5Crawfords

The EMI Nicaragua Office (with John, Gala, and I) Arriving into Managua early last month, if I hadn’t know any better, I’d have thought the country was just as normal and stable as I’d ever seen it. There were no outward signs at all of the political tensions that had erupted earlier in the year. We did pass a couple of pro-government rallies en route from the airport, but that was just a small group of people standing in the traffic circles waving flags and large posters of the President’s face. Fortunately, the political situation in the country isn’t for us to sort out. Instead, we were coming down to try to help the office chart the way forward given a number of challenges in the past year: the loss of three (of 6) ex-pat staff families, loss of the majority of project work due to the unrest in the country, the loss of the office director who departed in August to help his wife’s ministry in the country, some internal struggles in the office related to the challenge of wo...

The worldwide EMI Directors, gathered in Woking, England In September, Brad attended EMI's annual Director's Conference held this year in the United Kingdom. Each year, EMI's worldwide office directors come together at one of our office locations to have a week's worth of meetings on a wide variety of important topics, ranging from vision casting and goal setting, to dreaming and brainstorming about how we might expand and grow, to practical discussions on how to better carry out the calling God's given our ministry, to praying for each other and the world and church we serve. God began leading EMI into a variety of new areas several years ago and some of those visions are just now being explored - expanding our services to help ministries all the way through construction, as well as figuring out how we might serve communities and the church in all places, including the United States. We also have been sensing God's direction in having us explore all sorts ...

The EMI Global Office The past few months have been an all-out push to get all the documents ready for our June board meeting where EMI Global would be officially formed…and, it’s now happened – EMI Global is a registered charity in Colorado! …So what’s the big deal? As I’ve shared in the past, one of EMI’s 10-year goals is to bring in people from all nationalities of the world to be a part of every level of the ministry of EMI – volunteers, interns, staff, and leadership. With this, we want the overall direction and vision of the organization to be formed and guided by people from every country, not just Americans. By creating EMI Global, there is now a vehicle for that to happen. Locally led, EMI Network conferences are now taking place around the world! An example of how EMI has changed...this is a recent staff photo of our EMI Uganda office! Because of all my work in this globalization process, I haven’t traveled as much in 2018 as in recent years. But that’...