Uganda trip - Show Mercy International Primary School
Part I of VI
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| Mike and I with volunteer electrical engineer Eric, waiting for the flight to Uganda at Heathrow. |
The basics of the trip are – we have a team of 15 engineers,
architects and surveyors coming to help a ministry called Show Mercy
International. Show Mercy’s motto is to ‘mobilize, empower and inspire people
to live on purpose’. They accomplish this through three platforms: children’s
homes and programs, a medical clinic, and mission’s teams. This is the second
EMI trip with Show Mercy – in 2009 we came and master planned a 25 acres site
for mission’s guesthouses, children’s homes, medical clinic and staff housing.
That original project is now mostly constructed and we are staying on the site,
in the buildings EMI designed. It’s a great EMI success story!
For this project, we will master plan a new primary school
and leadership training center on a 14-acre parcel a few hundred meters from
the current site.
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| The current site, designed by the EMI team in 2009. |
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| The survey team - heading out to start. The pressure is always on the surveyor to get the site survey done as soon as possible since the architects have to wait to see what the shape and topography of the site are before starting the master plan. |
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| If there were action movies about engineers, this would be a movie poster in theaters the world over. |
Monday January 27th
Riding on my umpteenth plane flight across the world to join
another EMI project trip, I don’t know what to think or feel. On my first trip,
I was a tangled bundle of nerves and fear, almost in shock of what I was doing.
Now, 1 month shy of 8 years on from that trip, it all feels so routine, so
normal.
In some ways, because I’m not full of fear, it’s hard to
feel the emotion or connect the mental dots that this is something I’m doing
because God called me to do it. Shouldn’t that be the case if I’m doing
something for God? Shouldn’t it be scary, or hard? Of course, leaving Alisha &
our life together for two weeks is very hard. In fact, I hate it really. I love
our life together and really have no desire to do anything separate from her or the boys. But
I will say, once I’m gone, I’ve grown to settle down quickly into my ‘trip
mode’, albeit with the feeling of having half of me not there.
But nonetheless, I do believe God has called me to EMI. I know
that he has led me on this path, first giving me the engineering abilities and
training, and then helping me learn how to lead teams of all sorts of
designers, and then giving me the opportunity to learn about the bigger picture
of how he wants to use both missions and development work for his purposes. He’s brought people and circumstances
into my life that have allowed me to learn about all kinds of things that
relate to not just EMI, but the global effort of Christians and Christian
organizations trying to help people in need around the world, help give them an
opportunity where none existed, and ultimately to point them to Jesus as the
one who sent us in their time of need.
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| Hearing the vision whilst sharing the 2.5 square feet of shade. |
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| Taking a break - transitioning from a climate whose weather systems are dictated by the North Atlantic and North Sea to one dictated by Lake Victoria isn't easy. (i.e. it was hot). |
So yes, I may not feel some of the same, faith-stretching
pains and fears I used to feel on project trips. But, that’s a sign of the work
God’s done in me, and the preparation he’s given me for whatever lies ahead in
the future. Because if I know one thing about God – though he delights in our
achieving things or growing to new levels, he is not interested in our
achieving ‘comfort’ in this life. Contentment? Yes. But that contentment is
found in relying on him, regardless of whatever new and stretching
circumstances he brings our way. In other words, God never loses sight of our
potential, and will always keep us growing towards it.
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| Schooling a little Ugandan child. If I'm honest, this is a masterful job of shielding a clear 'shirt grab' from the referee's vision (with my left hand). |
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| It's not all fun and games on EMI trips though. There's plenty of time for lounging around too. |
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