5Crawfords

Project Trip to Luwero: PART III Saturday September 20: Hot water for locals only Today was another full work day at the guesthouse. We were able to get a lot done and are about ready for the presentation. It’s nice to be on schedule so no one had to pull an all-nighter. Actually, everyone was in bed by 10:30pm. The eMi Team (L to R): Nate, me, Brady, Nick, Liz, Jeremy, Janet and Anna Funny Story: Until tonight, we’ve had this whole wing of the guesthouse to ourselves – we have actually only seen a couple of other people beyond the guesthouse staff. So this afternoon, they informed us that 6 people would be joining the main building where our work room is. When they arrived, the guesthouse staff was getting them settled – they are a group of older Ugandans, probably in their 60’s (I say “older” because that’s really old for Ugandans). So later on, I walked down the hall past their rooms to use the restroom and I noticed that the guesthouse staff has left small jerry-can’s of hot water ...

Project Trip to Luwero: PART II Wednesday September 17: How God can use 3 chickens to further His kingdom We presented the preliminary master plan to Shannon and Dean in the morning while the survey team again headed to the site for an early start. Shannon seemed very pleased with the overall concept the architects had come up with, with a few minor changes and questions. After the meeting, Liz, Anna and I headed out to the site again to join the rest of the team. Check-in meeting with Shannon, the director of SOS ministries, and the architects Being a project leader is definitely a new position for me – and I think I’m liking it overall. The pre-trip work is pretty substantial, first trying to recruit volunteers, then getting them the information they’ll need, organizing their travel, and then receiving them at the airport and taking care of their needs when they arrive. During the project, it’s a lot of people and resource management, trying to plug everyone into the correct spots to...

Project Trip to Luwero: PART I For the past week, I have been out of town about 50 miles North of Kampala near a town called Luwero leading my first eMi project trip to work with Sufficiency of Scripture Ministries. The vision of the ministry is to provide much needed biblical training to Ugandan pastors. The founder and director of the ministry, Shannon Hurley, is an energetic and passionate pastor from Santa Clarita, CA who moved here, along with his wife and 3 kids 2 1/2 years ago . Our initial programming meeting with the ministry on the first evening. This is where the ministry lays out their vision for the team. The white gentleman on the left in the black shirt is Shannon Hurley, the founder and director of SOS Ministries. He grew up in Upland and went to college and lived in Santa Clarita, CA before moving his family to Uganda 2 1/2 years ago Though the heart of the ministry is to train pastors up into a thorough knowledge of the Bible over a 3-year program, they also realize h...

Jonah's latest "Idea" - Dani and he built a luxurious toad house, complete with a pool and diving board with lily pads and a rock fence around the 'compound' I'm sure we're not alone in thinking that the Summer months came and went in the blink of an eye. With family visiting, it made the time fly by. But now, life returns to the typical, hectic speed as the Summer 'break' season for eMi comes to an end with the arrival of the Fall interns tonight. Around the office, we're excited to have some new life injected into the office, and the interns never disappoint with their enthusiasm and energy. The Fall projects are just around the corner too - my team is picked up two weeks from tomorrow (Monday) to travel North two hours to Luwero where we'll be designing a pastoral training center as well as a primary and secondary school. We're really excited to get working on the project and hopefully will be a huge blessing to Sufficiency of Script...

This past week marked the beginning of the school year for the boys. Late last week, we registered the boys and walked through their classes to meet the teachers. After reviewing the curriculum in the 2nd grade class for Brodie and praying about what was best, we decided to approach First day of school (for Brodie & Jonah)...as you can see, the only way to keep all three close enough together for a picture is to get Jonah to put the other two in a headlock! the principal about moving Brodie forward into the 3rd grade. She was ok with the idea, but wanted Brodie to take the 2nd grade end of the year assessments to be sure he was where we thought he was. So we went home and got him, and brought him down to the school where he sat through a 2 1/2 hour test usually given over 3 days at the end of 2nd grade. By far, the hardest part of the test was keeping him engaged the whole time, but he was able to fight through it and did well enough to satisfy all parties involved. Alisha said he...

The 2nd (of 3) falls at Sipi Falls, 50 miles Northeast of Mbale, Uganda We've been on vacation for the better part of the past 2 weeks, so I haven't been updating anything here. But I have been taking pictures, so I'll include some. But for a good rundown of the last week, once again, I'll refer you to my brother-in-law Brian's blog . His last few posts are a good account of what we've been doing on this vacation, so I thought why rehash what he's already written. We left on Thursday July 24th for Mbale and Sipi falls for 1 night, then back to Jinja for 3 nights. While in Jinja we took a boat ride on the Nile, and also out to a village on the Lake where a Pastor who Brian had met ministers. They welcomed us in a little service in the church, which was attended primarily by people of all ages suffering with AIDS. It was touching and heartbreaking at the same time. On Sunday, Brian and I went whitewater rafting on the Nile all day, while the rest of the crew ...