On the road back

..she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah. -Ruth 1:7

It is now most definite that I will be making the trek back to the emiUK office as a long-term volunteer.  I have purchased a plane ticket that will take me back to the UK on February 1, 2010.  After arriving back in the UK, I will be submitting my visa application which if approved, will allow me to stay in the country until April 2011.  Please pray that the visa is approved!!!  

This past semester as an intern in the new emiUK office has been a wonderful and growing experience.  Being away from friends and family for so long is never easy but it allowed me to put a focus on my relationship with God as well as focus on who God has created me to be and how best I may serve Him.  I have always had a compassionate heart for those who need God's love, and this semester God has given me a passion to serve some of His people through the ministry of emi.  Because of this I have a desire to return to the new UK office to be a servant there to assist in any way I may be needed.  As an office that is only just beginning its third semester of interns and composed currently of only one full time staff member, there is much to be done.  We are still looking for an office space where all the staff, volunteers, and interns can fit into together, negating the need to split everyone up in different locations.  Despite the needs and the small staff number, God is working in and through this office.  He is bringing excited and willing people from all over the world to serve with the up and coming office as well as providing needed projects in India, Africa, and Eastern Europe.


The long-term volunteer position is an unpaid position.  I have been blessed with the opportunity to do some part time drafting for a london architect (the same one who came on the BORN project in India with me!) which will cover the majority of my living expenses! Whoot!  However, it will not cover everything and thus, I am again asking for your support for my next year of service with emiUK.  I need $2000 to cover visa and flight expenses.


Each semester, the office is going to send out another team to do a project.  Thus, I will have the opportunity to help with four more projects and the opportunity to go on three more project trips similar to the one I went on as an intern to Bihar, India.  To be a part of any of these project trips, I need to raise about $900 per trip.  

The next project will be designing a technical school in Liberia for a ministry called ABC Children's Aid.  This ministry is a Christian organization whose goal is to help Africa's orphaned and vulnerable children become godly contributors to their communities and the world.  They are in need of a technical school which will enable their work among the orphans of Monrovia to flourish and grow.  Liberia has a population of 3 million people, 250,000 of which are orphans.  ABC Academy is already making a difference by showing love and compassion to children who are in great need.  This project will allow emi to take part in the development of the future, not only in the lives of these children, but of Liberia as a whole. 


This project trip will take place mid-March.  If you are interested in serving on the project team check out the website
http://emiuk.org/projects/projectprofile_11003.html
and if you would be interested in supporting me financially, please contact me by e-mail: chricar1@iit.edu



Thank you all for your continued support and prayers!! Happy Happy Holidays!!

britian...to be continued

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"

Galatians 2:20-21

It seems that for the next year I am looking at coming back to the UK to continue assisting the eMi UK office in getting off the ground!!?! I have been blessed with an opportunity to work part time for an architect in London (the same architect that went on our project trip to India with me).  This would pay for my living expenses so that i could then work part time as an eMi volunteer! I would be helping the intern program to get off the ground, continuing to help with drafting, and putting together reports for more project trips like the one I just returned from!

I am super excited about this prospect and would love for your continued support in prayer and finances for this upcoming year.  It's a little bit scary stepping out in this way, but I'm praying that God will continue to give me the faith to do so!  There is so much to be done and it's quite exciting that I am able and qualified to help do it :)  I need to raise financial support for my plane flight to and from the UK and for visa costs, which comes to about $2,000. If you would be interested in helping me financially, please e-mail me at chricar1@iit.edu

a BORN resource and training center

Jai Masiki!

(Praise the Lord!)

 I have returned from Patna, India in the state of Bihar with joy and a renewed since of passion and privilege to serve our Lord, Jesus Christ.

