End of Canada

The rest of my time here in Canada wasn't super eventful.  It started to get cold and snowy.  Once it made it down to -37F.  Two steps out of the front door of the house and the inside of my nose felt frozen.  But before that happened, here's what downtown Calgary looked like.

I mainly focused on getting the project done, which we did get done, and spending the evenings catching up on some reading.  It was a fruitful time that I am glad that I had.
From there, Chris and I drove back to Colorado to meet up with interns from the Colorado Springs office.  It was a great reunion.  Seeing everyone again was good for my soul.  It was about at this time where I started to realize that it is more about the people in an activity rather than the activity itself which is important to me.  We had decided to go skiing, which is a lot of fun, but I wouldn't have done it if the right people weren't there.  The right people were there.  Here is a picture of just a few of us.

I truly do miss these people and wish them all the best.

England

On our way back to Canada, Chris and I decided to stop for a few days in England to visit our fellow interns in the UK office.  These interns were near and dear to us.  Back in Colorado Springs during our Orientation, we had small group time where we shared more deeply about our lives and discussed other things that we had learned throughout the week.  We became rather close during those few days in August so taking a short trip to go see them was a no brainer.  This is a picture of our group minus one intern who was gone on a project trip.  

In the five days that we were there, we got to see lots of impressive things.  I had never been to England before so it was all new to me.  We saw the typical tourist sites in London, lots of little churches in the villages and countryside, the Colechester Castle, and the shore of the sea somewhat shown above.  We also attended a Bible study where the other two interns typically went.  It was an entertaining mix of people.  Even though we were in England, there were more Americans there than British.  
A few days after that, I was fortunate enough to attend a house warming party for different EMI intern.  He and his wife were opening up there house to some of their friends.  The four of us pictured above all made the trip along with some of their friends from university.  As we sat around the table, I was hit by a hilarious situation.  There were four American having a great time with six British people that we had never met before.  It was a great time.  We joked and laughed and conversed for hours.  I will always have fond memories of that time.
Chris and I eventually had to head back to Canada.  We took the train back into London and got on our plane.  Public transportation served us well during those days.

Day 11 - October 11th

This was the final full day that we had in Burundi.  There were two places that we could go to: a nearby orphanage or a safe house in the middle of the country.  I decided to go to the safe house but here is a picture from a team member that was taken at the nearby orphanage.

Several of us traveled to the heart of Burundi.  It took us nearly three hours to get there.  That may not seem like a long ways but Burundi isn't very big.  Also, Burundi is rather hilly/mountainous so the travel was slow going at times.  The reason that we were heading out to the safe house was that it was the site of a potential future project for EMI.  We were on an investigative mission to see what we could find out about the place.  Here is a short video of what we saw.

The next day we would fly out of Burundi.  It was a bitter-sweet farewell since we knew that it was unlikely that we would see each other again all in the same place but we also knew that great things had happened to us in the last few days.  Chris (the other intern) and I would be taking a stop for a few days in Colechester England on our way back to Canada.  Little did we know how much fun it was going to be.

Day 10 - October 10th

Today was church.  We went to the church where Painito was preaching and had our second experience of African churches.  We sat up in the front corner of the room looking at the rest of the congregation.  Singing songs was also quite the experience.  Since I didn't know the language, I had to focus rather intently on the words if they were projected on the the screen so that I could sing along.  Much to my delight there was a melody that I recognized.  Even though the words were different, I could make my way through "How Great Thou Art".
Several of the team members were invited to come up to the pulpit and share a few words to the congregation.  Each team member would say a few words and the translator would translate the English words to Kurundi, the local dialect.  Here is a picture of Ben during this time.

Day 9 - October 9th

Today was a day for relaxing after the busy week.  The plan was to go to Lake Tanganika and relax on the shore.  Once we made it there, this is what we found.

It was a great place to be.  Before we left, we were treated to a very nice meal.  Little did I know that this was going to be my first encounter with a different type of food.  I went ahead and ordered what most everyone else was ordering and this is what came out of the kitchen.  

After I got over the looks of the fish, I dug in and started to eat it.  It was actually quite tasty.  After the meal, we headed back to Bujumbura and relaxed for the rest of the evening.  

