Regeneration, Renewal, and Expansion of a K-12 Campus

In June of 2018 I have this great opportunity to serve again in the country where I went on my first project trip with EMI in 2001. That project trip happened within two weeks of 9/11 and so all of my international EMI experience has been "post-9/11". While the world has changed a lot in 17 years and EMI has grown and matured greatly as an organization, we continue the work of meeting "on-the-ground" needs all over the world, serving poor communities in order to bring Hope.

Belize Christian Academy (BCA) is a K-12 international school with a rich history in Central America. The vision of TeachBeyond, which now owns and operates BCA, is to introduce a new, over-arching master plan on this lush, 25 acre property and construct a new center for Learning and Administration. The long term result will be a school campus that supports academic excellence as well as community spirit.



BCA first opened its doors in September 1993 on the outskirts of Belmopan, the capital city of Belize in Central America. While the initial population of 38 students and 4 teachers was modest, 14 nationalities were represented in the student body. This large mix is due to the fact that many children from foreign embassies have made BCA their school home. Today, local children as well as those from 40 different countries have attended BCA.

Geographically, Belize lies along the western edge of the Caribbean Sea, is bordered to the north by Mexico, and west and south by Guatemala. The official language of Belize is English while Belizean Creole is an unofficial native language. Spanish is its second most-spoken language. BCA itself is situated on 25 acres, half of which is maintained for the school grounds while the other half is mostly forested. The existing school facility is a collection of mostly single-use buildings. While most are very serviceable, some older buildings will be slated for replacement in the coming years.

The project scope of the EMI team will be to review BCA's existing facilities and infrastructure, create an overall, phased master plan for new and facilities to be rebuilt/replaced, and incorporate a new Learning Centre and Administration Building. Future EMI teams will address future phases when phase one is complete and the needs of the next phase are determined.

Thank you to all our supporters and friends who make it possible for me to serve with EMI in this way! If you or anyone you know wish to learn how to join me on this project, please click here to see the EMI project page.

Bright Future Secondary School (Rwanda)

Africa Harvest Mission (AHM) was established shortly after the genocide of 1994 when more than one million people lost their lives in a hundred days. AHM began under a tree in a rural village in eastern Rwanda where Pastor Patrick preached "unity" and "hope". As AHM churches grew the ministry developed the capacity to establish social development programs for vulnerable women and later, Bright Future School for vulnerable children and orphans.

Education. However, simply providing education is not enough; delivering education without providing the basis of a moral compass can result in evil as easily as it can result in good. For this reason, the teachers and administrators of Bright Future School are proactive in building a generation “driven by Christian values of love and care to humanity”.



Getting Started. AHM started with the youngest children, operating four elementary schools in the rural eastern countryside. They recently purchased a parcel of land to establish a boarding school for secondary students (grades 7 – 12). The location, closer to the capital, is where they hope the students will be stimulated and motivated to use their education actively in their community and become Christ-centered leaders of tomorrow.



AHM’s boarding school will ultimately have three classes per grade with a capacity for over 700 students. The environment is to be as much about nurturing community as it is to be about imparting an education. It will be a place to foster discipline in life as much as discipline in the classroom.



Step By Step. To account for the fundraising process as well as gradually taking on children they are nurturing through elementary school, the secondary school will be built in phases and account for the increasingly sophisticated and complex nature of the education system as well as the construction industry in Rwanda.



Before navigating the labyrinth of building codes and district and industry requirements, AHM needed a team of design professionals to help establish a master plan and the character of the school; they needed to know each step taken and dollar spent will lead them toward their objectives. When AHM’s American partner, Africa Bright Future Ministries (ABFM), found out about EMI, they applied to receive one of our multi-disciplinary teams.



Partnership. Our EMI team consisted of architects as well civil, structural, electrical, and geomatics engineers from Rwanda, United States, and Canada. Our Rwandese members were instrumental in helping our team understand the local culture and the construction context. We enjoyed each other’s company and laughed a lot, but also worked side-by-side with professionalism to provide AHM the planning that it needs to operate an effective, cost-efficient, sustainable, and beautiful secondary school campus.



Deliverables. Now back in our respective homes, emails continue to fly across time zones as we coordinate our writing and drawing to produce our Final Report and Drawings. Empowered with new knowledge and confident their vision is achievable, AHM will use these documents, which capture our proposals and provide a variety of technical and budgetary options, to further engage local design professionals and government officials in the process toward constructing their new campus.



