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About: the chronicles of my time with eMi

some pictures from the slum school

The last few weeks have totally flown by. I can’t believe I leave for Kenya today! I am so excited to go on this project trip but to be honest, I feel like I haven’t had time to mentally prepare for it because of all the work I’ve been doing on the Gate of Hope project and the time I’ve spent with Doors. Regardless, I am leaving and I am excited. Our team will be partnering with 2 ministries: Crossroads Christian Communications Inc. in Canada and Glory Outreach Ministries (GOM) in Lodwar, Kenya.  Here is their vision:

To help this group of people to become 100% food secure over a 5 year period, and support and develop an economic infrastructure for beneficiaries to market their surplus products. To strengthen the beneficiaries livestock production and health and livestock food supply and market links. To raise and plant trees for the purpose of environmental transformation of the local area. To strengthen the spiritual foundations of the Turkana people with the word and Spirit of God. To support and strengthen Glory Outreach Ministries and the local churches in the region to continue the work of evangelisation and humanitarian development. Water is scare in this region, with only 2-3 rainfalls per year. Farmers need water to sustain their crops resulting in increased food security. Irrigation will supply sufficient water to meet this need. Lack of rain has devastated a majority of families resulting in death of their livestock, lack of food, malnutrition, poverty and premature death of family members. We need to help families grow food and access clean water for drinking, household use, and irrigation of gardens to sustain their lives. Irrigation will enable farmers to grow food all year round, enabling them to supply their own needs and stop depending on food relief.

So our team is going to help these ministries to design an irrigation system, contour trenching, and gardens to support the local people. My job as the lone architect will be to design the few building needs they have on the 4,00 acre site. It is a pretty incredible project and I feel so honored to be able to be a part of it. Our team could really use prayer for unity and boldness and submission to God’s plans. I desire to be a light for God’s love wherever I am and pray that God would use me on this trip in whatever way He pleases. With the time constraints of a project trip it is easy to get stressed and anxious about finishing things on time so I ask that you would please pray for calm and peaceful minds and hearts and a willingness to help one another as a team. I can’t wait to share all that I experience on the trip and how God works through our team and the people of Turkana. 

“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard…if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the LORD will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail…the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion - to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified…For I the LORD love justice…I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness…the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations” —Isaiah 58:6-8, 10-12 & Isaiah 61:1-3, 8, 10, 11

We got kitties!!!

Wow have I been busy. There is so much to share I don’t even know how to put it into words. With eMi, we are trying to publish our project within the next couple weeks which means crunch time around the office. It’s been a lot of work but I’m so excited to hand over the finished product to Gate of Hope. I found out that I will be going on a summer project trip to the Turkana Desert in Lodwar, Kenya, to serve with a ministry called Glory Outreach Ministries. It’s mainly a civil engineering project but the ministry wants a few buildings. Since it’s not a huge architecture project, I will be the only architect going on the trip. This is a really exciting opportunity professionally but I’m also nervous about the responsibility that comes with being the only architect and could definitely use a lot of prayer.
Outside of eMi, I’ve been spending a lot of my free time working with Doors. They are a family to me and I love all the aunties, uncles, and boys so much. It has been so encouraging to see the boys’ love and knowledge of God grow, especially around the Easter season and to see them improve in school. They have such a desire to learn. I love every moment spent with them and they’ve taught me so much about living out the Gospel.
This past weekend we had an intern holiday and went up to Murchison Falls to see the waterfall and go on a safari. I was blown away. The falls were BEAUTIFUL and I saw so much wildlife. I was amazed by God’s creation. Everything was so detailed and unique. It made me realize how awesome a creator God is.
Spiritually, I’ve had a strong desire lately to know God intimately. I want every part of my being to be surrendered and complete in the power of Christ. I feel like in the business of life, I’ve allowed fear to creep back into my life and I’ve realized the enemy has used feelings of insufficiency and doubt to distance me from God. This past weekend I was able to spend a lot of time in the Word and thank goodness, because it made me realize the lack of dependency I’ve had on God. When I’m not walking daily in the Holy Spirit, the enemy can so easily attack. That’s why I desire intimacy. I want to spend every moment in communication with God. Every action I make, every thought I have, I want it to be in step with God. I’ll be honest, last night I literally cried out to God for intimacy. There has been a lot running through my head lately about the present and the future and all I want is whatever God has for me. So I seek clarity/direction and intimacy so that I can be in step with what God wants for me. But I know that it also requires faith in His plan for me despite not knowing what’s ahead. “Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” Romans 8:24-26. Last night, I didn’t know what to pray to express the feelings and desires in my soul. But I believe the Holy Spirit was interceding for me and with every day, I will grow in my intimacy with God. “I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the LORD” Hosea 2:19-20. I am betrothed to God forever and I know and will come to know the Lord more. He is my king and I am wholly His. “Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you” Hosea 10:12. “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope” Hosea 2:14-15. I will seek God. I will seek intimacy. And I will wait patiently in hope for His voice.

