la nueva casa... y otras cosas

4.20.09

well we survived the move! with ALOT of help from the guys in the office and from church community we did almost everything (including packing, moving, and some unpacking) all on thursday. the new house is great. it's very open and we have alot more common space to hang out together when we're home. i snapped a few photos this morning to share.

la casa

mi cuarto

the dining room and kitchen. complete with benches at the breakfast bar where i chat with my host mom and pick up a thing or two about tico cooking after work everyday

 last but definitely not least- the back patio

this picture doesn't show it all, but we've also got the couch out back (awesome for naps, reading, and watching tv with the niños) and a table (where we've been eating). there's a ton more space in this house and in the back for them to hold bible studies and visits and whatnot. i think it'll take just a little getting used to but is going to be an awesome change.

in other news, we're given some time to serve outside of the office every week and i've had the opportunity to help with swim lessons at the orphanage in town on monday afternoons. this has been a blast and a blessing, and yesterday was especially awesome. it was an incredibly sunny afternoon so one of the tias (house moms) asked if instead of just taking a few at a time for lessons, if they could all just come- tias included. so of course we did that. the instructor still got to teach a thing or two to the kids and i started an unofficial lesson with a couple of the tias (who apparently don't know how to swim either). one of them got over her lifelong fear and put her head completely under the water for the first time. we're shootin for blowing bubbles too at the next one! a successful lesson!

also, josh and alli (a couple from the office) will be heading to haiti next week for the next two months (at least). josh is a construction manager and will be overseeing the construction of the food for the hungry transitional housing shelters mentioned two posts ago. alli is a physical therapist and as you can imagine with earthquake victims, there is alot of need for her as well. we'll be sending them off after some time together at eMi family camp this thursday-sunday. all the staff and families (and interns) are heading out for some bonding and fun, and us interns will be helping to put on some of the activities. it's looking like it's going to be a wonderful weekend!

hasta luego!

new year's resolution

4.12.10

my new year's (aka april-july) resolution is shorter posts, more often. i'm shooting for no more novels (but i'm not making any promises :) ).

so here's my first step toward that, a post to say nothing other than... my host family is moving on thursday! last thursday as we were eating breakfast they informed me that the lady they rent their house from, who lives just in front, no longer wants to rent to anyone. she's quite elderly and sick and between the kids and visits from people (with him being a pastor), it's a bit too much. so off we go. we're moving thursday. we're moving to the opposite corner of town which will mean some changes to the morning routine. while i will no longer have a simple one minute walk to work, i will now have the excuse to stroll by the amazing panaderia in the park (everyday) to keep an eye out for the elusive braided cinnamon bread i have quite a taste for. fair trade.

overall awesome that they were able to find something so quickly, still in town, with more space to hold their Bible studies/classes as well as play space for the niños. gracias Dios!

an overdue update

4.7.10

so i realized i haven't given any real updates since the project trip! it's been exciting month, both in and out of the office. i'll start with the work updates. i'm going to try to include a little of what's going on with all of the projects in the office (not just mine) for a bigger picture.

to back up a bit- our peru project was kind of on hold for a week or two while we waited on some comments on the preliminary design from the ministry. with a project of this scope, there are quite a few options and a lot of things to consider. and we continue to wait for some final answers on building code requirements in lima. it's not uncommon for eMi to be working in places without codes altogether, so the extensive codes found in lima have been a change of pace. we've begun moving forward with the ministry's comments and i've been doing my best to help out on the mechanical end (since this project did not have the normal amount of civil design). i'm excited to be working on this and with all the visions they have for their ministry i'll be really excited to see them be able to move forward and God to use them in ways that they've been praying about for years (literally).

hard to see much, but here's a stacked view of the prelim design to give an idea of scope

in the mean time, i've been helping out with a few projects that began last fall. the first is an orphanage and school campus in mexico and the others are a YWAM youth center in haiti, an orphanage in haiti called haitian children's home (HCH), and a church project in haiti (FEH). the YWAM project was completed and issued last week and the FEH project is almost there, leaving more of the office free to work on HCH and the mexico orphanage. construction is scheduled to begin very soon on all of these haiti projects, making it an exciting time.