Photos. I have uploaded a series of photos of our time and work in Rwanda. Click here to jump to the gallery.



Thank you for coming alongside EMI and our family. Your support enables me to lead such projects and in turn, my involvement creates opportunities for interns and volunteers and ultimately, impact is felt by the children, families, and communities served by the organizations with whom we partner.

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.

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.

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!

When a Little Means a Lot

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.

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.

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.

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.

ROTOM - More of a Good Thing

On Wednesday, September 7th I will be travelling to Uganda with an EMI team to serve ROTOM with a Phase 2 project team.

Reach One Touch One Ministries is a ministry to the elderly in Mukono, Uganda. In 2003 the founder of ROTOM, Kenneth Mugayehwenkyi, discovered the need of the elderly when he sponsored two young children and learned that their parents had died of AIDS and that their lone caregiver was their grandmother. She had great need in caring for both herself and her grandchildren and she was not alone; AIDS, war, and other factors have left many elderly to care for their grandchildren.



In 2007, EMI Canada sent a team to Uganda to design an out-patient medical clinic and administrative offices for ROTOM. With the Project Report and drawings produced by that team, ROTOM was helped in its fundraising efforts and in the construction of these first facilities. In the master plan, EMI allocated space and resources to expand ROTOM’s capacity to serve the seniors, such as in-patient care, staff housing, and a community centre.



With the initial proposal constructed and with the care of seniors now ongoing, ROTOM is ready to pursue Phase 2 and EMI is ready to return to assist in their process of planning, fund-raising, and construction but putting vision to paper and dreams into constructible form.



I am extremely excited about the team God has put together during my recruitment efforts. Our architect, electrical engineer, and civil engineers are from the USA, our structural engineer is from the UK, our landscape architect is from Nigeria, and my two interns are from Canada. We are also looking forward to meeting and serve together with a Uganda architect who has helped ROTOM with detailed design and to navigate the local construction process.

For more information on ROTOM, see there introduction video by clicking here.

To see EMI’s constructed first phase, see senior’s being care for, and learn more about the next phase, see the awesome video my colleague Braden put together here.

Please keep us in prayer as we travel in the air and on the ground. We will first visit the EMI Uganda office in Kajjansi, where they share an office with Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF). We will then travel a little further, beyond the capital Kampala, to ROTOM’s location in Mukono.

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

A Fresh Start

Fresh Start. What does it really mean, to have a “fresh start”? No one expects a life without pain or unexpected suffering. But what if that pain and suffering is thrust upon us, willful acts by others, purely for their gain…and utterly at our expense? Packing anger, hurt, guilt, pain, and resentment down, deep inside for years often forges incredible hardness and profound hopelessness. What chance is there for hope, what hope is there for change, and what change can bring restoration?

Change. Change is never easy, even when change means turning away from pain, because change often means moving toward the unknown, and perhaps a worse situation. When all one has heard and experienced for years are lies, to even recognize hope, sparked by a new promise, can be difficult. So, when women who have suffered abuse for years give hope a chance by entering the Ratanak Achievement Program (RAP), they have already “achieved”; they have taken the first and difficult step to embrace change.

Challenges. However, even when those trapped in exploitation and human trafficking make a decision to seek wholeness and restoration, heart-break can still await. Years of subjectation can still trap both mind and body. A long anticipated reunion with family, following years of separation and suffering, may only bring scorn if returning home means failure to have gained financial security for the whole family.

RAP. Understanding this, Ratanak International created RAP to be more than simply human effort or mere acts of kindness, as even the best of human intentions cannot heal what’s most deep inside, the human spirit. Instead, Ratanak staff love each woman deeply, as an expression and an extension of God’s love, and in recognition of her value as one who is “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). Through advocacy, counselling, and vocational training, each woman can regain her bearings as an independent, productive member in society, and where RAP ends with the practical and the tangible, God’s promise of full restoration continues the work of healing the spirit.

Partnership. In February of 2016, Ratanak International hosted an eMi team to come alongside, learn about Cambodia and Ratanak, gain an understanding of RAP, and design a facility that will help women in their journey through RAP. The facility is to embody an understanding of their circumstances, facilitate their physical needs, and provide spaces where healing and change will take place. Some of these spaces will be private and quiet for counselling and grieving while other spaces will nurture community and mutual support. All together, the facility will provide and embody dignity, privacy, and security.

