Monday, May 15, 2017

Continued Healing and Restoration

Africa Harvest Ministries (AHM) was established after the genocide that took place in Rwanda in 1994 that claimed more than one million lives in a hundred days. At that terrible time, Rwanda was completely destroyed spiritually, socially, and economically. There was hopelessness and fear everywhere, with orphans, widows and the disabled roaming the streets seeking to survive.

Screen Shot 2017 05 15 at 9 11 31 AM

It was at that time that God moved Pastor Patrick to begin a ministry that would restore “unity" and “hope". He began preaching this message under a tree in a village which led to the first of 13 Calvary Temple Churches and later the establishment of AHM.

Social development programs for vulnerable women were established as well as Bright Future School to educate underprivileged children and orphans. On this project trip, EMI will come alongside AHM to design a secondary school campus to complement their existing primary school. We will also design dormitories for boys and for girls for children who live too far to walk to school each day. This will expand the reach of the school to a wider community.

For more information on Africa Harvest Ministries, see their website here.

Screen Shot 2017 05 15 at 9 14 30 AM

On May 22nd, 2017 our team will travel directly to the Rwandan capital Kigali for our project and complete our trip by driving over the mountains to Uganda for a design review at the EMI Uganda office in Kajjansi, just south of Kampala. Please keep us in prayer as we travel in the air and on the ground.

Thank you to all our supporters and friends who make it possible for me to serve with EMI in this way!

Thursday, May 11, 2017

When a Little Means a Lot

IMG 2674
A Mattress. How do I complain about household chores and maintenance when a senior in Uganda tells me about the miracle of receiving a mattress? Not a replacement mattress, like for Christmas to replace an old one, but a mattress as in “I’ve never had one before”. Or a small LED lamp to provide their only source of light at night. These are the stories we heard from seniors served by Reach One Touch One Ministries (ROTOM), the ministry in Uganda my EMI team served in September 2016.
ROTOM 3
Getting Hugs. If you’ve read my blogs before you’ve seen me post photos of being mobbed by laughing, happy kids. On this trip, for the first time, I was mobbed by laughing, happy seniors. We had barely made it out of our van! Frankly, the seniors knew little of the technicalities of our work, they just knew that after EMI showed up seven years ago, the result was ROTOM's medical clinic a facility that has improved their standard of health care.
ROTOM
Inpatient Care. The 1,000+ seniors that ROTOM serves often have medical conditions that require more attention than can be provided for in an outpatient clinic setting. When they need surgery or another form of longer term care, a medical facility needs the capacity and appropriate facilities for inpatient services; surgical rooms, recovery beds, and beds for longer stays. So our EMI team tweaked the initial master plan and designed a 30+ bed inpatient ward to facilitate life-saving or certainly life-improving surgeries.
ROTOM2
Doing Life Together. Our team of eight came from Canada, USA, UK, and Nigeria. We came alongside ROTOM to increase their capacity to care and serve. What better reward than a hug from a grateful senior?
Photos. Want to see built facilities that EMI designed back in 2009? How about more photos and stories of the seniors we met? A new set of photos has been placed in my Flickr Photo Gallery. Click here to jump to the gallery.
Thank you for coming alongside EMI and our family in 2016! Supporting us through prayer and finances, your partnership allows me to be remain a part of EMI and makes projects such as this possible.