My previous post Namaste explains about the area of India where our project trip lead me to as well as the background of the ministry of BORN. If you haven't read that, I suggest reading it through before reading the rest of this post. It may reduce your confusion. :)

 First and foremost, to those who have been praying and to those who gave towards my internship, thank you so much for your support! Our team spent two weeks in India designing a master plan and numerous buildings, during which everyone stayed safe and healthy thanks to your prayers! And in a couple of months time, the ministry will have plans for a campus headquarters that will assist them in their vision to continue reaching the millions of people living in Bihar who do not know Jesus.



With this enormous growth and even larger aspirations, the BORN ministry is in need of a campus of buildings to sustain the movement’s growth, station their headquarters for the church plants, train their pastors and leaders, hold large conferences, and give back to their community. This is where eMi stepped in to help. A team of seven of us from the eMi UK office travelled to Patna, India in order to design the buildings. Mike Woods (UK staff), the eMi project team leader; Martin Evans (UK staff), head architect; Richard Fryer (UK), structural engineer, Erin Curtis (Ohio), civil engineer; two architect interns, Miriam Wallace (Australia) and myself; and an interior design intern, Michele Shetler (Indiana), made up the project team.

The first week and a half of the trip was spent in Patna, learning and getting to know the director and pastors of the BORN ministry. We were exposed first hand to the poverty and backwardness of living that affected the majority of people in Bihar. But regardless of the poverty, the hopeless state of the caste system, and the quest for enlightenment through idol worship, there was also beauty and God to be found in that place. We came to know many of the BORN pastors well, and it was astounding to witness their passion for Christ and for spreading His good news. We spent our time in Patna mostly determining the best design solutions for the large, rural, and oddly shaped five acre plot of land they had purchased and want to build on. Including an administration building, guest housing, a teaching building, student housing, staff housing, and a large multi-purpose hall, the design task was a large one. But God brought together a team with talents to fit the need perfectly.

Master Plan

The ministry decided that they wanted architecture for the buildings that would make a statement for BORN and ultimately for Christ. So even though the ministry is still completely relying on God for the funds for the building construction costs, they decided to go with a design we came up with that features the cluster of buildings fitting under one large, concrete canopy roof. The roof acts not only as a strong defining element of architecture, but also helps passively cool the buildings by increasing air flow between the building top and roof bottom which draws the warm air from the buildings up and out, reducing the amount of energy and money needed for air conditioning. In the hot climate of Bihar, this would be a very useful and sustainable method of cooling.

I mainly helped design the Staff Housing (shown above) as well as the Administration Building

The buildings were all designed around a large green, as a cloister so as to give them a space for large conferences and gatherings, as well as a space that ties the entire site together and provides a nice area for outdoor prayer and reading. We integrated a brick detail into some of the buildings to also tie them together and provide more architectural interest. By the end of our time there, jali was a word we could repeat in our sleep! Jali is traditional brick work but with the bricks placed in a way which appears more decorative but also lets air flow through little openings which again assist in the passive cooling of the buildings. The designs were done in brick and concrete construction so as to keep consistent with the typical materials and construction methods used around the area. In the end, we feel that we came up with the best design that would function just as the BORN ministry needs it to now and in the future, providing an architecture that would be pleasing to be in and experience, as well as keeping in mind environmental and sustainable building techniques, materials and low cost.

sketch of the entrance to the campus

sketch of the Administration Building reception area

The team spent many hours and put lots of hard work into coming up with the best design for this ministry, however, we were also able to experience a little of the culture of Patna. We attended a village church service, a baptism, an evening of vacation bible school for village children, a ride across the river Ganges, and a bit of driving around and site-seeing. God is certainly moving in the state of Bihar through the BORN ministry and it was a privilege to be able to be a part of the movement.
 I found it amazing that being around Christians from halfway across the world, living in a completely different culture than my own, I still felt the family bond that we shared through our faith. The welcome, acceptance, and shared responsibility were things that we could instantly relate to each other through. But what struck me the most while I was there working for and amongst these pastors was how much passion they had for Christ and for their lifestyle. They had all completely dedicated their lives to serving Jesus and to spreading his word throughout the state of Bihar. For some this meant being disowned and cut off from their Hindu or Muslim families. They had to leave their homes, move their families to strange villages, and they worked seemingly night and day! But despite all of this hardship, they were the most joyful and loving group of people I think I have ever met. It's a simple truth, but one that is so easy to forget in the busy, consumer-driven world of the west.

Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.  Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets.  But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.
Luke 6:22-24


What a privilege it is to be excluded and insulted because of our allegiance to Christ- and not just a privilege, but a JOY. We have the love and the provision of our creator, what else could we possibly need?

sketch of a prayer nook looking toward the teaching building

sketch of the cloister green looking towards the multi-purpose hall on the right and the teaching block on the left

For the last few days of our two week project trip, we were able to travel to eMi’s office in Mussoorie, India. The scenery, with beautiful mountains and fresh cool air, stood in stark contrast to the poverty we had just witnessed in Patna. In Mussoorie, we were able to present our designs for BORN and receive feedback from professionals who have had years of experience designing within India. It was a wonderful way to finish our time in India.

India Pictures are posted on Picasa!

http://picasaweb.google.com/carissa.emi/India

Namaste! नमस्ते

(Hindi Greeting)

Next Saturday is the big day.  We fly out of London Heathrow to Patna, India and travel from there to a small village to the site where we will be designing an outreach center.  Our team is made up of five professionals and three interns from the US and the UK.

Bihar (in red), where our site is located, is the district of India, sort of like a US state, that is one of the poorest areas of india.  It is located in the Northeast of India, not far from Bangladesh and Nepal. The Ganges River runs through it and life revolves around the rainy flood season and the dry season. With 5 percent of India's total land area, it contains 10 percent of the total population. Only about one-eighth of Bihar's population lives in urban areas, making the state one of the least urbanized in India. Most of the population is engaged in agriculture.   Bihar has one of the lowest literacy rates among Indian states (below 40 percent).  The native language to 4/5 of the people is Hindi. The predominant religion is Hinduism, accounting for 83 percent of the popluation, while Islam accounts for about 17 percent.  Bihar also claims the birthplace of Buddhism and is an important site for the religion of Jainism.  Less than 1 percent of Bihar's population is Christian.

The ministry we are designing this outreach center for has the vision of bringing a church plant to each village in the Bihar district! Which is quite an undertaking knowing that most the population is rural.  However, they are having great success and are now in need of a big space in which to hold training for their leaders and a small bible school and short term housing for missionaries.  That is where eMi comes in! We are going to design an outreach center for them that will give them a home base for the amazing work they are doing throughout all of Bihar.  Our hope is that we can do most of the conceptual design work in the two weeks that we are there in India with the ministry at hand.  Then when we come back to the UK it will be hammering out details and construction drawings.

Bihar has traditionally been known as the graveyard of missions since the arrival of the first Baptist missionaries in 1792. Despite over 200 years of missionary endeavors, Bihar's 90 million people are living in over 40,000 villages without a church. The most recent movement of God through BORN (Bihar Out Reach Network) which is a network of mission agencies and churches to penetrate Bihar with the gospel and to plant churches is slowly turning the graveyard into a vineyard. But much remains to be done.

 http://www.bornbihar.net/

So off I go. 

I am super excited to be designing rather just messing with CAD drawings! also excited for Chai! and to experience a Diwali celebration (the festival of lights and the triumph of good over evil)!

Alvida!   अलविदा।

If you could please pray for health and safety of our project team as well as for the completion of a functional and affordable design for the BORN Ministry while we are away that would be most appreciated! 

Prayer Requests

• For spiritual growth during my time in London
• For safety for the six of us during our project trip to Patna, Bihar, India
• That the projects that I am helping design and produce with eMi would impact the people we are designing the projects for in a positive way for God's Kingdom
• For continued faith that God is preparing something for my life after this term with eMi, even though I don't know what it is yet!
• For the continued growth of the eMi UK office, which just started up this past summer and which doesn't have a permanent office space yet

Thanks for all of your prayers everyone!

