Ghana Overview

Tomorrow I leave for Ghana with my team, and I am so excited about it!  Most of you probably have a pretty good idea already of what this is going to look like because I have probably talked your ear off about it or you've already worn out our project page, but here are the basics one more time.  Also, I've included a calendar with what we can expect every day.  Hopefully I'll be blogging every couple days, but if not, this way you can know what I'm up to and can know how to be praying each day.

Click on the Calendar to see a larger image with easier to read text.

• Our team will be surveying and master planning for an 100 child orphanage staff housing facility.  Currently the orphanage houses 40 children on a different piece of land.  The current building is over capacity and the site has problems with flooding.  
• The orphanage if funded by the Jesse Brooks Foundation and run by a Ghanian pastor.  The foundation was started by Jesse Brooks' family after she passed away in a car accident on her first missions trip at age 10.
• Our team consists of myself, one other EMI intern named Nick from Oklahoma State University, EMI staff leaders John Agee and Bob Smith, and 7 other engineers and architects from all over the country who are volunteering for this trip and will continue to work with us from their homes when we get back to the states.
• Throughout the week there will be all sorts of different works and jobs to be done.  We have to survey the site, determine the resource needs like fresh water for the site, determine the best local materials to be used in the project, and put together an overall design for the site that we will detail when we get back.  There will definitely be down time throughout the week during which we will be able to explore Aflao a little bit and also interact with locals and play with the children in the orphanage.  

Prayer Requests:

• Please pray for the families of the volunteers who will be accompanying us on the trip.  Many are leaving wife's and kids (sadly no female engineers, coming but John's sister who is a teacher is coming with us).  Please pray that God would provide for and guard them as we are serving in Ghana.
• Please pray that our team would be quick to hear and slow to speak as we work with the in-country ministry in determine the best design to meet their needs.  Please pray that cultural differences don't hinder communication, but that we are all sensitive to the Spirit's leading and love one another before we let our own selves get in the way.
• Please pray for protection through travel and our health in-country.  Pray that we would adjust to the new place quickly and wouldn't be afflicted by physical ailment.
• Please pray against the work of the enemy.  Pray that our team would stand firm in truth, dependent on the Spirit, and wouldn't fall victim to Satan's attacks.  Please pray for endurance for our team.

Poverty, God's Provision, and Our Response

There has been so much learning this week that I most definitely am on information overload, but God has been so gracious to provide much clarity throughout this process as well.  As you might imagine, the topics that we discussed throughout the week have been pretty deep, but by far the heaviest talk for me was Thursday morning's discussion of poverty.

Poverty breaks my heart, and at times, depending on how well I'm living in the Spirit, poverty has the tendency to blind me from God's truth and overwhelm me.  Sometimes it's really hard for me to see statistics and read the stories of need around the world that could be so easily alleviated by simple resources and trust that God's hand is in those situations.  During our talk Thursday, we discussed what the Bible has to say about the causes of poverty and God's responses to those living in poverty.  Here are the responses we talked about:

God's Responses to the Poor

1-He listens to, encourages, and defends them

You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted; 

you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, 

defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, 

who is of the earth, may terrify no more. Psalm 10:17-18

2-He raises them up

He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap;  

he seats them with princes, with the princes of their people.  Psalm 113:7-8

3-He provides for them

Your people settled in it, and from your bounty, 

O God, you provided for the poor. Psalm 68:10

4-He secures justice for them

I know that the LORD secures justice for the poor and 

upholds the cause of the needy. Psalm 140:12  

It's easy to see from these verses and many more throughout scripture like Luke 4:18 and James 2:5 that God's heart is for the poor of this world and He hold many promises for them.  I think a lot of times people who are antagonistic to the Gospel or who have lost sight of the Truth see proclamations like the four above and point to people living in need or living under oppressive governments or those dying daily from easily curable diseases and say that God has failed here, especially in the areas of physical provision like truths 3 and 4 above rather than in more "intangible" truths like 1 and 2.  To be honest, there are times when that is my own sentiment, but throughout the poverty talk Thursday and in my own quiet times this week God revealed to me that a lot of times when I get caught up feeling like He is absent in poverty, there are a two big heart/vision checks I ignore.  Neither one is earth shattering, both are pretty basic honestly, but I was thankful for God to revealing each to me again as I prepare for Ghana.


