning from him was a highlight for our team.

I mention all of this because this is the role we played today! I think things turned out Ok in the end, but there were a lot of meetings and discussions as we sifted through how our design needs to mesh with all sides involved. Fortunately, both Donald (the ministry contact from New Zealand) and Watabu (the local chairman of the board) were very helpful in explaining things to us. We can only help when we have good information, and these two guys have been great to work with. Watabu is a Zambian gentleman who is probably approaching (or at) 60. He is an amazing man. He is very soft spoken and wise, and his understanding is way beyond his actual cultural experience. He has been a critical player in our working with the local board to create a plan for moving forward with the campus. He is clear thinking and has an amazing ability to process a lot of information quickly and speak wisely and gently about how to move forward. He typically doesn’t speak directly about something to soften the delivery, but when he’s done talking you are clear on what he meant. He really is an impressive and intelligent, yet humble man. I am thankful for this chance to work beside and learn from him culturally.

At the end of the day, we had moved forward not just with our work, but in our understanding of the ministry and the project and how it needs to go forward, and how we can be the most help. We will change a few things to help bridge some gaps (maybe simplify some things and rework a few others), but overall they were very happy with the direction we’ve been heading.
At night, I had intended to go to bed early but found myself in a great conversation with intern Rachel and volunteer Robert about the nature of God and how each of us try to best understand how we as finite beings can relate to this all-powerful, infinite being. It was too good to go bed and miss, so once again I got to see the other 1 o’clock. I guess not getting enough sleep will hopefully help me battle jet lag when I return home in a week.

The 'War Room' - we only brought 3 laptops on this trip so a lot of work was done by hand

Zambia Trip - Sept 2010 - Part I

2010-09-18T05:07:00.000-07:00

Part I
Traveling - Weds. 9/1 thru Fri 9/3
Well, it’s finally our first night at the site. After 4 plane flights totaling 22 hours in the air and an 8 hour drive this morning, we have finally made it. In all, it took 52 hours to the minute to get from my front porch in Colorado Springs to stepping out of the car at the Samfya Bible School campus.

Me with interns Rachel (left) and Melissa in the Johannesburg airport in South Africa, posing with Nelson Mandela - he's a lot taller than I was expecting!

Just a few highlights – probably the worst part of the flying was from Denver to Washington DC. It was only a 3 hour flight but it was pretty bumpy. Fortunately, the 17+ hour flight from DC to Jonhassburg was relatively smooth for most of it. It’s actually 2 flights – 7 ½ from DC to Dakar, Senegal, where we stopped for an hour and a half but couldn’t get off the plane and then back up in the air for an 8 hour leg to Johannesburg. In Dakar, some people got off the plane and others joined the trip. As the Senegalese people boarded our plane, I instantly smelled some of the familiar African smells in their perfumes and food. It was weird how it made me feel at home. I realized how much I feel connected to African people and couldn’t help fight feelings of wishing we still lived in Uganda. That was the first time I felt that way on the trip, though not the last over the coming few days.
We only had a couple hours in the Johannesburg airport before boarding the final leg of the trip – a 2 hour flight north to Lusaka, the capital city of Zambia. The plane was packed, but we didn’t care since it was our final leg. Once in Lusaka, I couldn’t believe how similar the airport was to the Entebbe airport. We sailed through immigration and even got a multi-entry visa which saved everyone $20. We drove (I actually drove one of the vehicles - a Toyota 4wd pickup) to the guesthouse, all checked our email and called home and went to bed. I crashed around 1am and slept surprisingly well.

Arriving at 10pm at Lusaka, Zambia

Breakfast was at 6:30 and we were on the road by 7:30am. What a long day of driving – nearly 700 kilometers and over 8 hours. I was really struggling to stay awake, especially as I saw those around me in the car sleeping soundly!

On the road to Samfya

The dry season leaves much of the country looking parched and scorched.

Stopping on the side of the road at a police check point - we probably passed through 10 during the trip. Most of the time they just waived us through, though once they asked for my driver's license and another time for everyone's passports.

The police check point at the start of the bridge. Most of the time it's just some cones and spike strips set up in the middle of nowhere, but this one actualy had a guard's building since it was protecting the bridge.

A team photo on the bridge over the Luapula River in Northern Zambia. We're actually within a mile of the Democratic Republic of Congo in this shot.

When we arrived, we walked the site with the ministry and began discussing the program. My first impression was a little panicky about the survey, as it looked to be much more difficult than I had imagined (lots of trees and buildings and other items to shoot). After a delicious dinner, we shared half of the team testimonies and then prepared for the following day, charging the survey equipment and strategizing.

The guesthouse on site where we stayed - it was nice to stay on site and not have to drive every day to get there. We were well taken care of by our hosts from New Zealand, Donald, his wife Gwen and their 12-year old daughter Katie. Donald is a pastor at the partnering church in NZ.

The view of Lake Bangweulu from the guesthouse porch.

Walking the site

My initial impressions of being here are that it makes me feel like I’m finally back ‘home’ after a 3 month furlough in the US! I realize I feel very comfortable in Africa – it’s really a weird feeling to describe. The people are so kind and friendly. I told Alisha that even though I’m away on a project trip I feel at peace – much more so than when Alisha was home with the boys in Uganda. So I guess that’s a positive of being back in the states. I think I feel like they are more secure back in the US without me than being in Uganda and having me gone. I did bring my old phone from Uganda so I bought a SIM card and airtime and talked to Alisha a few times - so good to hear her voice!
Saturday 9/4
Today started the work days. In the morning I helped interns Rachel and Melissa get setup for the survey while the rest of the team started some programming with the ministry. The survey looks to be a fair amount more challenging than I had expected – had I known what it was I would’ve tried to recruit a surveyor to come. I’m always hesitant to over-recruit a trip – my biggest fear volunteer-wise is to bring someone who feels under-utilized. Had a surveyor come and finished in one day, it might have been frustrating to spend or raise all that money to come for one day, and as the project leader I’d feel responsible. Since I knew I had intern Rachel coming, and she had done the survey on two projects while being in the East Africa office this past Winter/Spring, I felt between the two of us we could cover it.

The survey crew - (L to R) interns Rachel and Melissa and me. We worked from morning to darkness, which comes around 6:15pm at this time of year in Samfya

After the programming meeting and lunch finished up, I went out and held the rod as the interns manned the gun. We wanted to get as much done as possible so I was moving fast. It was hot (about 95 degrees) and pretty tiring, but by the time it was dark we had hit 117 points covering approximately 12 of the 20 acres – not bad for a bunch a crew who doesn’t survey much on a tricky site. It was a great start and though we were tired, it was also a nice stress relief to get so much done. The hard part of the site remains however, so hopefully we’ll continue having success. It’s not humid here at all, so that makes the heat much more tolerable than in Uganda when it’s hot. The climate and landscape is very different to Uganda – dry, sandy ground with dry looking trees and sparsely scattered yellow tall grass. Also, everyone burns their land here, I think mostly to prevent snakes from moving in when the rainy season comes. Of course, we are in the middle of the dry season so I’m sure it’s greener during the rainy season, but in Uganda it is always green and lush regardless of season, so there’s a big difference visually from Zambia. The lake we’re on is much bigger than I thought – you can’t see the other side and when there’s a breeze it looks like we’re on the ocean. It’s beautiful blue and swimmable, which is much different from Lake Victoria in Uganda (which is a little brownish and comes stocked with Bilharzia, a worm parasite that is tough to diagnose but easy to treat).

Meeting with the school board and Donald to review some preliminary master plan options

The team seemed to make good progress during the day too, with some master plan options being developed and water systems research done. Apparently, the town water treatment center is just down the road from us, so our water and ag engineers visited there. They were allowed to see everything except the room where chlorine was added – they figured that was for one of two reasons: either because there was chlorine in the room (i.e. toxic), or because there was no chlorine in the room!