Know Thyself

So eMi orientation was largely focused on learning more about yourself, your tendencies, your learned cultural norms and how they differ from other cultures, and how to best work and interact with other people with different personalities and strengths than you.  Thus, I learned that this is me in a nut shell:

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do.  -Ephesians 2:10


Personality

according to the DISC Profile: SCi/CSi
S: Stable, Steady
C: Compliant, Correct
i: Influencing, Inspiring

according to the Myers-Briggs: INFP
NF: Idealist
I: Introvert
N: Intuitive
F: Feeling
P: Perceiving


Spiritual Gifts

1 Missionary - Faith
2 Giving
3 Service - Helps
4 Mercy - Hospitality - Administration
5 Voluntary Poverty


Strengths 

1 Achiever
2 Ideation
3 Empathy
4 Input
5 Learner


Mission Statement during my time with eMi

To praise and glorify God through loving and serving the physically and spiritually poor within my sphere of influence by creating healthy, sustainable, and inspiring built spaces.

----------------------------------------------------------
explainations

DISC Profile
  I was way up on the scale with both C and S which tied and then I had a tiny bit of I in me with absolutely no D (dominant, driver)
I and S are People oriented while C and D are Task oriented
C and S are passive styles while D and I are active styles

the CS is a Precisionist and the SC is a Peacemaker

I is identified with an Otter: they are people persons. enthusiastic and motivational, talkative, impulsive, emotional, sociable, and value acceptance and fear rejection

C is identified with a Beaver: they are analytical, accurate, conscientious and even tempered, thorough, precise, stable, low-keyed, systematic, logical, values standards of high quality and fear criticism

S is identified with a Retriever: they are reliable, steady, understanding, patient, good listener, passive, reflective, values recognition for loyalty and dependability and fear loss of security

D is identified with a Lion: they are direct, decisive, determined, driving, strong-willed, values power and authority to take risks and make decisions and fears being taken advantage of


Myers-Briggs

I vs E
I was 9 of 10 on the Introverted side rather than Extroverted for those of you who swear i am not an introvert :P I have just adapted really well to a mostly extroverted world around me!

  I: reflective, reserved, being alone is energizing, prefer to know a few people really well
  E: outgoing, people-person, being with people is energizing, have wide range of friends and know lots of people

N vs S
I was largely N (Intuition) over S (Sensing)

 N: remember events by reading "between the lines," solve problems by leaping between different ideas and possibilities, interested in doing things new and different, like to see big picture then find out facts, trust impressions, symbols, and metaphors more than actual experience, sometimes think so much about new possibilities that never look at how to make them a reality
 S: remember events as snapshots of what happened, solve problems by working through facts until understand the problem, pragmatic and look to the "bottom line," start with facts and form the big picture, trust experience first and words and symbols less, sometime pay attention so much to facts that miss new possibilities

T vs F
I was just slightly F(Feeling) over T(Thinking)

 F: concerned with harmony and nervous when it is missing, look for what is important to others and express concern for others, make decisions with heart and compassion, being tactful is more important than telling the "cold" truth, i miss seeing or communicating the "hard truth" or situations, sometimes experienced by others to be too idealistic, mushy or indirect
 T: enjoy technical and scientific fields and logic, notice inconsistencies, look for logical explanations or solutions to everything, make decisions with head and want to be fair, believe telling the truth is more important than being tactful, sometimes dont value the "people" part of a situation, can be seen as too task-oriented, uncaring or indifferent

J vs P
I was slightly P(Perceiving) over J(Judging)

 J: like to have things decided, appear to be task-oriented, like to make lists of things to do, like to get my work done before playing, plan work to avoid rushing just before the deadline
 P: like to stay open to whatever happens, appear to be loose and casual, like to keep plans at a minimum, like to approach work as play or mix work and play, work in bursts of energy, stimulated by an approaching deadline