the beautiful faces of Doors

So I wanted to give y’all a quick update on what I’ve been up to lately outside of eMi. A little while after arriving in Uganda, I met some awesome women of God who are starting a ministry here. Now that basketball is over, I’ve been able to help them out a little bit and it has been incredible. Here is some information about their ministry, Doors:

Doors ministries are currently facilitating multiple ministries throughout the Kampala city area.  Our vision statement explains our main focus and reason for everything we do-
“ To awaken the wild love of Jesus by discipling the nations.”
It is a short sentence with the command to give all of ourselves every day to the God that awoke each of us from the grave.  Our different programs strive to meet the physical and spiritual needs of the different ages and people groups we work with.  Below is an outline of some of the different programs we would love for you to invest in.  Whether it is your time, money, or prayer- we invite you to walk with the Doors staff, the broken children living in trash heaps, the exhausted mothers, the disabled, and the hopeless fathers of Uganda. God is calling us to go further, dream bigger, and live life on earth as it is in Heaven.  
We are presently renting a house just outside of Kampala, Uganda. This is the first “door” that was opened to us. The purpose of the house is to remove street boys from their life on the streets, give them a redemptive family, spiritually guide them, educate them, and grow them into disciples of our Lord. We have 6 full time staff members and others who are volunteering their time to help. Our Ugandan uncles, Mark and David, have been working with street children and in programs in the slums for over 4 years. God led Doors to bring in 11 boys from the streets. Some of these boys are enrolled in boarding school and others are home schooled.
Little Doors (preschool):
We also are starting a preschool in the slums of Namugongo. We will be enrolling ten children. These children will come from families who will become Doors partner families. The mothers will be a part of our jewelry program and will be required to attend church. Our goal is to provide a door of hope for the whole family to become self sustaining.
Education:
You can also sponsor street boys, orphans, and needy children to the hope education can bring. Education is the door to a hopeful future in Uganda. We have children who you can support through sponsorships to boarding school or their local school if it is a quality school.
Medical:
We are also doing medical outreach to the hurting and needy of Uganda. The outreach not only takes place in the slums, but also in the villages. We can use financial or physical donations.
Doors of Hope:
Our ultimate goal is to have a village of redemption. This village will be centered around 4 main projects; a church, homes for street boys, homes for the elderly and forgotten, and a medical center. In order for these to become reality we need donors.  Your donations will go to make this future the present.
Jewelry Partners:
As a part of our work we provide mothers who have children in Little Doors with a job. They are each taught how to make paper beads and jewelry out of recycled materials. This jewelry is then sent to the United States to partners to sell. The money is returned to Doors and reinvested in ministry. Jewelry partners will be sent jewelry several times a year. Our next shipment of jewelry should be arriving in the United States in June - so please put orders in ahead of time. 
Sponsorship:
We have two different types of sponsorships. One is for boys who live in the house. The other is for school sponsorships only.
Sponsorships for boys who are in the Doors House include:
$40 for food
$40 for housing
$25 for school 
$25 for medical
$25 for general
Sponsorships for Little Doors and Education:
$25 for education 
If you are in a place where you cannot financially help; there are always physical donations that we are in need of. This can be anything from used books, to medical supplies, or school supplies. If you are interested in helping raise donations, you are more than welcome to send them to Uganda, but you will not have to send them to Uganda - just to a partner in the US. Please send another e-mail to findingyourfence@gmail.com if you are interested in what our current needs are. 
We have had a lot of interest from schools, teachers, and students how they can help. One fundraiser that we suggest is having your school do a “Run for a Reason.” You can charge your students, teachers, and faculty a set price to participate in this after school run - whether that is a quarter, a dollar, or ten dollars, every little bit helps. If you raise $10, that money can feed a child for 10 days. We can get your school information and media on where their money is going to help raise awareness about the run. Another twist to ‘Run for a Reason’ could be encouraging the participants to run barefoot. This can raise awareness for the thousands of homeless children in Kampala. These kids daily show up to medical outreach with foot injuries, because they don’t have shoes to wear while they are digging through trash, collecting scrap metal and bottles to sell for food, and walking around the streets of Kampala. As well as, at the end of the run if people want to donate their used shoes, we can pass them out to the street kids we work with. 
Within the school, you can also collect empty plastic bottles or cans within your classrooms, to eventually sell for money. Collecting bottles and scrap metal is how most of the streets kids we work with survive. 
We would love to speak with you further about how God might be calling you to be involved in this ministry. To sponsors a child, be a donor, or become a jewelry partner please contact Andrew Kirk our Sponsorship Director at andrewkirk12@hotmail.com.