The water test station setup by civil engineers Jason C. (sitting) and Jason P. (standing). They tested for various elements in the water, including chlorine, pH and alkali to name a few, as well as the turbidity of the lake and then testing for pathogens in a number of nearby water sources.

The mad scientist civil engineers performing their devious plot... err, water tests.

Amazingly, I’m doing really well with jet lag and powered through the day without napping. I slept through the night last night so hopefully I can do that again. Talked to Alisha and all seems well on the home front, so that’s good. As long as she and the boys are doing well I can manage being away for a time. When things are tough on her back home, it’s really hard to be away on a trip. I’m sure many of you can relate to that! Ok, church tomorrow in a Bembe speaking church – should be a great experience.
Sunday 9/5
Well, I’ve got a run of three straight project trips now where I’ve caught a cold. I’m sure I must’ve caught this one on the plane flight over. Anyway, it’s seems to be progressing quickly so those usually don’t last as long, and I’m really glad it’s early in the trip and not pushing the flight home – colds on airplane trips usually means motion sickness for me.
I got up and went to church with interns Rachel and Melissa to help with the childrens’ program. It started at 7am, but when we arrived at 7:15am (Africa time you know), there were only 5 kids there. Within 5 minutes of our arrival at the outdoor ‘classroom’ (which consisted of 6 wooden benches setup almost how a campfire would be), there were around 50 kids in the benches. Apparently, even the kids church starts when the pastor arrives! The interns led them in a short skit about the book of Jonah, and then we stood by as their pastor asked them a bunch of questions about the story and then led them in some songs in their native Bembe language. They asked me to pray for the kids, and by 8 o’clock it was time to dismiss. By that time, there were over 175 kids in attendance!

A small children's church crowd when we started

The crowd grew larger by the minute

It was standing room only by the time the children's church service finished

We stuck around for a bit and then attended the main service at 9:30am. It lasted just over 2 hours, and then they had us go out back and stand in a line while the entire congregation of 250+ people came out and shook our hands, one by one. I was wondering the entire time if I was passing my cold onto the entire community!

The greeting line after the church service. The service was surprisingly short for an African church - just 2 1/2 hours.

After they shook our hands, they got in line and everyone shook everyone elses hand. Apparently, they do this every week.

After church, we came back to the guesthouse to change and get back to work. Lunch was served and we were back out surveying. Another productive half-day of surveying had us feeling pretty good by nightfall. We had a traditional Zambian dinner, which was very good and similar to but not exactly the same as Ugandan food.
I realize I haven’t yet introduced our team. There are 10 of us: myself, intern Rachel (who was in the Uganda office this past January through July), intern Melissa (a mechanical engineer who is wearing a few different hats because there isn’t a lot of mechanical design on eMi projects), electrical engineer Jim and his wife Mary Ann (Jim is a semi-retired professor at the University of Kentucky and has worked on my last four projects from home when I couldn’t find an electrical engineer for the trip), Roger (an agricultural engineer from Texas who was on my Kenya project last September – Roger’s knowledge base stretches well beyond ag and he will be a crucial member of the team), Jason C. (a civil engineer from Alabama on his first eMi trip), Jason P. (also a civil engineer and also on his first trip, from San Diego), Robert (an architect from Denver who is on his 15th eMi trip and will be joining the East Africa office for a year-long, long-term volunteer position in January), and Gene (an architect from Florida on his 9th eMi trip). I really feel blessed to have this team. It’s the most diverse team age-wise I’ve had so far, with a good mixture of young designers and experienced veterans. So far, the team unity has been very good and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves and doing a great job in their respective disciplines. It really has been a seamless project thus far, with the one possible exception of some small wrinkles we’ve had with the survey.
Oh, by the way, the water testing today showed there is no chlorine in the city water – I guess we now know why they didn’t let our team of engineers into the ‘chlorine’ room at the water treatment plant!

Heading out to Zambia

2010-08-29T21:47:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday morning around 8:30am, myself and two interns from the Colorado Springs office will board a plane out of Denver Int'l Airport bound for Zambia. We pass through Washington DC where we'll meet up with our full team of 10, and then a 17 1/2 hour flight will land us all in Johannesburg, South Africa before the final 2-hour flight to Lusaka, Zambia. From there, after spending the night we'll drive the final 8-hours to Samfya. We'll return to the US on September 16th, landing back in Denver around 10:30am.
Please pray for: our team's travel to be safe (and no motion sickness for me! :) ), the flight out of DC to not be impacted by either Hurricane Danielle or Earl, our design to be a blessing to the ministry, the lives of all 10 of us team members to be changed, for God to use us as He sees fit to accomplish the work He's doing at the Samfya Bible School. Please also pray for Alisha and the boys back home, especially Alisha as she continues to figure out how to be a working mom with kids in school. (Teaching is going really well, as is my job at eMi, but we're just trying to figure out how to balance our lives as working parents back at the frenetic pace of life in the USA!).
If you want to check out where the project will be, the Google Earth coordinates are: 11d22'00.81" S, 29d33'29.66" E. Here is the Google Earth shot of the site, with the approximate site boundary shown in red:

The Samfya Bible School site, enclosed by the red property line

eMi Disaster Relief

2010-08-15T21:35:00.000-07:00

One of the things I'm really excited about in being at the eMi headquarters is possibly getting involved with our disaster relief program. For the past couple of years, we have been partnering with other aid organizations such as Samaritan's Purse and Food for the Hungry. How it works is, very soon after a disaster one of these organizations will call eMi and let us know that they may have need for our help. Our DR coordinator, Scott, will then begin recruiting for whatever techincal needs the ministry has. Once eMi receives word that the trip is a go, the team of volunteers is mobilized and travels to whereever the disaster is to either scope out what needs to be done, or to actually meet a techincal need.
The week we arrived, I was asked by Scott to join at the last minute on one of these DR trips that was going out to Haiti. They needed one more structural engineer to fill the team that was going down to evaluate 360 houses to let the owners know whether or not they were safe to occupy. Alisha and I prayed about it and felt it wasn't the right timing, as it would have had me gone from July 16-Aug 3 - right in the middle of moving into our house! Well, as it turns out, it was really God's will as the guy who ended up going in my place was a young architect and former eMi intern. While they were there, Samaritan's Purse contacted Scott and asked for some help on designing some multi-use facilities that they could use for a number of projects in the next few years. Since they had an architect on the team, Scott was able to tell them yes and this former intern proceeded to spend his nights (after spending the whole day doing the building evaluations) working up drawings for the project! Seeing Scott give his post-trip report this past Friday made me a little bummed that I wasn't able to be a part of the work they'd done, but also really glad that this other guy had gone instead!
Up next for the DR program, we are sending a two-man scouting team with Food for the Hungry to Pakistan to evaluate what all is needed there. The flooding that has occurred over the past couple of weeks is not getting the attention it deserves. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said he has 'never seen anything like it and was urged foreign aid to come to the assistance of the 20 million people affected by the floods. Here's a picture and caption of the desparation in Pakistan right now that I saw on MSNBC's website:

Marooned flood victims looking to escape try to grab onto a hovering military helicopter that arrived to distribute food supplies in Pakistan last week.

One cool thing from last week - I received an email from a former eMi volunteer who is working with an aid group down in Haiti trying to rebuild houses. He was asking for an eMi structural engineer to review a new design for a foundation they had created to lift the houses up above the flood plain there. I said I would take a look, so he sent me their preliminary designs. I reviewed them and marked them up with some suggestions and options that I thought would work best, and then emailed the drawings back. Well, about a week later, I received this email from the guy on the ground down in Haiti:

"Brad,
My name is xxxxx. I am working on the ground in Haiti building the foundations that you advised for xxxxx. I want to thank you for all of your input! It has been really helpful and as a result of it we are piloting a new foundation tomorrow that is much better than our previous foundation! Have a great day and may God bless you!"

The stories out of Haiti are heart-breaking, so it's good to know that people are on the ground down there trying to help. We at eMi are excited that more and more organizations are learning about eMi and using us when they need some technical help.