Spiritual gifts

Faith: the special ability God gives certain members of the Body of Christ to discern with extaordinary confidence the will and purposes of God for His work; a practical gift
Missionary: the special ability God gives certain members of the Body of Christ to minister whatever other spiritual gifts that they have in a culture other than their own; a leadership gift
Giving: the special ability God gives certain members of the Body of Christ to contribute their material resources to the work of the Lord with liberality and cheerfulness; a practical gift
Service: the special ability God gives certain members of the Body of Christ to identify the unmet needs involved in a task related to God's work and to make use of available resources to meet those needs and help accomplish the desired results; a practical gift
Helps: the special ability God gives certain members of the Body of Christ to invest the talents they have in the life and ministry of other members of the body, thus enabling those others to increase the effectiveness of their own spiritual gifts; a practical gifts


Strengths

 Achiever:  have a great deal of stamina and work hard. take great satisfaction from being busy and productive
 Ideation: fascinated by ideas. are able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena
 Empathy: can sense the feelings of others by imagining yourself in others' lives or others' situations
 Input: have a craving to know more. may very well like to collect and archive all kinds of information
 Learner: have a great desire to learn, and want to continuously want to improve. in particular, the process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites you

24-7 hour prayer room!

Look Look! a working 24-7 prayer room at HTB! and Pete Grieg is the prayer coordinator for the church!?! How crazy awesome!

For those of you who are confused at this point- I helped try to get one of these going on our Illinois Institute of Technology campus in Chicago last year. They are rooms dedicated to prayer and dedicated to have someone praying in them at every moment of every day- 24hours, 7 days a week! We ran into a bunch of of problems finding a space we could use for prayer and for all hours but my hope is that others still on campus are working closer to achieving this goal! Pete Grieg was the founder of this movement which started in the UK and has traveled to the US with the name Campus America.   http://campusamerica.org/sections/1-home/entries/62-24-7-prayer

a day in the life

My week starts off on Monday morning at Vestry Mews, Camberwell, waking at 7:00am (!?! still not used to early mornings yet), getting ready, making lunch, and stepping out the door at 8:00am.

There's a five minute walk to a church down the street where I meet Michele. We exchange sleepy nods and then walk another five minutes to the bus stop.

We wait there for the #35 bus and after beeping in, always trek to the top deck for the 45min ride to Shoreditch, on the north side of the city. I currently bury my nose in "Wives and Daughters" by Elizabeth Gaskell

(thanks Liz!) for the duration of the bus ride while also eating my morning pastry, with a brief intermission while we go over London Bridge with a great view of the river and Tower Bridge just outside the window.

We get off the bus and walk another 10mins to the architecture office with a huge freaking door that's unusually hard to open.

The first thing after setting down our bags by our computers is of course to put the hot water on for a cup of black tea with milk and depending on my mood, sugar. Work work till hungry. Take lunch outside to a little church yard around the block. Sit on a bench or in the grass and partake of my sandwich. Back to work work in the tiny corner we call the office. There are four people in the firm but they are all awesome and I don't mind being in a cozy space with them until 6pm.

This is the daily routine from Monday to Thursday. After work on Monday we do some site seeing. Tuesday we go to Holy Trinity Brompton Church (HTB) for the student pastorate: small groups, food, and worship! Wednesday is Alpha Training at HTB for two weeks and then Michele and I are helping lead an Alpha Course at St. George's Church- a church plant of HTB(where consequently Lare and John also go to. Lare(pronounced Laura is Mike and Marietta's daughter)! Thursday probably more sight-seeing.

Fridays: As a part of the eMi internship, you have a weekly mentor session as well as get involved with a weekly community service. So on Fridays we get up at 6-freakin-am and travel an hour to the london Liverpool Street Station and another hour on the train out to Mike and Marietta's place out in the country-side, close to Colchester. Mike is the eMi UK director and Marietta is his lovely wife as well as my mentor.