The Facility. From absorbing the context that is post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia, visiting the current make-shift RAP facilities, listening to the leaders of RAP, and investigating various buildings under construction, the eMi team developed an understanding of the challenge and began to put pen to paper. As the facility took shape, the team integrated the characteristics of the property, accounted for privacy and security issues, and carefully arranged spaces for counselling, seminars and administration. Practical issues like making provision for back-up power generation, ensuring a fresh water supply, proper sanitation and storm water handling, and designing an efficient, economical building structure given localized conditions, were addressed.

Next Steps. With the Final Presentation completed and members of the Ratanak staff satisfied that all key needs have been addressed, the eMi team has now returned to their respective homes to work remotely but together through communication toward a final Project Report and set of design drawings. Coordination will include the construction manager who will manage local building authorities in Phnom Penh, prepare the property and construct the building. For their part, Ratanak has quickly begun its fundraising efforts to see this proposed building become a reality as soon as possible.

A Final Thought. The imminent challenge is both sad and wonderful; many internationally trafficked Cambodian women will return home in the coming days through repatriation agreements and RAP will be pushed to its limits. Though its need arises from crisis and the challenges are great, the opportunity for restored lives, to bring hope where it was essentially snuffed out, is exciting and a blessing.

Photos. A new set of annotated photos has been placed in my Flickr Photo Gallery with various options to view it. If you want to browse the set, click here.
Thank you to all who make this work possible through your encouragement, prayer and financial support; you have been a part of making this project, and the resulting touched lives, a reality.

A New Home, A New Life

The History. Ratanak International has been ministering and providing compassion in post-genocide Cambodia for 25 years with a diverse collection of medical, agricultural and literacy programs, along with a particular focus on one of the most disadvantaged and traumatized segments of Cambodian society - young women trafficked and sold into the sex trade.

The Vision. After working almost exclusively with girls and young women rescued out the domestic sex trade, Ratanak is has now established a new program and is constructing a facility designed to provide a safe, live-in reintegration home for older girls and women being repatriated back to Cambodia after having been trafficked internationally.

The Project. Ratanak International has approached eMi to design a secure home for its RAP (Ratanak Achievement Program) for those escaping a life of abuse. It is where assessments will be conducted and where residents will receive an education, job and life skills training, enabling them to live independent and stable lives. This new centre will also be Ratanak's “home base”, containing administrative, counselling, and program offices from which it’s work at the forefront of the human trafficking challenge in Cambodia can grow.


More Information. To visit Ratanak’s website to read more about their work, click here.

Please keep us in prayer as we travel in the air and on the ground first in the capital Phnom Penh and later in Siem Reap, centre of Ratanak’s upcountry work.

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

Caring for Abandoned Babies

Impact Ministries.  For more than a decade Impact Ministries has been furthering education, providing local health services and establishing churches in communities around the town of Tactic in rural Guatemala.  Today, some of the teachers and administrators of these schools are themselves graduates of these schools.  And while education and medical care have been the key development components of Impact Ministries, one major need has not been addressed: the need to care for abandoned babies.


The Challenge.  Extreme poverty and already large family sizes have resulted in newborn babies being abandoned at hospitals (or even thrown out with the trash) once the mom has given birth.  These babies enter the care of Guatemala’s social services with no guarantee of proper care, a chance for adoption or access to proper education and future opportunities.  So in 2013, Impact Ministries assembled a committee to develop a proposal for an orphanage.  In the fall of 2014, a parcel of land was purchased for the orphanage and immediately, eMi was contacted about providing a design team.  On February 6th of 2015, our team of 13 arrived in Guatemala City and after resting their for one evening, made our way to Tactic.

Getting Started.  Walking the land and simply getting to know Impact Ministries were our first tasks.  Context is everything so we listened intently as we learned about the Guatemalan culture, witnessed the every day life of families, discovered the rules and regulations that govern the care of abandoned children and connected personally with the Guatemalan members of Impact Ministry’s Orphanage Committee.

Meeting the Kids.  Morning devotion at 7:00 am at an Impact Ministries school was where we met students and heard their stories.  In Canada we joke about walking miles barefoot through snow to school but for many of the children, if not for the one pair of shoes they receive through child-sponsorship, they would indeed walk barefoot for miles to school, through rain and mud from their small shack home on a distant hill.  And yet they smile big toothy smiles, express their thanks to God for their school, worship with songs sung at the top of their voices and give us bear hugs around our waist in thanks for coming from afar so that orphans, children even worse off than they, could be cared for.