Some pictures from our recent family hike at Dome Rock State Wildlife Refuge about 45 minutes from Colorado Springs:

The boys and I mid-way through the 6-mile round trip hike

The trail, looking back. The Rockies are an interesting mix of rock and trees, very pretty. But also thin air - this hike was at 9000 ft.

This little creek was by our side the whole hike - lots of rain here recently so all the streams and rivers are a bit swollen for this time of year. We've had major thunderstorms for the last few weeks - including one that caught us while we were on the freeway and with the heavy rain and hail and 80mph winds, we could barely see and traffic was slowed to 5 mph!

The boys did really well on the hike, though Graysen needed a little carrying for parts on the way back to the car!

Colorado Update!

2010-08-04T21:49:00.000-07:00

Well, we are here and finally moved into a house. It’s been a long process with lots of twists and turns, but we’ve finally landed. I’ll get to it and try to tell you as much about the last 3 crazy weeks as possible. A list will help:

The Journey
It took us about 19 hours spread over two days. We drove from Klamath Falls to Salt Lake City the first day (about 630 miles) and then Salt Lake to Colorado Springs the next day (via Grand Junction and the Rocky mountains – about 600 miles). The trip was surprisingly easy and we’ve even talked of trying to do it in one day straight next time.

Arriving
We thought we had a house picked out, but when we got here the house was not at all what we thought and was way too small for our stuff (and the rent price didn’t reflect the size!). So, we called a realtor named Steve Kenney here in town on a recommendation from eMi and Steve was a godsend. He cleared his schedule and took us around town the very next day and by days end we had found a house that would work well for our family. The catch – it wasn’t available for another two weeks! So Steve made some calls and found us a place to stay for the next week. I should mention here that Alisha’s parents flew into town the day we arrived, intending to help us get settled. So this very nice couple named Laurel and Fred Beck took all 7 of us into their home and let us stay with them. They offered to house us the full two weeks, but we didn’t want to wear out our welcome. So, we moved into the Residence Inn and split a one bedroom suite – 7 people with 1 bed and 1 bathroom was not ideal!

Alisha’s work
The Monday after moving into the hotel, Alisha started a two-week long college course required by her new job. On that day, she met with the principal who asked her if she would be willing to teach 5th grade full time right from the beginning of the year! Coupled with the huge amount of work the class was, Alisha was overwhelmed to say the least! (If you didn’t know, she was supposed to teach 2nd grade part-time until November, before moving over to the full time 5th grade position.) After much thought and talk, we felt like God had brought this her way and that she should accept – even though it was a huge increase in stress! To make matters a bit more challenging, the college class had 3-5 hours of homework the first few nights, so by the end of that first week she had just about hit her limit (on Friday morning of that week, the moving truck showed up with our stuff so she wasn’t able to be there when the truck was unloaded.)

Moving in
We took possession of the rental house on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning at 9am the moving truck arrived with our stuff. By 1pm, the place was full of boxes and ‘stuff’ that we hadn’t seen in two and half years. It was very surreal. The movers would ask us where something went, and even after they unwrapped it from the packing sometimes we had no idea what it was! But over the next 2 days and nights, we stayed up until after 2am unpacking and arranging. Seeing how much ‘stuff’ we had after living fairly simply over the past two years gave us a heightened motivation to purge, so we started a rapidly growing pile of stuff that’s going to either be sold or given away. But come Monday morning when I was ready to start work and Alisha was set to return to her class, we had 98% of the boxes opened and unpacked and most rooms in the house set up.

Brad’s job
I started work in the office this past Monday, though I have been working remotely for sometime now preparing for my project trip to Zambia departing September 1st. I am really excited that I have a full team for the trip, and in fact, on my first day in the office I purchased 10 plane tickets for my team’s travel! We’re designing a new campus for an existing bible school that has been in operation for a few decades. Their buildings are beyond the point of repair, and their partnering church in New Zealand is going to help them tear down their existing buildings and rebuild a new campus. I’ll be writing more about that trip of course when it happens! But the team is two architects, two civil engineers, an agricultural engineer, an electrical engineer and his wife, two eMi interns and myself. I’ve had two of the volunteers on previous trips and one of the interns was an intern in Uganda this past winter so I’m excited to be working with a few familiar faces.

The boys
The boys are adjusting well to their new hometown. We have taken them to a few of the touristy places in town to help them get acquainted a bit. They are so used to new places now that I think in some ways they are citizens of the road! It has been nice to be in a place where food for Brodie’s special diet is so easy to find in a grocery store, though we’ve noticed (surprisingly) that it’s more difficult to eat out here for him. I think the difference is, in Uganda, a chef at even a modest restaurant views his/her job as a career, so the challenge of being able to make food for anyone who comes in is something they take very seriously. Here, it seems that most places we eat at (which admittedly aren’t 4-star restaurants!) are more interested in sticking to their normal menu and the efficiency of mass production. That’s just my hunch of what’s going on, but it could just be the culture too, since Ugandans want to please people (especially guests to their country) whenever possible so they will go to great lengths, even at a high personal cost to themselves, to make you happy.
But back to the boys, they are looking forward to starting their new school on August 19th, and meeting new friends. We have been warning them that soccer is not as popular here as it is in Africa, so they may not be able to play it at every recess, every day!

What’s next
1) The boys start school (and Alisha starts teaching) August 19th.
2) Brad’s project trip goes out September 1st.
3) New intern orientation the week of August 15th-23rd (Brad will be training to lead the discussion on culture (two nights, from 5pm to 11pm) as the current intern coordinator is leaving).
4) Alisha’s parents just left and Brad’s parents just arrived to help with childcare before school starts. Thank you grandparents - these few weeks would not have been possible without them.
5) Getting fully unpacked and settled and purging as much ‘stuff’ as possible!
6) Alisha's class ends Monday - it has really stretched her to the limit with all that's going on in our lives. She'll then have a week and a half to figure out how to teach 5th grade, which is an all new grade for her. Needless to say, she could use prayer right now as she's going through a pretty rough period. I think once school starts, she'll feel better because the boys will be at the school with her and the looming task of learning a new grade level will be underway.

(Sorry there are no pictures this time, in moving around we lost our camera charger so we can't turn it on at the moment!).

'Finishing the play' - June 2010

2010-07-10T09:30:00.000-07:00

The boys with some of the Morrow cousins at cousin Joey's birthday party.

If any of you followed the USA team in the World Cup, you were treated (or tortured, depending on whether your glass is half empty or half full) to a scintillating run to win their group and advance to the round of 16. (For those of you who are in the 5% of the world’s population that doesn’t follow the World Cup – most of which reside in the US! – the World Cup Final includes 32 teams who have played in a two-year long qualifying tournament to advance to the final round, which this year was held in South Africa. The 32 teams are divided into 8 groups of 4 teams, who play a round robin called the ‘Group Stage’ with the top two teams advancing out of the group.)

My niece Traci (sister Terri's oldest child) got married a week after we returned to the USA. The wedding was on a large yacht in the Newport Beach harbor. What a fun night and a perfect family gathering to attend after returning home.

This doesn't happen very often...all 7 members of my family getting together in the same spot. On this occassion, it lasted for about 5 hours, as some had to leave that night for another engagement. (L to R) brother Bart, sister Terri, brother Bret, Mom, Dad, sister Traci and I.

