June 2014 Post

Hello Everyone,

                I wanted to start off this blog post with saying a huge Happy Birthday to my mom (Diann Whisnand)!! Today is her birthday. Thanks for being an awesome Mom & Grandmother! We love you.

               

                So for this month’s update we first wanted to share what’s been going on with EMI East Africa this past month. It has been an eventful month for our office. To give a bit of background, a lot of what EMI does revolves around interns that come in several times each year. Most interns are just out of college and stay for a “term” meaning the spring, summer or fall term. Also, most of our design projects are started and completed within a term so most interns work on a single project while they are here. It is a great experience for the interns to see a design project go from start to finish. For EMI, it’s a great way to mentor young professionals in their faith and provide them with work experience, and also, the interns are able to churn through lots of work at our very very very busy office, which helps everybody out. So, this past month the spring term interns went home and the summer interns arrived. It’s been a lot of transition and interesting to realize that for our office, this transition happens 3 times a year, every year. So this spring we got to meet a cool group of young people and then had to say goodbye. A week later, we met 10 new interns from all over the place (mostly the US but from New Zealand and Uganda as well). It’s funny because we still feel like the newbies at EMI, but the new interns look at us like we have been here a long time because we’ve been here 3 months. It’s been fun.

Also, a bit about 2 of the design projects we are starting this month. Most of our design projects start off with a project trip that takes a team of design professionals to stay with the ministry, visit the site and do any preliminary work that needs to be done at the site so they can do the drawings and reports throughout the remainder of term. Two of projects we are starting this month are a master plan for a school for the deaf and blind in Burundi and a master plan for a seminary here in Kampala. 

I hope this all makes sense and you know a bit more about what EMI does.

Next, things are going well here for our family. We have some friends with EMI in town this weekend who are staying with us. They live in Mbale (east Uganda), working for EMI on a project there. He has spent the past 6 months or so managing the construction of a new classroom block for a ministry called Hines Ministries Uganda. We got in touch with them when we first got here. Like us, they have 2 young kids. Last night we were able to play Ticket to Ride and Rack-O with them while the kids watched Veggietales. It was a blast.

An update on Becky. In our last post, we told you about a part-time science teacher position at Acacia International School that came up unexpectedly here in Kampala. After much thinking, praying, and discussing, we have decided that Becky working there is a good fit for our family  next year. It will be 3 mornings per week and their pre-school class will take Nathaniel & Bethany for free. Booyah! We still have some fees to pay but the tuition is covered. Please be in prayer as Becky starts to prepare for the school year and teaching again in general. I think she’s excited and nervous at the same time.  Also, today they are having an open house for the secondary school for potential students and parents and Becky will be doing a presentation. Her principal has asked for something that would show well for the open house so Becky threw out the idea of dissecting something you can get easily here. They loved the idea, so this morning Becky is dissecting cow eyes with all of the people who come. Awesome introduction back into teaching science if you ask me.

We love all you guys (or “all y’all” for my Texas contingent). Please continue to pray for our family as we are here. That we would follow in the good deeds God has made for us and for our health. I have had several colds since being here and Becky is sick right now. Nothing serious but just annoying.

Last thing, here is a picture we took a few nights ago of Nathaniel & Bethany playing with their friend Paul. Having fun.

Thank you all. Happy June.

The Whisnands