Day 8 - October 8th

The day for the final presentation had finally come.  The presentation was going to happen after supper so we had the morning and most of the afternoon to put the final touches on things.  Things were a little busy during that time but that's alright.  


After supper we started the presentation.  This was definitely one of the highlights of the trip because of the reaction of Painito and Rose and others in the room.  They have had this dream for a ministry for several years but it's only been a dream.  They've never had anything tangible to look at and see that their dream was becoming reality.  That was until tonight.  When they first saw the renderings of what their dream could look like, their faces lit up.  Smiles became infectious at that point.  For the volunteers that had been working on this campus for the last five days, nothing seemed new to us anymore.  But after seeing their faces, I couldn't help but smile along with them.  The presentation went off very well.  Here is a picture of Kevin, our project trip leader, presenting.

Day 7 - October 7th

Yes, it has been quite a while since I have last updated the blog.  I'll devote a different blog post to that topic.  The rest of this post will be dedicated to my trip to Burundi.


October 7th wasn't too terribly exciting.  The entire day was spent at the computer working on drawings for the project.  There was a sense of urgency in the air because everyone knew that the following day was the final presentation to the ministry.  Lots of things had to happen so we put the pressure on ourselves to get things done.  Larry and I finished up the surveying drawing during the afternoon.  After that I offered to help some of the other team members with the items that they had remaining to do.  It ended up being a long day of working but it was also a great day because I got to know some of the team members on a deeper level and lots of tasks were accomplished.  Eventually we quit for the day when tiredness came over us and the mosquitos became more than annoying.  Here is a picture of several of us working at our "office" in Burundi.

Day 6 - October 6th

October 6th wasn't too terribly exciting so this isn't going to be too long of a post.  This was going to be the third and final day of surveying.  We started off with the standard breakfast and then we got a list of things to survey.  We asked the other engineers what they needed to know on the site so that we had everything covered.  I did learn more about surveying even though we didn't have to work the entire day.  One of the highlights of the day was being followed by a bunch of kids.  Here is a picture of the situation.  

We had a devotional later in the day that was quite impactful to me.  The scripture reference was 1 Corinthians 12:12-31.  We are many members all part of the same body.  I was experiencing this in two ways that week.  First, I was part of a team of engineers and architects all working towards a common goal.  We all had different functions.  No one could have done all of the work by themselves.  It was great to see the teamwork throughout everyone on the team.  The second way that I saw this scripture working itself out is through the bigger picture of the ICM Burundi site.  We (the eMi team) were part of God working in Burundi.  I could see how Painito was coordinating lots of different things, how other important officials were getting other things to happen, and how we were providing the needed plans to make this site happen.  It is great to be part of a team.

Day 5 - October 5th

This day was very similar to the previous day.  Larry and I headed out to the project site to get the contour map made.  This is important information for the civil engineers because it tells them where buildings can be built as well as the types of wastewater systems that can be used.  The idea was to create a grid of data points.  In order to accomplish this efficiently, we recruited the help of a local kid.  His name was Dioday.  We gave him some simple directions and we were able to get things done much quicker.  A lesson that I had learned from the day before is that I still get sunburnt in Africa.  I solved that issue by wearing a tshirt on my head.  See the picture below.

We made it back to our unofficial office to process the data that we got while surveying.  Here is Larry and I processing the data into something that everyone else could use.

Day 4 - October 4th

We started off with breakfast at the Ambuka's.  Breakfast consisted of an omelet type thing that we would put on a piece of bread.   It was good stuff.  There was also hot things to drink like tea, coffee, hot water, and cocoa.  I don't know why anyone would want something hot to drink because it was already hot out.  After that we all piled into the vans to head out to the project site.  On the way to the project site we had to go through a poor part of town.  That was an eye opening experience because I had never seen anything like it before.  Here is a picture of what we saw.  

On that first day of surveying, Larry and I were able to get the entire boundary along with a few other important landmarks.  Here is a picture of Larry running the TotalStation.