So back to the US team, in the third and decisive match, considering the results of the other games in their group the US needed to win against a much lower regarded Algerian team. Though they dominated play and had several chances to score, including one goal that was wrongly waived off by the referee due to an incorrect offsides call, the US finished the regulation 90-minutes tied 0-0, facing elimination from the tournament with only 4 minutes of stoppage time added on by the referee (since the clock runs without stopping except for halftime, the referee adds on time at the end for stoppages in play such as injuries, substitutions and goals).
But, in the second minute of stoppage time, the US had a counterattack that produced the best chance of the game. Their best player, Landon Donovan, received a quick outlet from the keeper and took it the length of the field, dishing off to a winger out on the right as he approached the box. The winger then crossed to a streaking Clint Dempsey (the US’s best scoring forward) who tapped it towards the goal – only to be denied by the diving Algerian keeper who blocked the ball straight out from the goal. Fortunately for the US, Donovan had continued his run all the way through the play, and when the Algerian keeper sent the ball rolling towards the top of the box, Donovan pounced on it and sent it into the far corner of the goal, setting off a wild celebration amongst US fans all over the world. With just a minute and a half to play, the US had gone from elimination to winning their group in dramatic fashion. It was one of the greatest moments in US soccer history to date (I'm certain it will be outdone by the US team four years from now when they win hoist the World Cup trophy, but for now it’s one of the great moments! :) )

We got to spend a few days in Medford and see some of our friends. We even found a babysitter so we could have a girls and guys night out.

Alisha hanging out with her good friend/mentor Kathy Carraway. Kathy has been a huge blessing to us and a big help brainstorming new ideas for Brodie.

I had to include a picture of what we've spent probably the most time doing - watching World Cup soccer! This was the TV in the bar at the marina that we boated over to from the houseboat so we could watch the US v. Ghana game.

After my excitement over the US winning settled down, I was thinking about how such an 11th-hour win reminded me of how God often works in my own life, especially of late (please excuse the obvious change from illustration to application here – sorry to those of you who thought this was simply a soccer post!). In this whole process of moving home from Africa and then transitioning our family from Oregon to Colorado Springs (COS), time and again God has worked things out in the 11th hour. It has really been a good experience for us, learning patience and faith as we have trusted God to work things out and then waited for him to do it. As a recovering worrier, it has been especially good for me to see that when God asks us to do something He really does show up, even if it's at the very last moment. Given our personalities, both Alisha and I would much rather have things ‘planned ahead’ and set in place long before the time comes in most any situation. But if that were always the case, would we ever learn to trust God? Or, more likely, would we just trust in our own ability to work things out for ourselves and plan out our lives? Certainly, planning is a good thing and there’s probably a number of people reading this who could use a little more planning in their lives! However, this is something Alisha and I do not struggle with – we definitely tend to take it the other direction, planning everything on a micro level and liking to have things set in place well in advance. Clearly, God sees some moderation needed in this area of our lives so He has responded in our current situation in a way that has prevented us from over-planning our lives.
The result: we have been treated (or tortured! :) ) to a scintillating ride through this whole transition phase. Some examples?
For months, Alisha had applied online for teaching jobs in a district that had numerous openings. Hoping to secure a job before we returned to the US since most jobs are taken before June, we were dumbfounded why she had yet to hear anything from any school in the district. But in the 11th hour, she received an interview invitation from her top choice of schools and was offered a job in the final days of our time in Uganda.
Other examples of God working things out in the 11th hour for us include: our plane flight back to the US, which was cancelled 6 days before we were set to fly but we were able to get out on a flight the day before, getting the moving company to show up to pick up our stuff in time for our move to COS - the stuff will arrive on the very day we're expecting to move in, finding new tenants to rent our house in Medford the day after the old tenants moved out, and finding a house to rent in Colorado Springs – it looks like we will get the only house available in our price range that would allow us to move in next week.

Some friends of Alisha's parents, Jerry and Jeanne, invited our family and Alisha's parents to stay with them on their houseboat on Lake Shasta for a few nights. It was so much fun and our first time houseboating. We parked it in a private cove and had a large finger of the lake all to ourselves - so quiet and beautiful and the 75 degree water was cool enough to soften the blow of the 100 degree heat. It was a great time.

The boys had a lesson on waterskiing and tried to get up, but couldn't quite master it yet.

They loved tubing though!

And kayaking and exploring in the private cove where the houseboat was parked was their favorite part of all.

Alisha showing her stuff. Waterskiiing was less kind to me - the first time up I fell and was knocked out. For the next two hours, though I was fully conscious I had no idea where I was. It was the weirdest feeling. Fortunately, most of my memory slowly came back, though there is about a 10 minute window starting with the fall that I only remember short bits of. I also cracked a few ribs too - I guess I'm "older than I once was...but younger than I'll be!"

Brodie driving the boat with Mr. Jerry

In the end, seeing God work in this 'last-minute' manner has changed our perspective on how God works in our lives. What we often see as the last minute, God see’s as the perfect timing. I’m learning that it’s a human concept to want things to be set in place well in advance so we don’t have to worry about it. Why would God want to operate that way? Where does He fit into that equation? Would we really be disciplined enough to involve God in the process if everything was set in stone far ahead of time? Maybe you would, but I know that I would very likely not.
This isn’t to say that we don’t need to do our part. Look at the USA’s last minute goal. What looked like a sure thing – the winger passing to our best scorer right in front of the goal – ended up being a dead end. But because Landon Donovan finished the play and kept running towards the goal, he was in the right position to pounce on the scoring opportunity and win the game. If we do the same – continue to plug away at what’s in front of us and ‘finish the play’ – when God decides to act at just the right moment, we will be in the position to put the ball in the far corner of the net (yes, a cheesy illustration but still a good point to think on).

We went camping with Alisha's parents at Burney Falls in Northern California. My parents joined midweek. We had a great time hiking, swimming and fishing in the creek and lake in the park.

Our friends Jason and Julie stopped by Burney Falls to camp a night on their way home to Davis, CA after spending the past 5 months in Australia. It was nice to hang out with friends who were in a similar, "re-entry" phase of life.

By coincidence, we camped right across from an old family friend - Casey Frye. I've known casey since I was in Junior High. Our boys loved playing with the Frye kids, and we really enjoyed visiting with Casey and Kathi.

I have no idea what ‘finishing the play’ means in your life, but for us it’s been a good reminder to continue to pray and act as if God IS going to act in a situation – not blind faith, but confident faith in what we feel God has called us to do. That means we have to be patient for God to act, but wait confidently – even to the point of making plans based on what we think God’s doing. For planners like us it’s very uneasy ground to step out without seeing the end of the trail, sometimes without even seeing the next step! But when we’re at the point where we can’t do something without God acting and then God acts, it produces in us a thankfulness to God that we would never know otherwise, and strengthens our faith and confidence in Him that He can and will follow through when He leads us to step out in faith.

The fireworks crew on the 4th - us with my brother Bret's family in Klamath Falls, Oregon

We went to the Lava Beds National Park near the Oregon/California border. The largest collection of caves in North America, though it's pretty remote so it's not nearly as busy as it would be if it were near a more populated area. The caves are very cool (literally, it's 55 degrees F or lower in most of them) and some are over a mile long. They range from huge (50 ft diameter tubes) to small (12" ceiling height) and one has a solid ice floor at the bottom. As you can see in the picture, some of the caves are developed with stairs and hand railings, but some require crawling on your stomach! A super fun place to visit.

We went through some of the "expert"' caves too, with some places only having a ceiling height of 24"!

Cousin Tate and Graysen exploring caves

The dog days of summer in Klamath Falls - Jonah and his Grandpa ('Papa') watching the croquet game in the backyard.

Moving update: We plan to arrive in Colorado Springs on July 14th and move into the house we’re hoping to rent the next day (we'll be on the road when we hopefully find out if we get the house!). Alisha starts attending a class she has to take for work on July 26th, so we should have just enough time to get moved in and settled. We’re looking forward to getting back to a normal routine of life, even though the 'normal' routine will be all new!

Our Last Week in Uganda

2010-05-30T06:33:00.000-07:00

A week of packing and goodbyes has made us a little crazy!

Our last week in Uganda is sure to prove to be a crazy and busy one, so we thought we’d share a short journal about everything we’ve doing to close down our lives here in Uganda and prepare for life back in the USA!

Saturday May 22, 2010:
5:30am: Woke up early to check the British Airways (BA) website to find that our flight is listed as operating normally! Finally, we can breathe a sign of relief that we will be able to leave June 1st.
10:30am: Picked up the Aylard’s (new eMi family that just arrived from Canada) and took them to the pool for the day.
7:00pm: Went to the guesthouse nearby for our going away party with eMi. It was a touching time where people said a lot of nice things about us and we were able to share what the East Africa office has meant to us. I promise I’m usually not a crier!