The office is currently a room in their house but will hopefully be moving soon to a bigger room in a church in Colchester. This is why Michele and I are working in London and not at the "office" in Colchester- it wouldn't hold all of us. So we are working in London in Martin's architecture office- Martin is an architect associated with eMi but who also has his own firm. Anyway- I digress.

We get to Colchester and volunteer at an Open Door facility that serves tea, coffee, and biscuits (cookies) and provides a warm place to chill for homeless people. After 2pm we then meet up with our mentors for an hour or so and lunch. Then we hang out with Mike and Marietta and Sophia (Michele's mentor) for the rest of the day before heading back to London. I look forward all week to sitting with a cup of tea in their brilliant conservatory (sun room) out in their garden!

Sunday we go to church.




welcome to a day in my life as an eMi intern in the UK

Pictures are up!

http://picasaweb.google.com/carissa.emi

Go check out my pics!

Five Dollars becomes Ten Thousand

The night I went to our weekly sorority business meeting and announced the internship I was going to take for the next fall and how much money I had to raise, I asked my sisters if anyone of them would like to give towards my support raising. This meeting was the first time I had spoke about my trip and asked for support. I passed around an empty envelope, should anyone like to give at that moment, along with a paper to write mailing addresses on if they would like to receive my support letter. The paper came back rather full which was a heart-warming feeling. But that envelope came back to me with a lone five dollars in it, and to this day I don’t know who gave that bill. All I know is that when that could have been a rather depressing start to my support raising, I knew straight away that this five dollar bill would be just like the five loaves of bread that Jesus turned into food for five thousand people. Three months later that five dollars, God has multiplied into 10,000. Many of my ASA Zeta Phi sisters have helped me out financially, and I am so grateful to them, and thank you especially to the anonymous giver of my first five dollars of support! If it were not for those who offer what they have, however small the amount, God would have nothing to work with in the first place.

Yet another excitement is that this $10,000 was based on an estimate of having to stay in a sort of glorified hostel which cost quite a bit. I have now been blessed with a host family in London to stay with; thus, the estimated total cost is back down to about $8,000! Whatever I don’t end up needing for myself I will be donating to eMi to distribute to whatever project cost is most needed! Thank you once again to everyone who has supported me in this mission!

Luke 9:12-17
Late in the afternoon the Twelve came to him and said, "Send the crowd away so they can go to the surrounding villages and countryside and find food and lodging, because we are in a remote place here." He replied, "You give them something to eat." They answered, "We have only five loaves of bread and two fish—unless we go and buy food for all this crowd." (About five thousand men were there.) But he said to his disciples, "Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each." The disciples did so, and everybody sat down. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke them. Then he gave them to the disciples to set before the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.

A Test of Faith

At the beginning of the month of May, I was a fifth year architect just about ready to graduate with no job prospect due to the unfortunate fallout that the economy had with the working class of the US. With no hope of securing a summer job of any significant pay, I had just accepted an internship with eMi. This organization is a Christian non-profit organization which sends architects and engineers overseas to design projects for developing communities across the world. This decision to join up on such an organization probably does not come as such a large shock to those who know me; however, the part that came as quite a shock to even me was the amount of money I would need to raise in order to serve with them. Not only was I going to be unpaid for seven months including the preceding summer, I had to raise $8,000 in the next three before leaving the States in August! I called for my interview and then again shortly afterward to confirm that I was up to the challenge only to find out that the expected price had increased to closer to $10,000!?! Now for an introverted, reserved, and independent girl such as me, asking for money from anyone is completely outside of my vocabulary. As you can imagine I was utterly worried about this daunting task.