#1 Loss of eternal perspective: This is so basic!!!  Being short-sighted is such a danger because it can lead a believer to lose track of truth, stop trusting in God's eternal provision and focus only on physical needs while forgetting that our lives are really only a "vapor."  In my quiet time this week God brought me to this passage that reminded me again of the need for eternal perspective.

1 Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2 Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, 3 because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4 For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5 Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.  2 Corinthians 5:1-5

I have given God my summer to design "earthly dwellings" but they are not the end all.  Praise God that throughout the week of EMI orientation, the staff kept bringing us back to this truth that EMI isn't just focused on designing dwellings to meet physical needs on earth, but strives to design a world of hope through the Gospel.


#2 Physical provision through believers: So often when God's provision is questioned people ask questions in such a way that they are expecting to see an answer in God reaching down and changing the world supernaturally through means that seem "magical."  Now I'm not saying that God doesn't do this, but I think that He calls the body to take care of the poor (Prov 22:9 A generous man will himself be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor.) and more often He provides for physical needs through the church.  Even looking at John 6 when Jesus fed the 5,000, He provided through the giving of the body.  He definitely stretched it supernaturally, but without the loaves and fishes being offered up physically by the boy in the crowd, there would have been no provision when Jesus turned to His disciples and said "You feed them." 


2 Corinthians 8 really spoke to this in my quiet times this week.  The first 15 verses really speak to this a lot, but the last 2 verses really sum it up well.

14 At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality, 15 as it is written: "He who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little." 2 Cor 8:14-15

Verse 15 quotes Exodus 15:16 when God provided manna from heaven for Israel in the desert.  Just as God provided just enough at that point, some gathered more some less and all had enough and there was no excess the next day, I believe that today He has also provides in the same way, calling those with plenty to supply those with need.  The inequality of wealth throughout the world is something I've grappled with in the past, even blogged about.  Throughout this process, I've come to believe that God blesses some with wealth and that isn't something to feel guilty about (see Psalm 112) but that blessing comes with the calls to give generously as well, allowing God to provide for others through it.

EMI Week One

WOW! My first week at EMI has nearly been a blur, a pretty amazing blur though. To be honest, I’m not really sure where to start or how to sum it all up, but here goes.

Our team of 11 interns spent the week putting in 13 hour days getting to know each other, learning about EMI, digging deeper into in God's heart for the world, eating dinner at staff houses (yum!) and getting to know them and their families, and exploring the best ways to serve the world and live the Gospel with the gifts that God has blessed us all with.  I've loved getting to know all the interns that God placed on this internship with me!  I'm not sure I've ever spent this much time with a group of people outside of my family ever in my life, seriously, besides the occasional Starbucks baristas and a few fleeting moments with my host family as Stacy and I left for the day or got back late, these people have been my constant companions and family.  This has led to too many inside jokes to count and the foundations for deep relationships to set in fast.  I am so excited to live life this group for the next 9 weeks!

Our group "focus verse" for the week has been Ephesians 2:10 

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Throughout the week our group got together between talks that discussed things like cultural sensitivity, poverty, and the role of the church in missions and tried to look at everything through  the scope of this verse.  Almost everyday, we came back to this place to see that God has called each one of us with our own unique personality and giftings to this place, at this time, to serve on each of our unique projects this summer.  Everyday that makes me more excited and I continue to feel God growing my heart for the world through this!