Sunday May 23, 2010:
9:30am: Picked up the Aylard’s and took them to church in town.
12:00pm: Stopped by the ‘mall’ to do some last minute shopping at a little souvenir store Alisha likes. We also grabbed bagels at the “New York Kitchen” – an American sounding and looking joint that does kind of resembles American food! ;)
6:00pm: Out to dinner with our friends Matt and Angela and their baby Alexis. One of the teachers from Heritage who has become a family friend watched the boys for us. I’ve probably spent the most time with Matt and Joe (from the UK) here since both are avid football (soccer) fans and players and most every weekend we’re around we’ve watched the games at the ARA. We’ve also been playing together on Friday nights and most recently Saturday mornings and at the Euro Cup tournament here in Kampala (see below).

Goodbye dinner with Matt and Angela

...and Alexis!

Monday May 24, 2010:
9:30am: Went to the bank to pay the new family’s rent since Pat (the new eMi employee) is in Tanzania on his first project trip as staff.
10:00am: Went to town to meet our landlord (finally! – we’ve spoken many times and email regularly, but I was always gone when he came by our house so this was our first face to face meeting!) and pay him for the painting of our house after we leave – it’s standard here when you move out of a rental to paint the interior.
6:00pm: Alisha had her 3rd interview with The Classical Academy in Colorado Springs. It’s a charter school and we are really excited about the prospect of her teaching there and the boys attending school there. Apparently, there is an 8000 student waiting list to get into this school!
8:30pm: We heard back from the principal and they offered Alisha a job! The offer is to teach part-time 2nd grade with an hour of 5th grade until November, and then take over the 5th grade job full-time when the teacher has her baby. How exciting!

Tuesday May 25, 2010:
7:00am: On a whim, I checked the BA website, and now they are saying that they won’t confirm our flight until Wednesday May 26th! Arrg! So, we’re back in limbo! Packing has to stop now until we know how many bags we’ll be allowed – if our flight goes, we get 15 bags. If we have to change to another carrier, we’ll only be allowed 10. Darn.
1:30pm: Last week I worked just over 30 hours, so this week I’m trying to cut back to around 20 so I’ll have time to do some closing up things. So I went home early and started doing paperwork.
3:00pm: Alisha arrived home with her Kindergarten report cards completed! Yeah! That’s a huge load off.
5:00pm: I went down to my final Tuesday night basketball – we’ve been doing it for 2 years now and there is a great group of guys. We’ve had as many as 25 show up, though usually it’s between 10-15. It’s been a great physical outlet, along with Saturday morning soccer with the Germans. But, as ‘luck’ would have it, on my last night I slightly pulled a calf muscle! I’m supposed to play in a soccer tournament this weekend with the Irish team so that is definetly in doubt now. L
6:00pm: Alisha had her last director’s wives skype call – she has really enjoyed getting to know the group of ladies scattered all over the world with their husbands working in the leadership of eMi.
8:00pm: Alisha called the principal at TCA back and accepted the position! We are so thankful that we’re heading back to the US with Alisha having a job and our boys knowing which school they’ll be at!
1:15am: I went to bed after spending 3 hours grading a Trigonometry final for Heritage. Apparently, the high school math teacher had to leave early, so they didn’t have anyone to grade the final. It took me 3 hours and a handful of googles, but I got it done! The hard part was that they left it up to me to determine how much each problem was worth and how much partial credit to give. It’s amazing the things you end up doing when you’re living overseas!

Wednesday May 26, 2010:
5:30am: Woke up to check if BA had posted the flight information…not yet.
12:15pm: BA announced that our flight was cancelled! I immediately called the BA office here and the lady said that the only option was to fly through Nairobi on Kenya Airways to connect to a BA flight to Heathrow. The BA flight out of Uganda the day before was on, but the agent said it was unavailable. So I reserved the Nairobi flight for the time being.
2:40pm: Since I had to take Jonah down to the clinic to have some warts frozen off, I decided to stop by the BA office in town to just see what I could find out. When I sat down and told the lady the situation (she was the same one I had spoken to earlier), she brought up the information on her computer screen and shrieked, “Ah! They’ve opened up the flight the day before!” All the agents in the office immediately started typing and/or making phone calls, so the lady who was helping me quickly added us to the flight and booked us! Now we get to have our same itinerary as originally planned, only 1 day earlier! How exciting!
5:30pm: Our friends the Mickler’s – Bobby and Downie and their 5 kids - invited us over for a delicious steak dinner! They are a great family and we’ll miss having them in our lives.

Our good friends Bobby and Downie

The boys with the 5 Mickler kids

9:15pm: After getting the boys in bed, Alisha and I accidently fell asleep on our bed and didn’t wake up until 1:15am! We couldn’t believe we had just slept for 4 hours. Alisha did the smart thing and regrouped and went to bed for good 30 minutes later. I went down and started working through the 23 emails that had come in while we were sleeping! I didn’t return to bed until 3:40am! The way I see it, I am now trying a new anti-jet lag strategy since I seem to be getting worse and worse at fighting it off whenever I travel to or from Africa.

Thursday May 27, 2010:
8:30am: Went into town for my final root canal appointment. It lasted an hour and a half, but it’s all done! The dentist is actually really good and has all the sophisticated equipment. Plus, dental work is about 1/4th the cost of work done in the US! I think all major dental work I have in the future I’m going to try to have done here!
1:30pm: I’m on the phone with the internet company trying to get our service restored. It’s only right that on my last days in the office, I’m doing what I did most – trying to restore one of our utilities that has either been illegitimately turned off, or the line (or pipe) has once again been compromised. It’s a frustrating part of life here, but it happens almost daily – certainly weekly.
9:30pm: Got an email from a volunteer who wants to join my project trip to Zambia in September! It’s nice that my team for the Fall trip is already beginning to take shape.

Friday May 28, 2010:
8:30am: Went into work for my last eMi morning prayer. I led it based on a devotional I’d read last week about how even though God gives us many talents and gifts, sometimes he wants to use us in ways that are not in our areas of gifting, and that He does that so we don’t forget that ultimately it is He who is in control of our lives. Sometimes, we become overly dependant on our own ability instead of on God to use our talents for His purposes.
11:00am: The Final chapel at Heritage is how the school closes the school year, so I went down to attend. They recognized all the families and teachers who were leaving, so Alisha went up to receive a photo album they’d made for her. I also went up to help present a gift from the parents to Miss Keeley, the principal (from the UK) who is also leaving later this summer. It was a great school year, and it’s a great school. We’ll definitely miss the school and the people that make it special.

Jonah with his good friends Gogi ("Jo-gee") and Emmanuel (right)

Graysen and his friend Milaena Stride

Jonah, up front receiving his 'Christian Character' award. Each class voted for the person in the class who they thought best exemplified Christian Character, and Jonah's class picked him! We were so proud of him.

1:00pm: I left work for the last time as a member of the eMi EA office. Alisha has school functions from 1:00pm to 7:30pm tonight, so I’m on watching the boys duty. Also, the guy who is buying my motorcycle is supposed to come pay me and take the bike.
5:30pm: The motorcycle is sold!

Me and Martin, the boda driver, who bought my boda from me. I had about 5800 km on it during the 2 1/2 years I owned it. Martin will put that much on it in less than 3 months!

6:30pm: We drove around to the various eMi sites and said good bye to the guards (we said goodbye to the house helpers earlier in the day). We gave them each a ‘bonus’ to say thank you for their love and care for our family. Our guards and Monica have been a major part of our lives for the past 2 1/2 years and it is hard saying goodbye.

Guard Stephen - he's the head of security and HR for eMi EA - a natural leader and part of our office leadership

Guard Yokannah - always alert no matter what time of night

Guard Wilson - Jonah spent a lot of time with Wilson gardening. We will miss having him around the house.