the civil portion of the HCH orphanage is where i've spent the majority of my time recently. it's an interesting project on many levels. the site is located at the top of a large cliff above the ocean on the southern end of haiti. while it's absolutely beautiful, it presents some challenges in both the structural and civil areas. structurally, they'll be designing for some serious hurricane winds up there, as well as the earthquakes that are always a concern. from a civil point of view the difficulties rise from the composition of the site, which is mostly hard lava rock instead of soil. this prohibits nearly all filtration necessary for the wastewater, leading to the use of the mound system (and a lot more required fill) as opposed to the normal leach field. it's been an interesting challenge and i'm learning quite a bit as i go.

south end of the site for haitian's children home (HCH)

the lava rock we're dealing with (since i know you were dying to see it)

the design for one of the other two projects from this term, a school here in costa rica, is completely finished and the other, a school in guatemala, is almost there. both ministries have already started construction and those going so quickly has really allowed the office to pool our efforts to finish these others in mexico and haiti. there's definitely something exciting about sending the full design package to the ministry and knowing they're really on their way. praise the Lord for all of that!

pavas, costa rica project:
arch. sketches of the new multi-purpose building for the school (palabra de vida)

el tizate, guatemala project:


the site of the new school building (el colegio cristiana)

the kids of el tizate on their way to the current building

with all of the project trips for the spring complete, we've been really enjoying having almost everyone back in the office. the only exception to this was josh, who was doing disaster relief in chile for a couple of weeks after the earthquake and tsunamis that followed. josh, scott (an engineer from the colorado springs office), and a structural engineer volunteer from the states went to chile to perform structural assessments and set up water purification systems, similar to the relief work in haiti but a very different trip. they shared that the government in chile not only had a desire to work with eMi, but was making sincere efforts to respond and provide for their country- a harsh contrast to haiti. the team went with backpacks and tents, but were graciously housed and fed the majority of their nights there, mostly by CMA Chile families. during their time they were able to complete nearly 50 assessments of homes, churches, and a jail, as well as offer aid in some small villages that government hadn't been able to reach yet.

a couple of photos from the chile disaster relief team

chileans with their temporary water purification system

as for haiti, food for the hungry recently asked eMi-AL to design a transitional housing shelter that would be economical, able to be constructed in 3-4 hours, last up to 5 years, and durable to withstand future hurricanes and earthquakes. it's an exciting challenge for the team of structural engineers here, and will be used by nearly 2,000 families in haiti while the places where their homes used to stand are hopefully cleared. the living conditions in many places there are dangerous, unsanitary, and straight terrible right now and the hope is these homes will offer a little relief to that situation.

outside of work...

here, this past week before easter is called "semana santa", or holy week. for the entire week all schools and most stores are closed, and many families travel. the interns decided to do the weekend and beginning of the week tico style (along with my dear friend hillary who came to visit), and we saw a little more of the country (not on support money of course). it was a great trip filled with catching buses in random small towns, cheap cabinas, and avoiding rice for a few days :).

a couple of pictures from our adventure

the group on our way to some hiking

street horses?

somebody used an incredibly fast shutter speed to actually catch me standing. crazy 12 ft (inch) waves...

in other news...