Day 3 - October 3rd

October 3rd was a Sunday.  We didn't do any real work on the project other than some conversations with Painito during the afternoon.  We went to church after breakfast.  This was the longest church service that I had ever been to: 3.5 hours.  It was a great experience.  The preacher spoke in Kurundi and the interpreter repeated everything in English.  There were even a few songs that were sung in English which was a refreshing thing to hear.  The songs that weren't in English were normally songs that I've heard before just with words translated into the native language.  The main thing that I took from this church service was the passion of everyone there.  It was infectious and I couldn't help but feel God's presence there.
There were lots of details discussed during the conversation that we had with Painito.  We were going to be working with ICM whose vision it was to disciple leaders and mature the African church.  This is a huge need because only about 4% of pastors in Burundi have any sort of training.  Painito began his ministry in 2000 when he was a pastor in Burundi refugee camps.  Burundi has suffered a devastating 15 year civil war which was based on the same problems that Rwanda had between the Hutu and Tutsi clans.  In 2008 the Burundian government granted this land to ICM.  There were stipulations that came with the land.  One such stipulation was that there had to be multi-story buildings on the land because Burundi so small and there isn't much land for future development.  Other important aspects of the site was that it was going to be  an interdenominational center so that future rifts between church denominations could be avoided.  The first phase of the project is going to be training for pastors and then later on there will be more training on the site for practical skills to help the economy in the area grow.  After hearing all of the various things that the site would eventually accomplish, I knew that Painito had been given a huge vision.  It was then our job to plan that out to the best of our abilities.  Below is a picture taken during that conversation.

Day 2 - October 2nd

Day 2 started off with more traveling.  We left London late the day before and landed in Addis Ababa at about 7am.  We waited for the next flight which would take us to Burundi.  Little did I know but the plane was going to stop in Rwanda.  Unfortunately I didn't get the passport stamped so I can't say that I've officially been there.  We landed in Bujumbura Burundi and made it through customs.  Here's what the inside of the Bujumbura airport looks like.

I've noticed that I'm becoming more at ease with custom agents.  On the trip to Burundi I would always think to myself "Did I fill out the form correctly?  Do I have all my important papers that I need?  There must be something that I'm forgetting..."  On the way back to Canada I wasn't nearly as uptight about the process of going through customs.
We met up with Painito, Rose, and Constantine.  Painito is the head of the ICM operations in Burundi.  Rose is his wife.  Constantine is a liaison between ICM and government officials so that things happen how they should.  We loaded up into the vans and headed to our home for the next week and a half.  We didn't do much for the rest of the day since most of us were quite tired from all the traveling and jet lag.  Se had supper and went to bed.  Sleeping was an interesting experience.  Bujumbura doesn't cool off much at night.  Also there isn't much breeze to speak of.  Put those two together and sweating while sleeping was a common occurrence.  Eventually I became accustomed to it so the heat wouldn't keep me up at night.

Day 1 - October 1

It has been quite a while since I've updated the blog and I apologize for that.  My intent is to create a blog post for each day that I was in Africa.  It may take me a couple days to do all of that but we'll see how it goes.

Day 1 was spent flying.  I had never been on a plane for that long before so I was looking forward to the experience.  In the hours leading up to our departure we found out that our first flight had been delayed.  I had the thought that this was just one of many travel delays to come.  It also reminded me of stories of other project trips that traveled through Africa.  Through all of the travels to and from Africa we ended up not having any other travel issues which was a huge blessing.

I met up with with a few of the other team members at the Calgary airport.  It was a good time of telling stories and getting to know one another.  We safely made it to London and met up with two more team members.  We had planned on leaving the airport and seeing some of the sites in London but because of the delays in Calgary we weren't able to do that.  We did manage to go just outside of the airport so that we could get some fresh air and get our passports stamped.  After that we waited for our next flight to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.  The remaining flights that we had to Burundi were on older airplanes.  There wasn't much leg room so movement was limited but we survived.  We got to see an African sunrise from the plane.  It was great.

