life as a LTV

life as a long term volunteer at eMi...well crazy

For the past month I have been settling in to life in Colchester where our new eMi office is located. Colchester is an old town outside of London about 45mins by train.

  









 I am staying with Mike (eMi UK Director) and Marietta Woods and their adopted daughter, Lela, in Great Wenham.  We live in a nice old country house called The Baylies that is dated something like 100 years old and located about 10 miles outside of Colchester.

By far my favorite spot in the house: the lovely little conservatory off the kitchen facing the back garden. A perfect spot for tea times :)

My room is upstairs. Mike and Marietta lived in Uganda for a time, and thus the majority of my furnishing happens to be tribal drums! ..the shoes and ducks are my contribution.

Because we are out in the middle of no-where-ville, the extra car in the drive has been entrusted to me for the time being.  Let's just say that learning manual for the first time while attempting to remember how to maneuver round-a-bouts and drive on the wrong side of the road has been entertaining for all spectators.

Our brand new office is finally up and running after a month's worth of painting, furniture buying and assembling, fighting with internet and phone lines, and redrilling holes for shelving in 100-year-old plaster.  We plan to fit three interns, two ltvs, and director in this tiny room...don't ask me how :) Note the pink guitar in the corner above my workstation.  It's a necessary piece of equipment, I assure you.  We are now officially located in the back of the Colchester Baptist Church.

I have been attending Sunday Services at St. John's Church in Colchester.  It's a wonderful Anglican Church with a heart for serving God and following His Spirit. Lela and I are excited to continue getting more plugged in the community there!



So that's my life for now. Until our trip to Liberia in early June, I will be finishing up the project report for the India trip, writing an article for the ACDP (Association of Christian Design Professionals), helping with Intern Orientation for the summer term, and preparing for the project trip to Liberia...with a detour home for a couple of weeks to sort out my visa!

funds 3_02

Special thanks to those of you who recently sent in gifts! The cost of my flight back to the US to reapply for a visa has been covered as well as my participation on the project trip to Liberia in June! Thanks to you all, I can now commit to that orphanage project outside of Monrovia! Thank you ever so much!!!! I am so excited to be able to contribute to the design and the project team this summer :)  Praise God so much for our Christian family that crosses oceans and cultures!

uk visa = craziness

it was all going so well...
although a long tedious process, the sponsorship license that had to be applied for and awarded before I could even apply for a visa went through about a month ago.  I came back to the UK and straight away sent in my visa application.  Yesterday, after all of that, they sent me a rejection letter.


In the large scheme of things, it's not a huge obstacle because the grounds that it was rejected on was that the particular charity visa I applied for can only be granted to someone applying while living outside the country. sigh. That means a trip back to the states to sort the whole application out again.  While that in and of itself is just majorly inconvenient, it possess a relatively small obstacle of an extra plane flight and chillaxing at home with the parentals for a couple of weeks...not so bad :)


The thing that knocked me off kilter a bit from this news was a thought that perhaps God had not been calling me to serve with eMi in the UK as I had originally thought.  This was a really scary thought.  I hate when I miss the mark: i've already been support raising, i've moved in here, started learning to drive on the wrong side of the road (surprisingly i haven't killed anything but the gear box so far!)...etc.  It would be so disappointing to have to just drop all the work I am currently doing for eMi and flee the country for good.  You feel sort of disoriented when you start questioning whether you followed God into His path for you or you went your own way thinking it was His.


I can't say that I am one hundred percent reconfirmed now, but God continues to remind me that as long as I am seeking His will, I enable Him to work through me, no matter where I am at.  This morning, after having a frustrating day of bad visa news and leaving my favorite umbrella behind on the train yesterday, I suddenly remembered an e-mail I received not 24 hours before I got my unfortunate visa letter.  That e-mail contained great news of a donation made on my behalf from the Wheatly Fund, a fund set up by a wonderful couple from my home church in Wyoming.  


The realization:  
donation = cost of flight back home


He is My fortress. My rock. My provider. Yet again, God reminds me that He provides for his children who are walking along side Him.  Lord, although I never will, help me to deserve that spot at your side.

Pressing on towards the goal:

Back in the USS...K

Every time. I feel like busting out the beatles' song every time i say im back in the UK. If only the SSR was a K.  I suppose it's still appropriate seeing as the Beatles did come from the UK.
oh anyhow

news updates!
I am back in the UK and living with the eMi directer and his wife out in Colchester.  Monday and Tuesday's I commute into London to work for Evans Davies Architects and Wed-Fri I stay out in Colchester to work at the eMi office.

and YES, eMiUK now has an official office!!! We just finished painting and are currently moving into a room in the Colchester Baptist Church. nevermind that the wall color is a rather unfavorable shade of yellow...grateful...grateful...grateful :)

the funny thing is, much sooner rather than later, we will likely need to find and move out into a larger office!?! (new paint color! whoot!)  Apart from me and Mike, the director, there is Jean, another who does part time with eMi like me, a couple of fabulous interns, David our accountant, and a couple of perspective full-time volunteers! How crazy is that? eMiUK is growing! It's so exciting to know that God is working within our ministry and is continuing to bring people here to serve with eMi!!

on the heavier side of things, Marietta, Mike's wife, has been diagnosed with breast cancer and on top of that needs to have a quadruple heart by-pass in a couple of months time.  Mike's first priority, quite rightly, is at home with Marietta, and because we-even though growing-are not a big office.  Thus, we dont have anyone to take over as the project leader of our planned trip to Liberia in March and because of this it has been postponed.   

The Liberia trip has, however, been rescheduled for the summer term sometime in June 2010.  Plans as of now are that I will be participating with that project team and designing a Technical School for an orphanage outside of Monrovia.

Support for participation on future project trips keeps coming in, and for that I can't thank you all enough!!


Prayer Requests
Please pray for Marietta. She as well as Mike are so involved in my life, the other eMi staff and interns, and with eMi as a ministry. They are such lovely people with amazing servant hearts and it is so difficult to see them both going through such a rough time.  The eMi UK office wouldn't exist without them.  Please pray for a swift and complete healing and recovery from heart surgery as well as treatment of breast cancer.  Pray for great doctors and surgeons. Please pray for abundant rest time and perhaps a lack of eMi busyness so that Mike doesn't feel pulled in two different directions.  Please pray for the surrounding of their friends and family and people who have time and willingness to help out and be around.  Please pray for a presence of peace and courage in Marietta rather than anxiety as she waits for these procedures to take place.

I would also ask for prayer on guidance as to where to find a church home for the next year.

And please pray for the interns and eMi team members who are a bit tossed about at the moment with all the plans for the semester being rearranged on short notice.

And of course prayer for continued support from my friends and family back home.  I am scared of losing touch with all of my wonderful friends and growing apart from them as I will be away for such a long period of time.  I am really praying that I'm out of my mind even to think of it!

Thank you all so much!
my current financial standing is as follows:

God Bless!!

funds 1_26

funds 1_21

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!!