5Crawfords

One of my favorite team photos of all time - with ministry director Jane Gravis and several of the IAA kids. The ministry we’re working with is an Orphanage called ‘Into Abbas Arms’. The founder, Jane Gravis, came on a medical missions trip in 1997 as a dental hygienist, but ended up serving as the dentist due to the needs encountered. She was struck by the number of children without families/homes, so she came back and started an orphanage in 1999, intending to get things started before leaving it to others to continue forward. Sixteen years later and still serving as the ministry director, she lives in Texas full-time, traveling back to Kenya several each year. Alisha hanging out with some of her students at the pre-school. Currently, they have 43 children (the 43 rd , a 5 year old girl, arrived while we were on site). The stories of how the children come to the orphanage are as varied as the kids themselves, but many were dramatic, ranging from being left for dead on th...

As a team leader, I'm not supposed to choose favorites amongst the team...but I clearly had one on this trip. We actually had two EMI teams arriving on the same flights, and to my knowledge, this is the first time that’s happened. Another team led by Gary and Kevin from our office in Colorado are working at another orphanage starting up in Western Kenya. So, in the arrival hall at Jomo Kenyatta airport in Nairobi, we had 21 EMI’ers in all. Fortunately for our team, the orphanage we’re working with (‘Into Abbas Arms’) is located only about 1-1/2 hours from Nairobi, unlike the other team’s site, which is around 7-8 hours drive from the capital. Nairobi sits up at just over 5000 ft elevation, so it was a steady climb on the drive out to reach our site, which is at an elevation of nearly 8800 ft. The IAA site from above - the building next to the red marker is where the EMI team stayed during the trip. The civil engineers walking the site. You'll notice the rain boo...

EMI'ers from two teams, ready to depart from DIA This trip had a different feel from the outset. Having Alisha join me isn’t just a nice perk, but rather, more of a realization of a long desire to do this work together. It’s not that I can’t do these trips without her – I’ve proved that 19 other times! But I really don’t *want* to do them without her. Of course we don’t always get the things we want, but oftentimes if we’re patient, God does give us a few of those perks eventually. So the normal pre-trip depression and anxiety that has become a very predictable part of our lives (i.e. dad starts getting very irritable leading up to project trips!) didn’t happen. In fact, it was almost the opposite feeling this time, as I seemed more and more calm as the trip approached. Dropping the boys off at their gate at the Denver airport was another ‘new’ feeling. Brodie is 14 now, and though we still see a lot of the ‘little boy’ in him, we know that he (like every other littl...

A 'fun day' is a usual part of the end of EMI trips - this time, we went zip lining over the canopy of a Nicaraguan forest outside of Managua. February 25 Today can be summed up in one word: AutoCAD (which is a computer-aided drafting program). I started just after breakfast around 7:30am, and quit at just after 11pm with just a few breaks for meals. And actually, I enjoyed it! Playing the role our interns normally play has been fun – though my eyes are a bit glossy. Heading into our final day tomorrow, we’re about 95% finished with the bridge design and drawings. AutoCAD on an 11" screen isn't ideal, but carrying around this mini-laptop on trips is a lot better than the monstrous 17" model I had on my first ever EMI trip in 2006! The result of my AutoCAD efforts - the bridge design details! February 26 Today, the Young Life staff took us up to a place they call ‘The Labyrinth’. It’s exactly that – a labyrinth made of hedges. For those who aren’...

The team PART II February 23 The Young Life Nicaragua ‘La Finca’ camp here, like every other Young Life camp in the world – including Woodleaf, the Young Life camp I both attended as a kid and worked at many times in High School – focuses on reaching kids for Christ through living out in nature, having lots of fun and exciting activities, and introducing them to God in a low pressure but compelling way. But something else we’re learning about on this project is…coffee! With 150 acres here at the camp, and at an elevation of 4800 feet, growing coffee has become a major part of running and funding the camp. It’s a great model for ministry – using the resources of the ground, with local labor, to help pay for local kids to come to camp. But first, a bit about all they’ve taught us here about coffee. (And yes, this really was the trip I was ‘randomly’ assigned to! ;) ) The finished product - available online from Young Life. Coffee was first discovered in the 10 th cent...