5Crawfords

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 ...

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 G...

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 Thom...

The eMi team - (L to R) Denis, me, Matt, Pearly, Rachel, Kelly, Rick, Kate, Josh and Eric Part II of III Thursday February 11, 2010: Jonah and I woke up around 7am and went for breakfast and devotion time with the team. Jonah was so good during the devotion time – he didn’t make any noise and seemed to be interested in what was going on. Afterwards, I headed out surveying again and Jonah was all over helping me. Intern Matt and I heading out to survey. Jonah and Graysen were willing helpers. The damp bandanas we tied on our head were lifesavers from the scorching sun. Though we didn’t know it at the time, the survey problems from the day before carried over into today. For some reason, our points kept showing up about 200 meters away from where they should be and about 25 meters lower in elevation. Standing out in the blazing sun all day only to find out that you need to re-shoot everything you’ve just shot places a special kind of strain on your patience! In the end, intern Rachel was...

Part I of III Monday February 8, 2010: This project trip is working with a ministry called Word of Life (WOL). WOL has been around for over 60 years and is in over 60 countries around the world. Their main focus is evangelism and discipleship for youth, primary using camps and discipleship training centers to reach kids. This will be a different project experience for me as we are only about 20 miles from our house as a crow flies. Alisha and the boys are planning to drive out to visit on Wednesday, which is also Jonah’s 7th birthday. After a late night picking up volunteers at the airport, the team met at the office at 10am and was picked up by the ministry shortly thereafter. But instead of a 19 or 12 hour drive to the site like my last two project trips, after 40 minutes we were stepping off the mini-bus onto the small soccer field used by the primary school on site. Thomas Obunde, the WOL-Uganda director, greeted us, as did the uniformed school kids from afar as we sized up our ini...

We're back in the USA and enjoying our time with family and friends! Here are some pictures to prove it! Merry Christmas to all our family and friends, whether in the USA or Uganda! We love you all! On the stopover in London - we made a dash through town to see Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square - a good 2 miles of walking, which was perfect with the 10 hour flight to San Francisco looming. My dad and I flew up to Oregon the day after we arrived back to go to the U of O v. OSU 'Civil War' game - the Ducks' won so we're on to the Rose Bowl Jan. 1st! My dad has tickets so we'll be at that game too! Being back at Autzen stadium was awesome! Alisha and my mom at the women's dinner at Neighborhood Church in Castro Valley. Alisha's mom reading the boys a bedtime story. The Crawford and Sampson boys at In-N-Out Our dear friends CJ and Lindsay at Starbucks in Medford (I should say, 'one of' the Starbucks in Medford - couldn't they share ...