One evening shortly after this point, I was out with a group of friends in Chicago for a friend’s birthday. We were dancing the night away naturally. When it came time to leave, I came to the realization that my coat and purse had been taken from the middle of the pile of about 20 of our friends’ coats- and that mine were the only ones taken. Along with this coat that I loved and had bought in Spain the year before, my camera, phone, and wallet were also taken. Directly before arriving at the dance club, I had just taken out and placed in my wallet $60 cash to pay for the night’s fun and for a road trip the following day to Iowa for a wedding. You can imagine my distress then when I was already doubting the fund-raising prospects and my lack of job to assist in any financial way, when I discovered that my valuables had been taken. It was so unbelievable that my things alone would be taken so I believed that perhaps I had overlooked them and thus, waited for everyone else’s things to disappear as they left the club. When it was quite certain that my things were missing, I freaked out in silence for a moment. I went downstairs to ask the security guards if they had found anything turned in and asked them to keep an eye out. There was nothing more to do but wait until the club emptied out in case someone found anything or turned anything in. So while I was waiting I prayed. Right away I found God saying to me that I had not turned this internship and the support raising process over to Him. He had called me to serve in this way and He would provide the necessary funds in order for me to go. Nothing that I did or did not do could sway this decision of His. At this moment, I confessed that I was preparing to raise these funds on my own behalf and that I would certainly fail if I tried to take things into my own hands. I turned this season of my life over to Him and fell into the beautiful state of peace that comes from faith in knowing Christ’s love and His promise to provide us with our needs.

1 Timothy 6: 17-18
Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.

Immediately after I had finished praying and had come to this realization, I remember thinking, if only just my phone and credit cards would show up. Just then, a friend of mine came around the corner holding a dark blue pleather jacket. “Is this yours?” He asked. It was! It was! He had found it in a random corner on the floor. I then asked him to call my phone to see if perhaps someone may answer it, not expecting anything of course. But to both of our surprise- someone answered! It was someone working in the office of the club. We ran to the front office and guess what had been just turned in? We found that someone had turned in my phone and my wallet- without the cash- but all the credit cards were there.

It was a very convincing confirmation the God wanted me to serve with eMi and that I need not worry about how to get there. God had taken care of that years before I even knew of the organization and had been preparing me for this season of my life.

Oh and a month later God provided an opportunity to volunteer for a study of team-work psychology at Columbia College in Chicago. The compensation? $60.

silly Peter, why do you doubt?

Orientation- Colorado Springs

A beautiful scene during a hike in Colorado Springs, Co


My small group at orientation! eMi UK + eMi Canada = mostly the same person (we discovered that we all have very similar personalities and spiritual gifts and strengths!) I'm going to miss you guys!

Michele + Carissa = eMi UK

Michele is the awesome intern from Bethel in Indiana serving with me in the London office


Talented Engineer and Architecture Interns from all over the USA, South Korea, & Canada!

Special Thanks!

I want to thank everyone so much who has supported me, and especially financially! I would not be able to be serving God and His people in this way if it were not for your help, gifts, and prayers.

I am praying for each of you that has helped me out in this endeavor and I pray that you will be immensely blessed where you are at because of your willingness to give to EMI's vision and partnering in helping bring hope and the word of Christ to people in a very practical way!

Thanks to...
Family, friends, ASA sisters, First Presbyterian Church, Casper, WY family, and Near West Vineyard Church, Chicago family

funds 8_17

I've met my funding for the entire four months!!!

funds 8_9

funds 8_3

funds 7_24

funds 7_18

funds 7_11

funds 7_03

funds 6_23

about the project in India we are designing

http://emiuk.org/projects/projectprofile_11002.html

We will be designing an outreach and mission center that houses classrooms for 60 students, a Bible school, administration facilities for Maranatha Ministries Foundation, staff quarters, and a chapel.

The site is just outside the city of Patna, India and 2.3 acres have already been purchased. With an additional 2.7 acres in the process of being purchased, this will make a total site area of 5 acres.

Completion of this project will allow training of, and direct outreach to, Gods people in the whole region of Bihar and beyond, in the whole of northern India.

funds 6_17

funds 6_1

funds 5_22