5Crawfords

LRA leader Joseph Kony **Note: This post was written a week ago, prior to the unfortunate mental breakdown of Jason Russell, the co-founder and producer of the Invisible Children organization who produced the 'Kony 2012' video. I hesitated in posting this because I didn't want to appear insensitive to his situation. Obviously, there has been an enormous amount of pressure on him since this video has received world-wide attention and critique from millions, including government officials right up to the presidents of countries. I have no reason to question his motives in producing this - from everything I've read he appears to be genuinely concerned about the people affected by the LRA and doing his best to help. However, in my opinion, it is fair to evaluate the methods he's using to try to help - just as we should be evaluating all relief and development efforts made by the West in the developing world given the long history of problems created by some of those ...

Part III of III Day Seven (Feb 9) Going back and re-reading my first entry when I was in the UK last week, I can see that I was really struggling with leaving home for so long again. I think I’m going through another tough stage today as I am really missing home. After visiting both of the sites we assessed in September this morning and then doing some souvenir shopping in the afternoon, we drove out to our ‘home’ for the next four nights – a small house near the beach about 45 minutes South of Freetown. It’s kind of a rustic beach house, though it's nice that we get to occupy the entire thing ourselves. I finally get to use my mosquito net that I bought before the trip since I suspect there will be more mosquito’s down here next to the water, and I’ll probably use the 8 D-size batteries I lugged along with me from home too since power is only by generator for a few hours in the evening. I had to hunt around the area to find 4 suitable sticks to use to hold the net off my body – I ...

Day Three (Feb 5) I actually slept really well considering I was sharing a bed with another man! Actually, the bed is so big it really is like a separate bed. Think king size x 1.5, so one of us can get in and out of bed without the other feeling a thing – one of the benefits of a foam mattress. One of the few benefits I should say - ha! We set out for the Bo hospital campus after breakfast and our morning worship time. John leads worship and Mark from Mercy Ships was able to find a guitar to borrow this week, so that’s been really cool. Since it is Sunday and none of the maintenance workers were expected to be at the site, we decided to do an unescorted walk-through of both the Bo and Kenema sites so we could wrap our brains around the remaining work that lies ahead. At the Bo site, we once again ran into a wrinkle – the site map from Google Earth that we had drawn was somewhat inaccurate, with a number of new buildings to add. Since we have internet on our phones here, we pulled up ...

Sierra Leone Trip II Part I of III - Travel days (Jan 31 – Feb 2) I’m sitting in London in a hotel (since I had an overnight layover this time) and I am amazed by two things. One, even though I’ve spent a fair amount of time in the UK over the past few years with EMI, I am once again reminded how different the cultures are. As with many cultural differences, they are subtle and many times difficult to even describe, but they ultimately serve to make you feel very out of place. So when I travel to the UK, I typically try to be quieter, less obvious in what I say and do, and just try to blend in. I do become somewhat of a target for being taken advantage of though since if things don’t go as I think they should, I am very unlikely to buck the system. For instance, if a sign says something is one price and when I get to the counter they charge me for more, I will probably just keep quiet and pay because I don’t want to be that obnoxious American demanding my rights overseas! (Not that all...

ORIENTATION EMI operates on a semester system, largely to match our intern program to the college system here in America. We have 3 semesters or trip cycles that begin in February, May and September each year. This past week, 26 new interns and staff stayed at a local retreat center outside of Colorado Springs to go through a very intensive, 9-day orientation to EMI. Topics covered include history of EMI, future strategic planning, personality tests, culture training, testimonies, and many more topics designed to introduce incoming personnel to our organization. I teach the culture training sessions, along with two other staff members here. It's always a great week of getting to know the new people some, though it is definitely exhausting for them. We went through this orientation two weeks before we moved to Uganda, so it was a pretty stressful time of life! Still, we thoroughly enjoyed it. PROJECT TRIP In just over a week (January 31st to be exact), I depart on another project tr...

Earlier this morning, our CEO here at EMI, Jim Hall, went home to be with the Lord. He was 57. Jim passed after a very brief bout with the reoccurrence of his melanoma cancer first diagnosed in his foot in Sept 2010. He had been given the all clear for just over a year, but unfortunately, the cancer returned aggressively in mid October. Jim and his wife Nancy had flown to Florida to be with family a week ago Saturday and at that time he was doing fairly well with the help of medication (for pain). On Tuesday they had their family Thanksgiving dinner. But that night, he suffered a stroke and lost mobility on his left side. His symptoms then progressed rapidly, and his communication became less and less. By Saturday, he was no longer responsive and it was clear the end was near. We are all in a bit of shock here that things happened so quickly – it was just earlier this month when we learned that his cancer had spread and that he’d be stepping away to battle it, and he joined our office...

It's nearing the end of the 'semester' here at EMI (we call them semesters because we match our project seasons up roughly with the college schedule here in the US). That means projects are getting ready to finish, interns are wrapping up their time, and project leaders are ramping up for next semesters trips. Here is a summary of what's been going on at EMI as well as around the Crawford household recently... EMI's CEO, Jim Hall It's been a tough last few weeks for EMI. Our CEO, Jim Hall, had to step down a couple weeks ago after learning that his melanoma cancer (diagnosed in Sept 2010) had come back and spread to a number of spots and organs. We were all heartbroken to learn this news, as Jim had been given an all clear just this past August. Jim is a great leader whose relational style and steady demeanor have been a huge blessing to our organization for the past 3 years. Jim was a big factor in Alisha's and my decision to stay on with EMI after returnin...