You can mail donations to:
River Community Church
att. Jeremy Cook
1200 Miracle Road
Cookeville TN 38506

The memo line needs to read: Doors
You can also keep up with what is happening with Doors, by following our blog at http://hispicketfence.blogspot.com/ 

It has been amazing to see the hand of God so present in Doors and I have fallen in love with the boys I’ve been able to meet. I’m so excited to continue working with these incredible warriors for God’s kingdom and would strongly encourage you to consider partnering with Doors.

A NEW CREATION BRANDED WITH COMPASSION

So lately I have been reading through the Psalms and yesterday I got to Psalm 119. Psalm 119:32 has been a favorite verse of mine for as long as I can remember but I feel like so often I forget its importance in my life. “I have chosen the way of faithfulness; I set your rules before me. I cling to your testimonies, O LORD; let me not be put to shame! I will run in the path of your commands for you have set my heart free!” (Psalm 119:30-32). Verses 30&31  are all about faithfulness and dependence on God and in verse 32, we see the freedom that comes from having that faith and dependency on the Lord. At this point in my relationship with God, I feel like He has been speaking these direct words into my life.  “I run in the path of your commands for you have set my heart free”. Simple as that. I am free in the Spirit and therefore I will RUN the path God has set out for me. Meaning, I believe SO much in His path for me that I am willing to go FULL speed, without hesitation, and with complete joy. And I say with joy because I feel like whenever I run after something, I’m excited and joyful about it. I am RUNNING after God’s commands because I no longer want to follow my own. His are so much better and are full of so much freedom!

