5Crawfords

We had been waiting for this past Thursday for several weeks now as we had targeted that day as our main 'move-out' day. We had a free truck rental that day from our storage unit so we saved the last of the big stuff for that day (couches, washer, dryer, freezer). So when I woke up at 6am, I wasn't expecting anything more out of the day than the satisfaction of finally getting our stuff out of the house. I was also a little anxious about whether or not we'd fit in our storage unit and what the backup plan would be. When I got up and checked my email (typically the first thing I do every morning - working for a global ministry means that I typically get 2-3 emails from people at our other offices around the world who've just finished their day), there was a message from Mike in the UK office that he had some potentially exciting news. Apparently, a gal from his church randomly stopped by the office (which is located in a small room on the second floor of the old Col...

I wanted to share this cute story from one of our project leaders, Bob Smith. Bob, a licensed surveyor, and his wife, Marilyn, have been co-leading trips with EMI for over 10 years.  They are in Kenya right now about to wrap up their latest trip. Bob sent out this emailed update this morning: "Some of you might remember this from 10 years ago when we took our 1 st trip to Ahero, Kenya, to work with the ministry of St. Lukes. While we were there, the EMI team was asked to name a baby that had born during our visit. Well, we all decided that she should of course be called 'Emi', and the ministry loved it! So, here is Emi, now 10 years old and sporting a new dress that we bought her today. She eagerly put it right on. I think on our next trip we should bring her an 'EMI' t-shirt! After that, we need to prepare for her graduation!" Emi, with Marilyn Smith

The clock is ticking down on our departure from Colorado Springs. I thought I'd give a quick update on where we're at with things and what our schedule is for the coming weeks. Enjoy! * I took a successful, 3-day trip up to visit our Canada office in preparation for being in the UK office. It was a very helpful trip and a great chance to learn about how the Canada office works. It was my first time in Canada - what a nice place Calgary is! * Alisha and the boys are out of school now! Alisha resigned from her job and officially checked the boys out of the school (though she did make it clear that she would love to return to teach at the school when we return, and also hope to re-enroll the boys back at TCA). * All the soccer seasons have ended! The boys love soccer season so they're a little bummed. The EPL also ended, and if you haven't heard, Manchester City scored two goals in stoppage time to win their last game and snatch the title out of the hands of ou...

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...