Guard Joseph - a super nice guy and very hard worker. He's also an avid reader and read any book we put out there for him at night.

Saturday May 29, 2010:
5:00am: I woke up early - time is short here, so sleep is getting less and less!
6:45am: We left the house to go across town to the school where the Eurocup Football (soccer) Tournament is being held. I’m slated to play on the Irish team, but they are being sticklers about nationalities playing for their own country, so earlier this week I had my dad look up my Irish heritage – it turns out both of my 7th great grandparents were born in Ireland (in the towns of Ulster and Tyrone). Perfect, I am officially at least 1/256th Irish! That should be good enough!
9:00am: In the first game of the tournament, I pulled my right calf muscle! But since there were two games to go, I sprayed some deep heat on it and wrapped some tape as tight as I could stand.

The trainer, Emma, treating my calf. I haven't had a bad injury here the whole time I've been here, so I guess I was due.

11:00am: After the completion of the next two games, I limped off the field and unwrapped the tape on my calf.
11:02am: I can no longer walk on my right leg! But it was worth it!

Matt (L), Joe (C) and I after our heartbreaking elimination from the 16 team tournament. We played with the Irish team, and didn't qualify out of our group (of 4) despite only conceding 1 goal. They had a goofy rule that any goals scored by women (each team had 1 woman playing) were worth 2 goals! So we lost 2-1 to the UK on a female goal - lame rule! But I am really going to miss these two guys!

Matt and Angela and us after the tournament

11:30am: We arrived at the ARA pool for the last time. We hung out with friends and swam most of the afternoon. This place has been such a great retreat for us, and we have met so many good friends here – we will definitely miss our friends here in Uganda.

Our good friends Emma and Laurie (from the UK, via Texas).

6:00pm: We went out to dinner with our friends Joe and Jess from the UK. They have been here for almost 2 years and are leaving in July. We have hung out a lot with them at the ARA and our house over the past year and have really become good friends. I will definitely miss watching the English Premier League with Joe, but I’m certain our paths will cross again.

Alisha and Jess

Me and Joe

Monica watched the boys, so when we came home, it was time to say goodbye to her. She has become a part of our family here and it was hard to say goodbye.

We'll miss you Monica!

Sunday May 30, 2010:
6:15am: Our last day in Uganda. We spent the morning finishing packing before church.
9:45am: We left for our last church service, picking up the Aylard’s along the way (minus Pat who is on a project trip still).
12:30pm: After church, we stopped by a few of the local places we’ve frequented to say goodbye to some of our Ugandan friends. We’d been told by others in the past that it was important to say goodbye to all the store workers and other local people – a lot of time westerners just leave and forget to say goodbye to the people they’ve interacted with most every day. So we didn’t want to repeat that mistake, and after stopping by a handful of places, we were glad we had done so.
3:30pm: The last of the packing is done and the bags are closed and ready by the door – all 15 of them! We left a little room for the clothes on our back today, so we are all set to leave! After a month of saying goodbyes, we are a little fatigued of saying goodbye! We remember feeling the exact same way when we left the US 2 1/2 years ago.
So, I better stop the journal now so I have time to post it. We're heading over to our good friends the Stride's for a quick pizza party in just a bit.

Then, it's off to the airport at 4am tomorrow morning (that’s 6pm Sunday night, Pacific time).
USA, here we come……… :)

This was our sending off crew 2 1/2 years ago...

The start of the journey: SFO in January 2008

15 bags are packed, 3 boys and 2 parents are ready to go!

Last days in Uganda - Part II

2010-05-22T22:32:00.000-07:00

Jonah & Brodie at Graysen's Graduation on Brodie's 9th birthday. You can't tell in the picture, but Jonah is now 1/4" taller than Brodie (much to Brodie's displeasure!)

We've just about said all of our goodbyes here now and have started the packing process. It's a surreal feeling to be leaving life once again. It's hard to believe that after leaving Medford 2 1/2 years ago, Kampala has grown to feel like home with so many friends and people who have been our 'family away from family'. Leaving here feels very similar to how we felt leaving Medford - we love our life here and the people we've met. I have loved working at the eMi East Africa office. I feel so priviledged to have been a part of the work that is done and teamed with the people who are doing it.
We really do feel like this is the time God has for us to step away - if we weren't so sure of that it would be much harder to leave. We are both excited and a little nervous about what lies ahead, but I am very excited to still be a part of the work eMi is doing, and I hope that my being in Colorado Springs can in some way still be of help to the East Africa office as well.
In these last days, we've had a lot of dinners, BBQ's and events that have allowed us to thoroughly say goodbye to our great friends here. We've also had a Kindergarten graduation for Graysen, a birthday party for Brodie (9), hosted my college friend Ryan for a couple of weeks, I'm playing in one last soccer tournament next weekend and Alisha is finalizing her school year this week! And, we've been tracking the British Airways strike and volcano to see if our flight is going to be cancelled! (So far, they are saying that our flight will not be cancelled due to the strike!) So, enjoy some pictures from our very busy last couple of weeks in Uganda...

Brodie's birthday party

Graysen and his teacher after 'graduation'

Even on tip-toes, Graysen's about the shortest in the class!

The kindergarten class had a parent's party in the room before the graduation ceremony (which was in front of the whole elementary school).

Graysen showing me what he's learned this year.

Interns Brittany and Megan being the drumset for Jonah at a welcome party at our house for the new Summer interns.

Our neighbor and pastor, Brian Kelly and I, out to one last dinner. It's been great to have them as neighbors these past 2 1/2 years. We'll miss them!

Alisha and Lynne (Brian's wife). They've kind of been attached at the hip these past 2 1/2 years.

Our boys with the Aylard boys. The Aylards are just arriving from Canada and their dad Pat will be working int he eMi EA office for the next two years. They also will be living in our house and driving our car!

The Aylard family - we're bummed to not have had more overlap with them, but then again, the fact that they bought all of our stuff and car and took over our house to rent has meant that our leaving Uganda was unbelievably smooth! I think it's been a blessing for both families, as they don't have to furnish a house or find a car, and we get to 'live and leave'!

My friend from College, Ryan Greene, came to visit for a couple weeks. We had a great time with Ryan, and Ryan fit in very well with everyone here. Lots of laughing those 2 weeks!

Our friend Betsy with daughter Ellis - our boys love and miss this little girl! They left in early May for a visit home before heading to Tanzania for their next assignment with the US Embassy.

Betsy's husband Joe and I - one good thing about us leaving is that some of our friends our leaving too. It would have been hard to stay on without Joe and Betsy around!

Paul & Karen Berg just left after being here for a year. Paul worked as a long term volunteer civil engineer in our office and was a great friend and mentor.

Friends Downie, Dawn and Tarah at our going away party. We really have been blessed with a great group of friends here (their husbands Bobby, Doug and Wayne aren't pictured, but they too are great friends!)

Some of the boys' girl friends (two words!) at the going away party

Guard Joseph with his 'kill'! Alisha opened the cupboard and this little guy came running out. So Joseph came in and helped me corral it and kill it.

Some of our last days in Uganda...Part I

2010-05-07T21:48:00.000-07:00

Here's a photo collage from our last few weeks in Uganda...we've met some great friends, seen some amazing places, and have been blessed beyond words at how God brought us to and through this experience. I feel so fortunate to have worked with the incredible ministries and talented professionals at the eMi East Africa office. It's been a life changing experience and one I hope will continue to shape our lives in the future. The Ugandan people will always hold a special place in our hearts and we pray that their country continues to develop into a prosperous and healthy place for it's people where God's love can overwrite generations of war, struggle and tragedy. Enjoy some pictures from our last weeks living in Uganda!

My good friends Joe (on left) and Matt (center) and I watching the English Premiership at the ARA club TV room. Most every Saturday afternoon/evening we'd meet up to watch the football (soccer) matches. Joe is from the UK and is unbiased as his team (Luton Town) is 4 leagues below the EPL. Matt is from Michigan, but unfortunately supports Arsenal. My jersey should give away my allegiance (Manchester United).

