Playing Catch Up

Hey All,

I can’t believe it’s been over a week since I last posted! Last week we hit grind time with the project details and I just never had a chance to sit down and blog.  I’m going to try to put up a few different posts for every couple days. Thanks for bearing with me and being patient.

Quick outlook for the next couple days-John, Becca, and I are hanging in Accra for the next couple days. John has some meetings with different people in Accra over the next couple days to discuss some future projects and details about the possibility of launching the next EMI office in West Africa. Today Nick is going with John to his meetings and Becca and I are going to a school in Accra to help out.  She’ll be in her teaching element, hopefully, I don’t get in the way too much :S

George, the Ghanaian from our team, is really going to be helping us out over the next couple days; in fact, we are at his office right now using the net.  I’m so thankful to have him here!

Becca and I have to leave soon, so the next post is one I wrote earlier this week and I don’t really have time to go through it and edit, so no criticism if it isn’t perfect haha

My Ghanaian Weekend

Hello from Ghana! 
Yesterday was a big work day for out teams!  It’s cool to have such a big team because so much gets done!  Yesterday we had 4 groups going in different directions-surveyors, civils, architects, and another group that went to the children’s home to read and play with the kids there.

I woke up early (6AM!) with the survey and civil teams and went out to the site so that we could get some site work done before it got too hot. It was a beautiful morning-tons of sun, no clouds, a little breeze, and not even too hot until it hit 11 :) luckily we were done by noonish.  I had a blast, honestly, I think surveying is kinda fun (you’re allowed to call me a nerd).  Also, I stood out in the sun turning regularly for 6 hours, you can imagine the wicked tan I got!  Seriously, no burning and I rolled up my sleeves so my lines aren’t even that bad, except or on my feet because I was wearing shoes so I have half Chaco line from the states half sock tan which translates to ugly foot tan!

Because EMI mostly does design work on trips, all of the site work is assessment and not really implementation work, so while we surveyed our civil engineering team evaluated the soil types around the site, found some area water sources and took water samples.  The architects spent another day in meetings with the ministry leaders presenting ideas and honing in the “master plan” for the site.  The master plan is really just a big overall plan that encompasses the full vision that the ministry has for their future development.  The goal is to get this plan completely ironed out by the end of this week and gather all the details of the area, the site, and the construction resources available.  Then when we get back to the states we will put together the design for the first phase of the plan. 

Once we got back to the site we had lunch and then wrapped up the site research.  We took the water samples and started the tests that will take two days to process.  Then the work for the day was pretty much wrapped up but there was still a lot of daylight left, so a bunch of us went back over to the children’s home to hang out.  That was really cool because I haven’t really had the chance to interact with the kids yet.  Becca brought the children’s Bible that she had earlier in the day and the kids loved it, so we read with them for a while. Quick side note: I love the kid’s Bible that Becca brought.  It covers most of the “big” Bible stories from the Old and New Testament, but it’s so cool because it presents all of the stories in the scope of Christ and the Gospel.  Here’s a link to it!

After we read with the kids we played football with them (AKA soccer)-SO FUN! I’m not much for soccer, but I had a blast!  I didn’t get pictures, but Josh did, so look for them sometime early next week! Then when we got home we had the night off.  I played cards with a couple of our other teammates and learned a new game that I’ll be bringing home!  Think the luck of up and down the river with the strategy of setting other people in screwed up rummy AKA some fun family game nights in the future.

Today was church!  We all split up between five different churches.  Nick, Greg, and I went to church on the coast and thought we would each have to say a few words before the sermon, but turns out we got there are were on the bulletin to preach!  We each tried to stretch what we had prepared as long as we could, not a shining moment for me, but Nick and Greg both rocked it and redeemed it luckily :)

Other than that, today has been pretty chill.  Becca, Sarah, and I have been chilling together and working on blogs while everyone else naps.  Tonight is another work night, Bob and I are entering all the survey data into AutoCAD and tomorrow I’m doing perc tests (water flow in dirt) tomorrow and who knows what else.  Can’t wait to tell you all about it soon :)

Praise God for:
--Safe travels to Accra and Aflao
--The health of our team so far
--The free communication that has been happening between our team and the ministry
--Guidance of the Holy Spirit in our plans so far
--Relationships that have begun to be built on our team

Please be Praying for:
--Continued health of our team
--Continued guidance of the Spirit in planning
--That God would start readying our hearts to come home and bring our new hearts and lessons with us

This pic is from the roof of our hotel, I haven't really been able to take any of people, but they're coming soon hopefully.

Here's the Skinny

Hey All,

I only have a couple minutes before I have to head to bed, but I wanted to give you a quick update.  We don't have internet at the guest house we are staying in like we were told we would, so we're working off John's SIMcard in a flash drive thing when we can, sorry I haven't been able to post more.

Quick update:
--We made it to Aflao yesterday :) right after we got in to the city and had our bags unloaded we had to go present outselves to the king of Aflao-TRUE STORY.  He's a realy king, his dad was king and so was his and so on, he get's to rule the government in Aflao, mainly settling disputes and deciding land zoning and ownership, but I'm still not quite sure how he relates to the national government....pretty cool though right?!
--After that we got to go to the children's home and see the site where the children are living now.  Our project is to design a new facilty for them on another piece of land becasue this one floods.  That's a pretty long story, good one, quite thought provoking, hopefully I can write about it later.
--Today we spent most of the morning at the new site and started the surveying process.  We walked boundary lines and measured them, then in the afternoon the architects had meetings with out team leader and the leaders of the local ministry to start getting a vision for the project on paper.  Even though I'm not an architect I sat in on this, it was amazing to hear the dreams for the land!
--Tomorrow I'm going back to the site with the other civil engineers and the survey team, we're leaving at 6AM so I have to get to bed soon, but that means we'll probably be done a little early, so hopefully I can write a post on my computer that's a little more fun and less business and the upload it tomorrow night.

Check back tomorrow night, of at whatever time this is for you (afternoon I'm thinking?)

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 :)