So within the past 2 weeks, God has transformed me. And when I say transformed, I mean it. He has made me a NEW creation. Since being here, I have been praying a lot about experiencing freedom in Christ and what it truly means to lay my life down for the Spirit to lead. And I felt frustrated for the longest time because I sincerely had this desire in my heart but nothing was happening. I continued to allow myself to be enslaved by selfishness and fear instead of experiencing God’s freedom. Well….not anymore. God has giving me childlike faith full of ultimate joy, hope, love, power, and desire to spread His kingdom here on earth. “and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” 2 Corinthians 5:15-17. Ok, I’ve read this numerous times but it wasn’t until 2 weeks ago that I realized the magnitude of it. When we are in Christ we are a NEW creation. Not just another human but a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT creation. I listened to a podcast the other day that talked about this and the speaker gave an analogy of a butterfly. We all start out as this gross, sinful larvae that is so limited and God takes us and wraps us in His love and presence (the cocoon) and we emerge as a NEW CREATION (a butterfly). We are completely transformed into a beautiful free creature. I don’t know about you, but I was challenged by this. I’ve realized that in order to become a new creation, I need to fully surrender myself to God. Like, COMPLETE surrender. And let me tell you, I have chosen to fall at God’s feet in complete surrender and I have never felt so free, so joyful, and so passionate about the power and love of Jesus. ALL FEAR has been removed from my life. I no longer fear judgment, persecution, hatred, inadequacy, and rejection because God’s love, power, and plan are far greater than it all. So I BOAST in the name of JESUS CHRIST because I am a NEW creation transformed by the power of God. I delight in my weaknesses and in hardship because I know God’s power and sufficiency are ever more present in those times. And when God’s sufficiency replaces my insufficiency his GLORY is revealed. HOW AWESOME. I want to step out in faith when I feel like fear is holding me back because I desire people to see God’s glory.  When I walk in complete surrender to God, I walk in legitimate kingdom power because Christ is in me. And now I want to not only share the love of Jesus Christ with others but I want to pour into the children of God. In the same podcast I talked about earlier, the speaker mentions the importance of sharing the gospel of the Kingdom. The King (Jesus) saves but the Kingdom transforms so we should be leading people not only to the King but also the Kingdom. God desires to see the Kingdom here on earth so why are we not establishing Kingdom rule here on earth?! “Thy KINGDOM come, thy will be done,  ON EARTH, as it is in heaven”. The Lord’s prayer. “But seek FIRST the KINGDOM of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” Matthew 6:33. How many times have we said or read these verses  and completely missed this simple direction? I’ve realized, I must be a child of God to see the Kingdom. Not an adult but a true CHILD. When we are children, we are simple and humble enough to believe in the Kingdom. So often God  tells us that we are CHILDREN of God because it’s so important for us to humble ourselves and sit at Jesus’ feet. God wants to show you His Kingdom. BE SIMPLE. BE HUMBLE. 

As I’ve been discovering my childlike faith and the new creation God has made me to be, He has branded me with compassion. Living abroad this year, my eyes have been opened up to A LOT. In India and Uganda, I have seen a lot of poverty, a lot of helplessness, a lot of need. That isn’t to say there is no need in America because I’ve also realized the giant need there as well. But my heart has been broken for God’s children in this world. Especially after learning about how easy it is for children to experience God’s Kingdom. I want to lead these broken and helpless children to the feet of Jesus so they can see the hope, love, and power that God provides. So often we pray for the poor but how often do we consider being the answer to that prayer? If we are in Christ, we are in the Kingdom and therefore, everywhere we go can be transformed because Jesus, the King of Glory, is in us! But we must GO, not sit. There is a definite power from God that is released when you go because God LOVES justice. “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” Micah 6:8. God wants us to walk HUMBLY with him and go do justice in His name. All He asks is walk with him, seek after His heart for His people and join Him in His walk for justice. Realize that it’s God’s power that will reach the lost so that you don’t forget your dependency on Him. This is my desire. God has broken my heart and He is branding me with compassion for the lost, the helpless, the broken. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone LAY DOWN  his LIFE for his friends” John 15:12-13. I want to lay my life, my everything down to follow Christ and share in his compassion for the people of this world. I want Jesus to rip my heart apart and infuse it with love and COMPELLING compassion for the things he cares about even if that means giving up everything. I will go and do because God has made me a NEW CREATION BRANDED WITH COMPASSION.

My basketball girls

My basketball girls

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