Jonah and our househelper Monica had a spontaneous jam session on the drums the other day. The rest of us all came in the hallway to dance to their drumming.

We took the boys to the Speke Resort here in Kampala one Sunday afternoon to ride horses and swim. It was a fun treat for the boys - Speke is a very nice resort where foreign dignitaries usually stay.

Alisha and I having a seat while the boys rode their scooters around the big, paved loop at Speke Resort.

Graysen and his bestest buddy and next door neighbor Liana. Sometimes, they are like an old, married couple together! Too cute. Graysen is really going to miss her.

Our office manager, Semei, got married last month. As a part of the festivities, the bride introduces her prospective husband to all her family, friends and villagers. This 'Introduction' takes place before the wedding on a separate day and happens at the brides village. So all of us who work with Semei donned the local attire (Kanzu's with sportcoats for the men and gomesi's for the women). With the travel, it was a 12-hour day! But really cool to be a part of, and Semei was honored to have so many of his muzungu co-workers attend.

Intern Travis and staff member Steve and I posing in our costumes.

The eMi ladies taking part in part of the ceremony - the presenting of gifts.

The wedding was the next day - back to normal attire!

We were given a special table of honor as Semei's co-workers. I even got to give a speech!

The boys were excited to be able to wear ties!

We don't know this boy - some man we didn't know came up to us at the wedding and asked if his son could take a picture with our boys.

Easter Sunday morning, the Easter Bunny arrived. Amazing how fast that bunny gets around the world!

We had a nice Easter dinner with our good friends Joe and Betsy and their daughter Ellis. They work at the Embassy here and we have enjoyed hanging out with them over the past 8 months. We'll miss them as they are moving on to Tanzania this Summer after a brief visit home.

Our boys absolutely adore Ellis - of course, as cute as she is who doesn't adore her. She is so dang cute, and she isn't afraid to use her cuteness to get out of a jam either, according to her parents. We love little Ellis!

Building in the developing world

2010-04-09T22:41:00.000-07:00

Another staff member in our office sent me the following videos. They are a great illustration of the paradigm shift required of engineers and designers in the developing world. For instance, back in the West (USA, Europe, etc.), minimizing labor even at the added expense of extra materials is the name of the game since labor is much more expensive than materials. In the developing world however, labor is extremely cheap, so hiring for example a team of laborers to hand dig a septic tank hole is far less expensive than hiring an excavator to do the job.
In these videos, you'll see how creative (and talented!) some of these laborers can be when they are asked to accomplish things that we would never dream of doing by hand back in the West. As it relates to eMi, when we're designing anything from buildings to water projects, we have to make sure that what we're designing is appropriate for the local labor practices - though as you'll see in these videos, their creativity can usually accomplish most anything!

In the first video...I've actually seen this happening on construction sites here. The alternate is, they build a huge wooden ramp where they haul the rock up in wheelbarrows - even several stories high. The ramp is usually pretty steep though so I don't know that it's much of an improvement especially when you include the effort it takes to build the ramp.

In this next video...I have not seen this done before! I think the guy on the bottom is going to need rotator cuff replacement surgery before he's 30! The cement truck shown is pretty rare, at least in Uganda. I've only seen two cement trucks here in the past 2 1/2 years. Almost all cement is hand mixed in this part of the world. Usually they have an elaborate assembly line in place to accomplish what's shown in this video.

The last video is from India...this guy belongs at Venice Beach, or maybe in a Circus! Very impressive!

Our Book

2010-03-31T10:53:00.000-07:00

One Saturday morning in 2004, I woke up early (around 5am) with my mind racing about an idea I had for writing a book. I laid there for about a half hour while I planned the book out in my mind, before finally getting up and typing out a brief outline on the computer. When Alisha got up, we discussed it and began the process of developing it further. Now, nearly 6 years later, the book that I awoke with in my mind and we worked out together over many hours, days, weeks, months and years is finally published!

The book is titled: 'The First Steps, A Parent's Guide to Fighting Autism". Obviously, this directly relates to our own journey with helping our son Brodie battle this disorder. But beyond that, it's a guide for other parents who are in a similar boat - in particular, those that are new to autism and don't know what steps to take to help their child. We wrote this to be a very practical, easy to read book that gives very specific things you can do to reorient your life and home to give your child the best possible chance for recovery.

We feel so blessed by our son Brodie, though the battle has been and is a long and oftentimes difficult one. But the remarkable improvements he made, especially early on, set the ground work for his leading virtually a normal life at this point. Autism will never leave Brodie, but he is getting better and better at overcoming the disorder on a daily, sometimes hourly, and often moment by moment basis. He has taught us a lot, and we still have a ton to learn.

If you know of someone who has recently found out their child has autism, or if you know of someone who is suspecting their child may have autism, or if like us, you recognize that there is something different about your child but you just can't figure out what it is - we wrote this book for you and hope it will be a great help and blessing to you, your family, and your special needs child.
You can order it on Amazon.com, amongst other places. Just search under Amazon books for 'The First Steps Crawford" and it should be the first book to come up. Alternatively, we have a link on the right hand side of our blog that takes you to the page.

Gabriel

2010-03-20T07:27:00.001-07:00

About 3 weeks ago, our house-helper Monica started talking about a man she kept seeing off the side of the road (near the rock quarry, for those of you who have been here) each day when she passed by on her way home from work. The man caught her eye because he was fairly old for a Ugandan, possibly late 60’s, and yet he didn’t seem to have a home or anything to do. It’s not terribly uncommon to see homeless people here – you can spot them fairly easily. But this man was different. He didn’t look filthy or mentally ill, though he did look like he wasn’t completely healthy.
For about a week, as Monica passed by, she felt like God was asking her to give away an athletic shirt that Alisha had given her. So, one afternoon she decided to bring the shirt along with her to give to the man. When she did, she realized that he was from another part of the country since he didn’t speak Luganda. He also didn’t speak English, so one of the quarry workers had to translate.
The man’s name was Gabriel, and he was in fact, homeless. He had constructed a small cover under a short tree right next to the quarry where he had been staying for some time. He used to work at the quarry, but he lost his job awhile back (presumably because of his age and inability to work hard enough). Now, he was sick, had no family, and wanted to return to his home village in Eastern Uganda, where he hadn’t been for over 40 years.
Monica came and shared her burden for this man during our morning prayer time at eMi. The first couple of days or so, I think we were all caught up in the numbness of hearing these tragic stories all the time – or at least that’s how I felt. But after a few days, I began to feel that we had a responsibility to this man now since we had the means to help him. And since Monica, who is not exactly wealthy by any stretch, and in fact would probably herself be the subject of such a story if her life were observed by a passerby in America, felt compelled to help this man we really owed it to her to be a part of equipping and supporting her in her plight to help him.
So we decided to pass around an envelope at eMi to get some funds to first get him medical treatment and then get him home (we do this at times when there is a financial need so that people can give anonymously). We collected about 180,000 Ugandan shillings that day, or about $90 USD. The next day, our office manager Semei and head of human resources Stephen, went and picked Gabriel up and took him to the clinic. They spent about 6 hours there with him as every common test was run on him – fortunately all coming back negative. They treated him for a chest infection, and gave him two full drip bags as he was extremely dehydrated. In all, his treatment and testing took about a week to get him back to feeling normal. During this time, each day Monica would drop him by some food from our house, or if we didn’t have much for him we’d give him some of the money for him to buy food.
Finally, after about a week he felt that he was ok to travel home, so last Friday morning Semei picked him up, took him by our house to shower in our guard’s quarters, and drove him downtown where he got on the bus to head home to his village. He was a little nervous since he didn’t know anyone, but we gave him 50,000ugx to help get him settled there. Our local staff seemed convinced that even though it had been that long, his tribe back home would remember him and take him in without a problem.
Monica was so happy – she felt as if God had truly blessed her to be able to help this man. For all of us, it was humbling to be led into this by a person who herself has very little. But in the end, we too felt glad to have been used by God to help Monica bless this man – probably saving his life and certainly making what years he has left here more enjoyable.
I shouldn’t forget the most important detail, that on day 3 of talking with Gabriel Monica prayed with him and he became a Christian. She said from that day forward he was a different person to talk to – much more upbeat and happy.
This experience was a humbling one, as it was amazing to us that Monica had such a heart for this man – even though she is not all that far above him on the poverty scale. But it taught us that everyone can do something, and that everyone has different roles in God’s kingdom work. Romans 12 talks about how each person doesn’t have to do everything, but rather we should focus on what our role is and do it to the best of our ability. I’m reminded of our situation - not everyone can move to Uganda or work for eMi, but everyone can play a part in the work God’s doing in Uganda or through eMi. The people who support us financially to be here are every bit as critical to the work eMi does as the architects and engineers who do the work. The people who can’t give but pray for us also have an important role, and the ‘team’ which we’re all on would suffer mightily if they didn’t do their part. In the case of Gabriel, Monica was the eyes and ears, and the rest of us at eMi East Africa provided the financial backing that allowed her to carry out the work God laid on her heart. What a privilege it was to be a small part of it – if I’m to be honest, I think I would much prefer to be on the ‘financial’ team than the one receiving the money! But God picks the teams and assigns the duties, so it’s not up to us to wish for a different role. In the end, I’m just thankful he picked us at all!