End of Burundi

Yes it has been a while since I updated the blog but I have been in Burundi.  Internet access is limited which means that I’ve only been on the internet once since being here.  Our time here is coming to an end.  Two days ago we wrapped up the work part of our time.  We designed a 1000+ person seminary in 5 days.  This is a major accomplishment because we started with not knowing anything about the site on Monday morning.  God’s hand has been at work for years preparing this site.  I’ll expand more on this later.  One of the scripture passages that stands out most to me right now is 1 Corinthians 12:14-26.  This is the passage about the body of Christ being composed of many parts.  This was evident throughout those five days while we were working on the project.  Everyone had a specific aspect that they needed to focus on.  The surveyors had to obtain information (size, slope of the ground, location of existing structures) about the project site.  The civil engineers had to determine locations for waste water management, fresh water supply, water demand, electrical needs, and power supplies.  The architects had to design buildings and the site plan layout so that the vision of the ministry could be effectively achieved.  There wasn’t one person who could have done it all.  We all had to work together.  Below is a picture of the project site from the highway.  There will be more pictures coming.

Prayer Requests

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for all of support that you have provided through both prayer and finances.  Tomorrow begins the next exciting leg of this journey.  At 7:20pm Mountain Time I will be flying out of Calgary and headed to Africa.  It will take us (several members of the project team are on the same flight) two days to get to our final destination in Africa so I am expecting lots of travel experiences.  Below is an outline of my schedule for the next three weeks.

September 30 through October 2 - Travel to Burundi
October 3 through October 11 - Meet with local ministry and design needed structures
October 12 through October 13 - Travel from Burundi to London
October 13 through October 17 - Visit eMi office near London
October 18 - Fly from London to Calgary

This promises to be an incredible experience.  I'm sure that God will use this time to teach me those things which He would have me learn.  eMi has put together a prayer guide that outlines the specific prayer needs of the team members during the project trip.  Internet access may be sparse where we will be staying so I may not be able to send out prayer requests as they arise.  Please use the link below as specific requests during my time in Africa.  Thank you again for all of your support.


http://emicanada.org/documents/eMiC_PrayerGuide.pdf

Curling

Once or twice a month, the staff and interns in the Canada office do some sort of team building event.  Today that event was curling.  Curling is crazy.  Curling is a combination of shuffle board, horseshoes, hockey, and house cleaning.  You read that right, house cleaning.  The object of the game is to "curl" the stones to the other end of the ice and get them to stop in the middle of the circle.  The teams alternate shots like in horse shoes and shuffle board.  The team that has the stone closest to the middle wins a point for that round.  I'm not sure how many rounds there are but it was great fun.  The way that house cleaning comes into play is through sweeping.  As the stone slides down the ice the other teammates are allowed to "sweep" in front of the stone.  The sweeping smoothes the ice so that the stone can slide further.  Also, smoothing out one side of the ice can make the stone curve which helps in strategy.  It was great times.  In the picture below I am about to slide one of the stones.

Hiking near Canmore

This last weekend I went on a hiking excursion with the eMi Canada office director.  It was a great time.  One of the great experiences was the scenery.  The Canadian Rockies are incredibly rugged.  Pictures are really the only way to describe the views.  I'll eventually have some more pictures on Facebook and hopefully a video at some point.  Speaking of videos, there were two videos of different animals: a bear and an elk.  The elk was about 20 feet away.  The bear was about 50 feet away.  It was incredible to see wild wildlife that close.
There were also great conversations.  There were four of us on the trip: myself, Chris (the other intern here in Calgary), Greg (the director here at the eMi Canada office), and Jon (one of Greg's friend's from Portland).  Throughout the miles of hiking, we talked about growing up and other events that shaped who we are.  It was a great time of fellowship.  Here's a picture of of me on some rocks.  I'll get the movie out there when it's ready.

Early life in Canada

I should have updated the blog sooner than this but time slipped away from me.  Since the last update, I have traveled up to Canada.  The trip up here was uneventful, which is a blessing.  There was a lot of amazing scenery along the way.  We took the scenic route rather than the quicker interstate route.  It was probably an hour or two longer but it was completely worth it just to see all of the amazing scenery that God has put in the Wyoming/Idaho/Montana area.  Here is a picture of Chris (the other intern here in Calgary) and I just before we crossed into Canada.

Calgary as a whole doesn't seem that much different from any major city in the States.  The main difference that I have found is that I look at a different place on the speedometer while driving.  Everything here is in the metric system which means that most of the time I convert the number into something that makes sense to me.  For example, 100 kilometers/hour is 63 miles/hour.  There are other conversions for distance and temperature that come fairly quickly to me.