eMi has also put together a "futbol" team consisting of interns, a few staff, and (thankfully) our tica friend wendy and her dad. our main competitors have been ticos from the church. you may remember the US knocking out costa rica for their chance to go to the world cup. well this has made every partido a big one :). we've undoubtedly got the height advantage, but so far it hasn't been enough to keep up with their incredible natural ability for the sport. if only we could play using just our heads... so far we're 0-2 but i'm not giving up hope!
...admittedly i am a tiny bit divided with my host dad on the tico team (seen blocking a goal below)

supporting the jugadores

with the fam...
as for my family and their ministry, God has been working in some incredible ways. a couple of years ago, the Lord began to put the small, nearby town of escobal on the heart of my host dad and he's decided to start a church there in addition to the one here in atenas. it began a couple of weeks ago with an event for families in the town center. a group of jovenes (youth) from a church in san jose as well as most of the jovenes from the church here came together to put it on. we passed out fliers for the activities around noon that day, and everything started around 4. i'll keep a long story short, but it was a beautiful day of the Lord working and some people attending came to know Him as their Savior. one of which was a guy from another city who happened to be in escobal and happened to be walking by on the street just as we were starting. it's amazing to see God changing a person's life and eternity, and amazing the ways He chooses to do it. He is so good.

on another note, my host dad lost his night job a few weeks ago, after the car breaking down a few weeks before that (with a motor issue amounting to a large sum of money in repairs). he's involved in a variety of ministries outside of the church as well as the lives of many in his congregation, which made for a lot of taxi rides (expensive and time-consuming). the night he lost it he sat me down and told me, adding that he trusted that the Lord knows what He's doing. a few days later, my host mom informed me that the mechanic had called and said that someone was paying for their motor, and another person came to the house and said they wanted to help support the family. at the time he was also suffering from two hernias, which disappeared after some prayer. praise the Lord and as they say here, "amen y amen"!

our church- iglesia bautista, vida nueva

well i think that covers most of the big stuff. i can't believe i'm already halfway through my time here, and i want to say thank you again so much for all of your prayer and support. it is so appreciated!

project trip to lima, peru

3.1.10 (i realized there's no post date listed, so i'm going to start adding it here)

when leaving last saturday, i really had no idea what to expect for the upcoming week. that night, jim and i, along with tom, micah, and micah's wife beth- all from the office- met up with 5 volunteers from the states who would be joining us for the week. a few people from the church there (iglesia alianza cristiana y misionera, or christian missionary alliance church) picked us up and took us to the families that would be hosting us for the week. micah and beth stayed at the pastor's house, 3 of the guys stayed in another, 4 in another, and being the only other girl i was placed with another woman who was a doctor and her daughter, nidal. it turned out to be wonderful. i had some great conversations with them, and got to hear how God had been working in their lives. i was so blessed by their hospitality. here they are below.

speaking of hospitality, we were extremely well-taken care of while working on the design at the church as well. they were such an example in serving joyfully. socorro, marina, and carlos kept everything running, and lupe (below left) cooked full meals for us three times a day.

we were very well-fed.

our first full day there was a sunday, and the team attended one of the morning church services. and in normal latin fashion, we were greeted with a handshake, besito, hug, or some combination by just about every person in all three services. although it can be a little overwhelming in large groups, i've really grown to love the warm and very personal greetings people give here. i'm not sure if it's most of peru or only this church specifically, but they offered a certain type of hug- as they call it, "a buffalo hug". during the service, after introducing each of us on stage and having us announce if we were single or married, they informed us that the men were going to have a lesson in hugging this week. being a girl, i was spared with only the besito, but the rest of the team got the full experience and from what i hear, this is not a hug for the faint of heart. needless to say, the latin culture is a very affectionate one and have no hesitations about sharing that with foreigners... as for the service, it was amazing to have the opportunity to worship with the people we were there to serve. some of the songs they sang in spanish were ones that we knew in english, and we were able to join in there. there's something i love about worshipping with God's people in different parts of the world. it may be different words, but it's the same God and the same grace and you still understand each other. it was pretty different than my church here in CR, but i really enjoyed it. there was a lot of very upbeat music, accompanied by dancing and a great sermon. below is a picture from the service.

after the service and lunch, we met with a lot of the pastoral staff and some engineers in the congregation to discuss their vision for our design and some technical aspects.