My Travel Buddy.  Having Cameron with me on this trip was special.  In 2011 Caitlin came to Haiti with me and now it was Cam’s turn.  Cam and I have been travel buddies to his soccer tournaments for years.  But this trip was for him to see what dad does; the reason we left family and friends behind in Vancouver ten years ago to join eMi in Calgary.  If he was nervous, he didn’t let on…too much.

Lay of the Land.  Land surveying is a demanding job.  It is physical and conditions change with the weather (hot/cold/wet/dry), terrain (hilly/flat) and plant cover (trees/brush).  Tactic is hilly and cool but for most of our time there, it remained dry.  Hiking boots and fleece is not usually a part of Cam’s “urban” wear but he was a great sport, never complained and became a solid help to David, navigating tough terrain and standing still despite the many spiders he encountered along the way.  Dad stopped by every once in a while to provide a "beef jerky break”.

The Orphanage Committee. The Committee is made up of mostly Guatemalans who are already involved with Impact Ministries but who also have a burden in their heart to care for abandoned babies.  Sandra, a member of our team who also attends Foothills Alliance Church (my home church) in Calgary, is a many-time volunteer with Impact Ministries.  She has also been on the Orphanage Committee and so became both a catalyst for our conversations as well as our team’s translator of both language and culture.  We had both an envisioning meeting as well as a follow-up meeting during the week with the Orphanage Committee.  By week’s end at the Final Presentation, what they saw presented was a weaving of ideas from both the eMi team and the Orphanage Committee.

It’s About the Kids.  The eMi team proposed a phased development, a master plan that unfolds as the children grow and Impact Ministries welcomes a few more children into its care each year.  Each year new house parents are trained and the land that is now quiet will come to life. Community will grow and together, children and house parents will dwell in the goodness and sufficiency of Christ; in Him they have hope and life and in Him they will represent this hope and life to their community and far beyond.

Final Presentation.  Our Final Presentation was held on a Saturday morning following six days of master planning, surveying, designing and redesigning building layouts, digging & watering soakage pits, analyzing water & power supply distribution and establishing a structural design approach to combat earthquakes.  Whew!  When we see tears...of joy…in the eyes of those we came to serve, we are thankful and relieved.  God is good!

A Final Thought.  For our debriefing time, souvenir shopping and general winding down day we ended our week with a couple nights in Antigua, the old capital of Guatemala.  Quaint and picturesque though it was, it was impossible to miss the evidence of forced colonial rule, syncretic beliefs and clashing cultures: colourful, laid-back latin ambience set against an imposed order, a rigid grid of streets.  But I realize that this represents me as well because I too am a mixture of brokeness and hope, a story of what was, what is becoming and what could be.  Although our past may be unalterable, our future is not set, our stories are not complete.  I’m glad this part of my journey included my son, good friends and an opportunity to serve an amazing ministry and the beautiful people of Guatemala.

Photos.  A new set of annotated photos has been placed in my Flickr Photo Gallery with various options to view it.  If you want to browse the set, click here.

Thank you to all who make this work possible through your encouragement, prayer and financial support; you have been a part of making this project, and the resulting touched lives, a reality.

Homes For Kids With Impact

From schools to homes.  Impact Ministries has spent more than a decade establishing rural schools and agricultural programs, bringing healthcare and planting churches in rural Guatemala.  All the while they have been training and employing Guatemalan teachers, farmers, pastors and administrators.

In recent years they have seen their students graduate and find employment or attend university, some returning to become teachers for the next generation.  Now, after two years of planning, they have the land and resources to address a long-known need, establishing an orphanage to care for abandoned children in poor, rural Guatemala.  The task for our eMi team will be to master plan this new property and design the first facilities, a “baby house”, along with all the required water supply, sanitation and power infrastructure.

Back to Central America.  This will be my first project lead in Central America and my first project in a Spanish speaking country since serving in Honduras as an eMi volunteer 12 years ago, when Julie joined me for an eMi project experience.  This is eMi Canada’s second project with Impact Ministries (the first was a school exactly 10 years ago) and my home church in Calgary has many ties to Impact Ministries so I’m excited to be serving a ministry that in many ways is both “close to home” and a wonderful example of “walking alongside”; encouraging, enabling and growing the capacity of the local Guatemalan people.