Also, simply being in Colorado has been great, I love being in the mountains again!  Everyday on my morning commute I drive straight west toward Pike's Peak and I get to take in the view the whole way there :)  On Wednesday our group took a hike in Glen Eyrie, a park that borders Garden of the Gods.  The trail we were on bordered a stream most of the way up and when we got to the top of the trail we hit some little natural pools.  Our leaders (Carl and Vicky who work with the interns at EMI and are great) told us we would have the opportunity to swim, so we all wore out suits up.  I'm not sure if I missed the memo or if we were just kept in the dark, but somehow I missed the fact that this opportunity would be swimming in near freezing water from glacier melt.  Believe it or not, despite that fact that the water was near freezing and it was only like 50 degrees outside most of us still jumped in and loved it!  I took a bunch of pics on our hike, but haven't been able to get them off my camera yet because I need to go pick up a cord to import, hopefully I can share soon!    I do have one pic to share with you now though, we took it our way up this hike, here's the whole group of us.

So, there are the basics from the week.  I know it's nothing too deep, but I'm definitely still chewing on most of the stuff we learned. I'm really on info overload I think, but be looking out tonight or tomorrow for some thoughts on poverty that are on my heart.

The Cost of Discipleship--AIA talk

As promised in my update letter I'm posting my talk I gave at AIA last semester.  I've been meaning to get it up for a while, but just haven't had the chance.  I talked about Luke 14:25-33

25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26 "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.' 31 Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

I would love it if you would let me know what you think either in a comment on the post or in an email.  This is the first time I have ever talked liked this, so I would love to hear your thoughts :)

 

Colorado Springs-Day 1

Yesterday was my first day in Springs and I loved it!

My mom was still here because she drove out with me and wasn't flying home until the afternoon, so we decided to venture out and find a breakfast place in the morning.  We ended up going to King's Chef Diner, it was so good!  We had found it online, Food Network recommended it and I would recommend it to anyone :)  They're famous for their breakfast burrito (which looked amazing) but mom and I stayed a little more traditional with french toast and an omelet, both were wonderful.  Hopefully this won't be my last stop there this summer and I'll be able to let you know if the breakfast burrito really is worthy the Food Network's "Best Breakfast in Colorado."

So far, my time here has been pretty chill, just trying to get acclimated and get to know my hosts, TJ and Darlene (who are great!).  Yesterday afternoon in an effort to get some fresh air and get to know the area a little better I went for an unintentionally long walk that involved me being "a little turned around for a while" (AKA lost) but eventually I made it home safe and sound.  I'm loving walking outside and being able to see mountains just outside my door and I can't wait to finally get started on this great adventure tomorrow morning as I start training with the interns. 

Thank you so much for taking the time to walk with me as God uses this summer in my life! 

Prayer requests for the week:

• That our team of 10 would start coming together and forming friendship founded on Christ, working together with His Gospel as our common goal
• That our team would all have safe travels as we depart on project trips over the next couple weeks
• For my cousin Brooks as he continues to recover from a brain aneurism
• For me that I would truly surrender the summer and future plans to God as He continues to reveal His will throughout the summer

EMI This Summer

Obviously spring semester proved to be of a blogging challenge than anticipated, but have no fear, I am determined to make this summer better!  This post is going to be brief, but I just thought I should let you know if you didn't already that I will be interning with Engineering Ministries International.  This is an internship that I have been looking forward to since freshmen year and I am so excited to see how God is going to use my love of engineering and heart for the world in my life and the lives of the people he has in store for me this summer.

Right now I'm on my way out to Colorado Springs to the office that I will be working in this summer, I will stay there for a week training with the other summer interns, then spend two weeks in Ghana assessing the project that I've been assigned to work on, and then I'll return to Colorado for the rest for the rest of the summer to design for the project in Ghana.  I am so excited to have been assigned to design for an orphanage in Ghana.  EMI has previously designed for this orphanage which currently houses 40 children and we will be designing a second dorm to house 100 children and another staff house. 

So here are the super basic details for the summer, more will be sure to come!  Check back later this weekend for a post of a talk I gave this semester for our AIA, I've been meaning to post it forever and hopefully I'll have it up soon :)