You might have heard of this one!

I walked through the eMi gates this afternoon to a flurry of activity, with two separate project trips arriving back: teams of architects and engineers, who've traveled from their homes around the world in order to do volunteer their services to ministries here. One of the trips traveled to Restoration Gateway, the 500 acre plot in northern Uganda that John surveyed with one of his Kyambogo University surveying classes and additionally on his own. That team carried the goal of developing the hospital zone, surveying an additional 200 acres, and developing the hospital buildings there; the area has been particularly ravaged by war and HIV.

The other project trip ventured up to Amazima ministries in Jinja, about two hours away. Part of me is wary of name-dropping, but another part of me knows how many of you have referred to Katie Davis' blog or book Kisses from Katie in your correspondence with us. Her non-profit organization, Amazima (meaning truth) ministries sponsors over 600 children in the Jinja area. It's recently received full funding for a secondary boarding school in light of the dearth of educational opportunities there. (Did I just use "dearth" in a blog post? You bet I did.) John surveyed the property just before we left for the U.S.

This team of 13 from eMi came from seven different countries! Today, the team leader and a close friend of ours, Jeff, traipsed down to retrieve their station wagon from our house, a.k.a. eMi overflow parking. (You can read his explanation of the trip and Katie's ministry here.)  As I asked him about the trip, Jeff smiled and said that though he already told John, he just wanted me to know that many on the team had remarked at how thankful they were to have the survey in place upon arrival. According to Jeff, the team has already produced a 108-slide Master Plan--which would have been held considerably back without an existing survey.

So I thought, hey. You guys haven't usually heard of most of the ministries we work with here, and let's just say that most of what God's doing in member care or strategic management isn't necessarily something you'd want splashed on a blog. But ta-da! Here's a connection with what God's doing around the world that you might already be familiar with. Thank Him, if you would, that His people are working together to relieve poverty--and to make His Name great in Africa.