the head pastor for the church was gone until monday night, so we didn't meet with him until tuesday. during this meeting, we also learned quite a bit about the heart and focus of the church. their basic vision is to start with the restoration of families, many of which are broken from addictions, poverty, adultery, and more. they said that God has done an incredible restoring work in many of their families and that's where they believe He has called them to start and to move out from there. they have divided the community around them into 7 zones, and right now they have pastors for all but places to meet in only 4. from there they want to plant churches in 7 more cities in peru, and then 7 countries around the world. the churches range anywhere from 120 to a thousand members each, and start with Bible studies in homes that are led by leaders raised up from within the church. they want to use this church design as a modifiable template for the others eventually. i realized that going in i expected their vision to be on a much smaller scale considering their limited resources. but after listening to them talk, it was clear this was where God was leading them and they had faith that He would see it through. i think it was an awesome challenge to our way of thinking for all of our group. the Lord has already provided for half of their construction costs through the commitment of a church in wisconsin, and they are really lifting it up to God and trusting Him to provide the rest. after hearing about all of that, we moved into more technical talk.

there were some engineers in the congregation that were able to give us some great information on typical design practices in peru and building codes. they were a huge help throughout the week. below is the group after the meeting.

from pastor antonio rojas, we learned a lot more. he said there were really 2 parallel ministries: the church and corazones felizes (happy hearts, a ministry for the children in impoverished areas of lima). from age 5-12, pastor antonio polished shoes in the streets and expressed that he can really relate to the suffering of the kids. in his words, his dream is to have a beautiful building that these kids who have never felt carpet on their feet or have known anything nice can know they belong to. where they have family, are shown the love of Christ, and where their needs are met. through the help of other ministries, happy hearts now has 130 volunteers and professionals within the church that help. they eventually, with more land, want to open a school, hospital, and orphanage for the kids. right now that part of the vision is shown through what they are able to do: a program to provide some school materials, a foreign medical team that comes in once a year and keeps health records for the kids, and lawyers from the church have been able to have kids removed from situations where they were being abused or neglected. he said that their mission is to not only help the poor, but to raise them up. there have already been many very poor families in the church that after finding Christ have been able to clean up their bad habits and the things they were involved in,have been able to get their kids to school, and the kids have done really well. the ministry clearly not only had a big heart and vision for the future, but was really working, praying, and moving toward it. below is a picture of the pastoral staff, with pastor antonio in the middle. these guys clearly had a deep love and respect for each other, and were committed to growing as people and as a church. they encouraged each other, studied and prayed together, and held each other accountable. they were a really solid and incredibly fun group to be around.

throughout the week, we'd have devotional and prayer time starting in the morning before 8, then breakfast, then we'd meet as a group and coordinate our day, then work until sometime after dinner in the night. below is one of our coordination meetings.

since this project is an urban one which is somewhat unusual for eMi, there wasn't the normal amount of water/environmental civil engineering. so instead, i helped out in the mechanical areas. in that group there was one electrical engineer (dan), two mechanicals (matt and carl), and me. we decided to name our mini-team "la bomba," which appropriately translates to "the pump" in spanish. needless to say, we had a team song.

i mostly helped with plumbing design (which was pretty new to me), but we worked on A/C as well. there were two more guys working on the architecture and three on structural. at the end of the week, we were able to present a preliminary design to the ministry that consisted of a six story building with a basement, two auditoriums, classrooms, pastoral offices, places for job training, a clinic for the kids of happy hearts, a recording studio, places to hold classes for seminary, and a futbol field on the roof for the kids.

they were really pleased with the design, and we were glad that we were able to provide something that really aligned with their vision and was an encouragement to them in the work they're doing. the week was busy and intense, but refreshing too. i went to serve but was blessed by my time with these people in too many ways to count.

the day before we left, the church offered to show us a few more parts of lima. martin (mar-teen), the hombre that runs happy hearts, spent some time taking us around that afternoon in an 11-seater van. during that time, we were able to expand our where's waldo collection to include peru.

and for our closing team lunch, he took us to a buffet with traditional peruvian food. as you can see, it was quite the learning experience.

i realize this was kind of a novel, but i hope it gave a good picture of our time in peru!