I live in a house with 4 other guys.  All of them seem to be quality individuals.  As a bonus, they all like sports.  This is going to come in handy on the weekends, especially when football games are on the television.  

The biggest adjustment has come in the social aspect of things.  I've gone to a place where I don't really know anyone.  It's not that people aren't friendly.  It's more like I don't know people who I can just call up to hang out.  It causes for some lonely evenings.  I hope that I develop some meaningful relationships while I am here in Canada.  If I had one prayer request right now, developing relationships would be it.

Life in the CoS Office

Right now, I'm half way through the second week of working in the Colorado Springs (CoS) office.  So far, I haven't done anything super technical.  The projects that I have been working on are all important though.  Life in the office is fun.  Each day brings about it's new challenges.  However, there are lots (11) other interns around that are facing the same types of problems.  It's a great working environment with lots of encouraging people.

I don't have a picture of me working at the office, but I do have a picture of when we first toured the office.

The guy left of me is Chris.  He is the other Canada intern that will be serving with me in the Calgary office for the next 3+ months.  The three girls to the right are serving in the United Kingdom office near London.  All of us were paired together for small group times during Orientation.  There were lots of good memories made.  But I must admit, I was a bit out of my element with this group.  Both the UK girls and Chris are all from California.  It didn't take long before they were all talking about California things with a language of their own.  I was able to understand what they were saying, but it was nothing like what I had experienced in Kansas.  These times together with everyone were great and I will miss them dearly.

Orientation

I realize that I haven't updated the blog in a while, but there have been a lot of activities going on in the last few days.  To continue on from the last post, Stop #2 was at a cousin's place here in Colorado Springs.  He was gracious enough to let me stay at his place until Orientation with EMI began.  Orientation is where this big adventure really begins.

The week known as Orientation was great.  It was incredible to see so many different people coming from so many different parts of the US coming from so many different backgrounds come together and work towards a common goal.  Each one of the interns has been called to use his/her talents on some project that will send them overseas to help the poor and needy.  Orientation was a week of building relationships, finding out our talents, and learning about culture in other parts of the world.  It was a great week of learning.

The last day of Orientation was difficult for me.  It was the last day that all 27 of the interns would be together.  Most of the interns flew away to various overseas offices.  The only inters that were left were the Canada and Colorado Springs interns (there are 12 of us total).  Even though it had only been a week, I didn't want the various groups to leave.  We were having a great time.  Knowing that in 4 months I may not see any of them again was tearing my heart into 27 different pieces (there were 27 interns total).  Deep down inside, I know that each of them needs to leave to fulfill God's will.  That is most important.  Below is a picture of the interns that I spent a week with.  We spell eMi.

Stop #1

The first overnight stay on this adventure was in Hays.  Yes, I realize that Hays isn't known for being an aventurous place, but I needed a place to stay.  Fortunately, I have cousins that live in Hays.  They (in this case just Liam) was hospitable enough to let me crash there.  Thank you Liam.

Graduation

Yesterday was my graduation at WSU.  It was a good day.  Many family members and friends stopped by the house for a good time of catching up and celebrating that hopefully I don't "have" to go to school again.  Unless I'm mistaken, I've been going to school for 23 straight years.  I could use a break.  Lately, my motivation meter has been running on empty for school.  Perseverance was the key to getting through, not necessarily the smarts.  I know that there is a lesson in all of this, but I don't know exactly when the test will come.  
There was a song sung at church this morning that a line that really struck me.  The line meant to trust God's heart when your future seems unclear.  That's the way that I feel right now.  Everything up through the end of 2010 seems to be set in place.  From now until mid August, I'll be getting ready for my internship with EMI.  From mid August to mid December, I'll be in Calgary with EMI.  After that, I don't know what is going to happen.  Will I come back to Wichita and engineer airplanes?  Will I serve with EMI longer?  Will I do something else completely different?  It's an odd feeling of adventure, excitement, and not knowing what is going to happen.  This is where I need to trust God because just around the corner is 2011 and I don't know what is going to happen.  

Beginning

This is my first blog post ever.  The site is still under extensive construction so there will be lots of changes.