Summer 2020 update

Brodie's High School graduation ceremony!

With the near complete shutdown of international travel in March due to the Covid pandemic around the world, the work in EMI's 11 offices has been significantly impacted. However, the stoppage of our normal project work has opened the door for our overseas offices to reach out to the local mission hospitals and medical ministries to provide assistance in their plans to combat the virus in their country.

As a result, we have been able to partner with hospitals in India, Southeast Asia, and Africa to help them repurpose their patient care wards into Covid response facilities that are better equipped to deal with virus-stricken patients.

Asha Kiran Hospital in southern Odisha, India, is converting a training centre into a 20-bed COVID isolation unit. EMI India helped design the layout and circulation to reduce the likelihood of virus transmission. Image courtesy of EMI India.

In addition, many of our ministry clients had already raised their necessary project funds prior to the pandemic outbreak, so our overseas offices have been able to work on those projects in a faster than expected timeline due to the cancellations of many of our normal team projects.

Another way EMI has adapted to the new normal where travel isn't possible is to look for opportunities to get involved in project work in the countries where our offices are located, including in the USA. Historically, EMI has done very little project work inside the USA. However, with international trips grounded, we reached out to some of our partners who do work inside the USA.

Rural Alaska...the next EMI frontier?

This has led to our first project working with First Nations people up in rural Alaska. So, two weeks ago, a team of EMI civil engineers headed up to Alaska to assess some potential water projects in a few of the villages housing First Nations people. These projects, if they are deemed viable, could help improve and revitalize the water systems in these villages.

Like the rest of the world, our family has largely spent the last several months at home. Interestingly, I caught a cough and flu in Scotland back on Feb. 28th. I recovered from everything but the cough, which I've been battling now for 5 months! An antibody test in June confirmed it likely wasn't Covid though. It's thankfully nearly gone now, and a pulmonologist gave me a clean bill of health last week, but it's been an awfully weird time to have a chronic respiratory illness!

Alisha finished up the school year teaching via online learning, and the boys finished their school year the same way. Most notably, Brodie's last day of high school as a senior came on March 25th without anyone knowing it would be the last day. Fortunately, the outbreak was under control here sufficiently in June to allow for an in-person graduation ceremony. Parents were allowed to attend the modified, outdoor celebration of the 2020 graduates at the outdoor football stadium.

 

With Brodie heading off to college here in town in the fall (he'll be living at home), it was already going to be a weird time for our family. We're praying things will settle down in time for him to enter college with things as normal as possible.

 

Also, we are moving across town in the next month as we wanted to live closer to the university, not only for Brodie but also for the other boys since we expect all 3 boys will eventually attend there while living at home to help keep the costs of college down.

The Crawford's Summer of 2020, in photos:

Summer started with Brodie's High School graduation!
He finished 5th in his graduating class of 400+ with a 4.25 GPA.
He'll attend the Univ. of Colorado at Colorado Springs in the
fall, majoring in Computer Science (and living at home! :) ).

Jonah helped us prepare our house to sell by installing
new flooring in our bathrooms and laundry room.

He did not get this talent/interest from me!

Just before we were ready to put the house on the market,
we had a major flood in our upstairs shower the ran down
to the basement. Thankfully, insurance covered it and
our house was professionally dried and restored. It only cost
us about a month of time.

Meanwhile, we've spent a lot of time on bike rides
during the pandemic lockdown!

I mean a lot of time on bike rides! We've gotten to
know the trails around Colorado Springs a lot better!

We've also spent a lot of time hiking!

Brodie and I did a 14er on Father's Day - 
Quandary Peak near Breckenridge.

My sister Traci and family came out to Colorado from
LA to spend a week up in the mountains with us!

The LA-folks liked Colorado hiking!

We took my sister on my favorite hike - Booth Lake.

You need to come visit us in Colorado and come on
this hike with us!

This is Booth Lake...it's a 10-mile round trip journey
and the journey is as good as the destination.

This guy and his friend were waiting at the lake for us.
(It's a mountain goat, which is actually a cousin to the
antelope and not related to goats at all.)

We also took the LA crew rafting on the Colorado River.
Despite how this picture looks, it was actually pretty tame
due to lower water levels this year.

We survived this tornado warning and a crazy 
downpour at our house (the blue dot), but just
a half-mile north of us saw tangerine-size hail!

Given all the hiking and biking, a trip to the ER
was bound to happen - fortunately this was just
a gash on Jonah's shin that needed a few stitches.
We were the only patients in the entire ER - it
seems everyone is afraid of the hospital these days.

And last but not least, these two are catching
wind of the upcoming house move, and they
aren't very pleased about it.