Added Bonus.  An added element of joy and excitement is that Cameron, my 15 year old son, will join me for an eMi project trip for the first time.  He and I have been looking forward to this since Caitlin (now 17) joined me for a project in Haiti in 2011.  As part of the team Cameron will join the survey crew to document the 40 acre parcel of land.  He will also have a chance to interact with the local children...especially looking forward to playing soccer with them!

To read more about this eMi project click here.  To visit the Impact Ministries website click here.

Please keep us in prayer as we travel in the air and on the ground in rural Guatemala and also remember all team member families while we are away.  Thank you to all our supporters and friends who make it possible for me to do this work!

Balloon Animals, Shoeboxes and Concrete

Our team had an awesome time and learned a lot about God’s work in the communities we visited. We had opportunities to be involved in many different ministries like when our team organized and led a children’s program using balloon animals, face painting and fingernail painting. We also unloaded Operation Christmas Child [OCC] shoeboxes from a container and did a distribution of the shoeboxes and also Toms shoes.

The majority of the work we did was on a construction site, pouring concrete to create bleacher seating for a local school’s future gym. A few of us also put on an anti-bullying presentation at that same school.

During this trip, I was impacted by the willingness of the people to serve the Lord in their community and their sense of gratitude for the things they had as well as the things they received from us. I am so thankful for the people who supported me on this journey. Their generosity and sacrifice blessed me and the people of Costa Rica.

A School to Give Children a Chance

STEP.  The Society for Transformation, Education and Progress (STEP) was established by second-generation Indian Christians in Odisha state, a part of India that is very hostile to the Gospel.  In fact, in 1999 a Christian missionary, Graham Staines, who had spent many years establishing schools and community development projects was burnt alive along with his two sons in their car.  But from that tragedy the Indians whose lives were positively touched by their efforts established STEP to carry on the work of the Staines to love the people of this region.

The Location.  In early February our team of seven, with team members who call Canada, USA, Scotland and India (Delhi) home, arrived by SUV into the rural village of Hatigarh, five hours north of Bhubaneswar, the state capital of Odisha.  In this village off the beaten track from the main highway, most houses are built with traditional mud brick, mud plastered walls and grass roofs. Our task was to design a K-7 school, some children’s residences for those who live too far to walk to school and housing for staff and teachers.

The School.  The goal of STEP in building this school is to provide over 500 rural children from families of all castes and religions a chance to receive a good education and have hope for the future.  Children in this very disadvantaged area of Odisha in eastern India attend public schools where it is common to find 100 students in each class.  So one vision is to build a school with affordable tuition (even public schools charge fees for books and uniforms) where classes will be 35 students per teacher.

Sewing Class.  STEP also recognizes that vocational training and employment opportunities are very hard to find in a place where most families rely on subsistence farming on small plots of land.  So STEP started a sewing school for women.  Our team was able to not only attend the graduation of the first sewing class but we were invited to the opening of a tailor shop so the women would have employment.  I was given the immense privilege of cutting the ribbon!

Love of Jesus.  At the root of all their efforts STEP is motivated by love; their love for God and for the people of India.  While the school and all vocational training opportunities are open to all faiths and castes, it is no secret that living out the love of Jesus is a foundational motivation for the work of STEP.  And the people are not complaining.  Certainly not the ladies in the first graduation class who gladly told us with joy how their new skills and employment would greatly help their family and how much they looked forward to having a school of quality for their children.

Our Work.  On the long, narrow STEP property (until they acquire more land for Phase 2) we developed a school with a multi-purpose auditorium and a library, both of which will not only serve the school but the community as well.  India requires all school children to receive one meal each day at school so there is a cafeteria and of course, open space for the children to play.

Further into the property will be residences for teachers and staff adjacent to medical clinic.  At the rear of the property will be STEP’s guesthouse and boarding residences for children who live to far to walk to school each day.

Project Photos.  A new project video has been added to the right-side menu and a new set of annotated photos has been placed in my Photo Gallery with various options to view it.  If you want to browse the set, click here.  If you want to see the titles and read the captions of each photo, click here.

Thank you to all who make this work possible through your encouragement, prayer and financial support; you have been a part of making this project, and the resulting touched lives, a reality.