5Crawfords

These two young-timers were a part of our lives for the past 3 weeks, and though we were sad to see them go, we made so many fun memories. Thanks mom and dad for coming to England!! A lot has been going on at EMI-UK the last several weeks so I thought I would catch up a bit. After finishing our Mercy Trips project report early, the last semester ended well and we sadly said goodbye to our interns in mid-December. They were three great and unique young ladies and it was definitely sad to say goodbye – that remains one of the hardest parts of working with EMI. We’re regularly saying permanent goodbye’s to people we’ve come to know and love! The start of 2013 has actually been surprisingly significant. We were given free advertisement (FYI, my spell checker in the UK defaults to UK spellings, so from time to time most people reading this are going to a) be annoyed, or b) think I can’t spell) space in an architectural magazine so one of the last things we accomplished in...

Christmas-time at the Tower of London Happy New Year! As another year comes to a close and a new one begins, we are reminded of God’s faithfulness to lead and provide.   A year ago today we would not have guessed that we’d be living in the UK within eight months, but soon after the New Year we started sensing God had something in the works.   Now here we are, 5,000 miles away, once again quite surprised at God’s plan for our lives.   We are thankful for a lovely home, a very sweet church family that has embraced us so warmly, and wonderful people to work with here at EMI-UK in Colchester.   We have watched God faithfully provide opportunities and graciously end others for the boys in the midst of an overcrowded school system.   He has placed Brodie in a school far better than we could have imagined and provided resources and a cozy classroom in our home for Jonah and Graysen (where coffee, tea, hot cocoa and English biscuits await us in the kitchen)....

If there were any lingering doubts that the Crawford boys like (the) Ducks, let them be once and for all put to rest. :) Go Oregon! One of the things I learned from my former co-worker/boss/friend Mark Dew was that sometimes, you have to bring balance to a situation. At social functions, if no one was talking Mark would carry the conversation. At work, if I was insisting on one course of direction Mark would suggest that the other side of the coin be considered. During theological discussions, if one particular theology was being favored, Mark would bring up points from another school of thought. In each case, though sometimes mixed with a hint of playful contrarianism,  Mark always seemed to bring a certain sense of balance to the situation, either to ensure a successful social event, or to prevent an easy course of action at work from outpacing wisdom, or to have another equally valid viewpoint of God considered. As parents, and in part...

I spy a large eye! The boys stopped to view the London Eye as we walked around the city a couple of weeks ago. Part II - Family Update In the last post I wrote about Brodie’s schooling situation here in the UK. So you may be wondering about Jonah and Graysen and how they are getting on in school. Well, their journey has been pretty different from Brodie's. Thus far, it most reminds me of Proverbs 16:1, “We can make our own plans, but the Lord directs our steps.” Our “plan” for Jonah and Graysen in coming to the UK was that above any particular school, we most of all just wanted to get them placed at the same one, largely for their emotional stability.   So, we noted that prominently in their school application. We always like to stop by in front of the Ugandan Embassy  in London near Trafalgar Square. :) Good memories.  So the first day of school came and went and we had still not heard anything from the admission’s office. We were ...

Brodie, Jonah, and Graysen ready for school  in the UK A view of our street in Colchester. Our house a few houses  down on right. Though it looks like people are driving on the right side of the road, those are actually parked cars. You can park any direction you want here.  When we arrived in England on August 15th, we were still uncertain which schools would have a spot for our boys.   Though we had hoped to have all of this sorted out before reaching this side of “the pond”, that wasn't the case.   L ife for our first few weeks in the UK was filled with shopping, gathering, setting up a home, meeting the neighbors, getting acquainted with EMIUK, and visiting many, many primary and secondary schools.   Each time we arrived at a school, at times visiting the same school several times, we were confronted with a kind, but firm, “No, the school is all full and we do not expect any openings.”   The teacher in me was at ti...

Sunset out over the Atlantic Ocean. The land you see are small islands that are a part of Guinea. With the routine display of tumultuous skies offshore, it's not hard to imagine that the powerful hurricanes in the West Atlantic and Caribbean Seas typically originate off the West African coast. PART V of V Friday-Saturday Sept 21-22 So much has happened in the last few days it’s hard sum it up in words, so I thought I’d use the rapid fire bullet method: Once on site, nothing seemed out of the ordinary at all. That's one thing I've learned through living in and traveling to Africa all these years: 'riots' always seem to sound worse in the news than they are in person. * We were notified early Friday morning that all off-shore activities were suspended until further notice due to an uprising in town. Ironically, the disturbances had nothing to do with the anti-American protests from earlier in the week, but instead were a result of tri...