Word of Life Project Trip - Part III

2010-02-28T05:51:00.000-08:00

Part III of III
Sunday February 14, 2010:
Today was a busy day! We were on the WOL bus at 7:45am to head back into Kampala for church. First, we went to the church at Kampala International University where Thomas was speaking. It was a larger church with around 400 people in the service. Thomas did a nice job – he’s a very engaging speaker and had the congregation laughing at many points along the way. After this first service, we drove across town to a very small church with maybe 25 people in attendance. This was Thomas’ family’s home church, and Thomas is one of the elders. The other elder, Peter, gave the message on Hebrews about how we are to live our Christian lives as if we were running a race, persevering to the end. It was a good message and a very different ‘Africa Church’ experience from our larger ‘Africa Church’ experience earlier that morning.
After the services were over, we drove to the downtown mall and ate at the food court. It was a fun time and very generous of Thomas, who paid for lunch. We then packed back into the bus and headed back to the site for the final presentation.

The architectural team preseenting the site zoning plan.

Hong Kong architect Pearly discussing the new Bible Institute campus (her real name is Pui Lai, but she goes by 'Pearly' since it's pronounced similarly).

Surprisingly, about 25-30 people showed up for the presentation, most of them staff at the school. The presentation went very well as the ministry was excited about our master plan and the guests in attendance were very complimentary and thankful for our work. One funny thing that was a reminder of where we were was that a number of the people in attendance were hesitant to accept flush toilets as the only restroom facility on the site, preferring that some pit latrines be retained in case of emergencies. Thomas was adamant that there be no pit latrines on the site though as he is trying to modernize their students and guests and provide a more sanitary environment. Our team thought it a bit funny that our design of a complete wastewater system was partially shunned for smelly, unsanitary pit latrines! One of the guests mentioned the fact that the water could go out if there was an emergency situation such as a military coup! We later joked that perhaps future coup attempts would have to be addressed as a part of future projects’ master planning!

A site zoning plan, depicting the various site functions in an easy to read, colorful sketch.

The Master Plan, with buildings labeled.

But overall, the night went well and we were excited to have completed our work and pleased the ministry as well. Since WOL is in over 60 countries, perhaps this will be the start of a long-standing relationship between eMi and WOL. I hope this is the case as the youth camp focus of WOL hits a soft spot for me since I was involved with Young Life when I was a kid.

A perspective drawing our architectural team sketched up for the presentation.

Another perspective view of the site. Notice the kite flying in the background...that was inspired by Jonah's kite from earlier in the week!

Monday February 15, 2010:
Well today started out as a great day as I am excited to be that much closer to going home. The project trip work was complete (for now) and we headed back to the office to regroup before heading to Jinja for a 1-day ‘closing time’. When I got home, I quick packed a small bag so I could head down to pickup Brodie from school since he will be joining us on this trip. But just as I was leaving the house, our guard informed me that the power company had come by earlier and disconnected our power! Apparently, we hadn’t paid our bill, which we hadn’t even received yet and which wasn’t due for another two weeks!
Instantly, I was really frustrated. I knew I had to leave town since the team was waiting for me, but I also knew that without dogged persistence it could be a week before the power was turned back on. I was also frustrated that our guard had even let them in the compound, or that he hadn’t insisted that we be notified so we could come resolve the issue. This had happened once before about a year ago, and that guard had notified me and I quickly came home and spoke to the power company and resolved the issue without them turning our power off.
So I quickly got out my phone to start making phone calls – first to the power company. But unfortunately, the cell phone system was off and on and I couldn’t connect. So I tried the number for one of their technicians, Joseph, and after 4 times I finally got through (the only reason I had his number was that one of our power lines was out for 2 weeks recently before I could get the power company to show up, so once they showed up I gave the guy a little ‘thank you’ gift when he left and got his cell phone number. I knew having his number might come in handy again but I didn’t expect to need it so soon!) Joseph told me that if I went down and paid the bill that he would come right over and reconnect us. Since, I was leaving town, I asked Semei our office manager to go down and pay it for me and to call me when he was done so I could call Joseph. Well, to make a long story short, after Alisha called 6 more times and I called 4 more times, Joseph finally came and reconnected us around 5pm.
In the meantime, I had to ‘let go’ and allow others to help me since my team was leaving for Jinja. We left town about an hour and a half late, stopping for lunch along the way at the ‘Chicken-on-a-stick’ place I’ve mentioned in past blogs (also referred to as the ‘In-your-face-chicken-place’). When we arrived in Jinja, I went to check into the little resort we’d be staying at for our closing time. That’s when volunteer Kelly came to me at the check-in desk to notify me that her computer was missing. I had packed the matatu (mini-van taxi we had hired) so I told her where I’d put it. After finishing checking in, I went back to find that the laptop was indeed gone. We figured out that at the road-side chicken place, the back windows of the van had been left open, and since all our luggage was piled in the backseat, we must not have noticed someone reaching in and swiping it.
I was so upset. At the time, the electricity ordeal was not yet resolved so I was still stressed by that. To have this happen once again on a project trip I was leading was very disheartening. Kelly had a great attitude about it, saying that she was just going to start praying for the person who stole it that he or she would come to give their life over to God. It really was amazing to see her perspective on it, especially as I stewed on the inside that it had yet again happened on one of my trips.
We concluded the day at a nice restaurant in Jinja and had our closing time meeting. We each took turns sharing about our trip experience and then we all went around encouraging each other with things we’d seen from the trip. It was a nice end of the day, and Brodie was on his best behavior at the restaurant which was a God-send. But overall, I fell like it was one of my worst days since we’ve moved here. It seemed that every system that I encountered that day had essentially fallen apart – the power, the cell phones, and even the chicken place. I was really struggling with a bad attitude, even though on the outside I didn’t look so mad.
But in the end, I had to remember what was important - none of us were injured and not very much project work had been lost (Kelly had handed out copies of most of her work the day before). Poor Kelly had lost a lot of personal treasures such as pictures and other files, but her positive attitude about the situation was a big help to the team to make sure that the closing meeting wasn’t ruined by the disheartening theft earlier in the day.
I should also mentioned that I really enjoyed having that alone time with Brodie. He did great on the trip – his first real trip away from home without mom there to coordinate all his special dietary issues. Of course, mom packed his bag so anyone with half a brain could have cared for him, but I still felt good about giving her a break for at least one night! And, I loved my time with just me and Brodie, just as I had loved the day I had with just Jonah earlier in the week. I look forward to doing that more and more with each of the boys now that they are a little older.

Brodie and I in Jinja