As days and weeks have stretched into months, our office's daily devotional prayers have seldom strayed far from lifting up the EMI community across Canada along with our staff in Calgary and around the world as we all continue to navigate this challenging and uncertain season.
People
Our EMI Canada staff are taking turns working from home and in the office, taking measures to ensure that our office is a healthy and safe environment. We continue to connect with each other daily for devotions and team meetings.
Our expatriated staff continue to serve in their posts overseas. Over the past few months, all expatriated Canadian interns have safely returned to Canada, some having extended their time overseas with EMI.
We'd also like to acknowledge a couple of volunteers who have served as part of our Intern Program this year. Li-Ann Chong served as Intern Coordinator for the first half of 2020; and in August, we welcomed Allen Adrian to take over this role. Pray with us as we discern, together with all EMI offices, the way forward for this important EMI program.
Projects
Since postponing a project trip to Uganda in March, and one in Kenya this summer, we have strived to keep in touch with past ministry partners and to make connections with new ones. As travel restrictions persist, we are refining old and developing new ways to serve ministry partners remotely. This includes collaborating with other EMI offices in the process.
Our design staff continue to work on projects for recently visited ministries, as well as emerging projects:
- Bethesda Medical Centre for One Mission Society (OMS) - Haiti
- A new clinic to replace an aging 60-year-old facility
- In collaboration with EMI UK
- Galmi Hospital (Phase 4 Programming Investigation) for SIM - Niger
- Medical, admin, and facility staff interviews and review of past EMI team efforts from 2007, 2011, and 2016
- In collaboration with EMI USA
- Primary and Secondary School for Reach One Touch One Ministries (ROTOM) - Uganda
- Pre-project team visit programming and high level master planning
- In collaboration with EMI Uganda
- Gulu City Park Development for World Embrace - Uganda
- Remote consulting for an exciting, multi-use development to bless young families in northern Uganda
- Remote consulting for an exciting, multi-use development to bless young families in northern Uganda
- Residential design for STEP Ministries - India
- Continued engagement following campus master plan and design
Other Activities
Throughout the spring and summer, we were engaged in various networking and fundraising initiatives.
One important networking initiative was in May, when we hosted EMI Live, a livestreamed presentation which included an update about EMI Canada in the midst of the pandemic, and presentations by project leaders about the completed Infant House for Impact Ministries in Guatemala, and a new live-in residential special needs community for Quad E in Malaysia. We received much positive feedback from our audience of 90+ which stretched coast to coast across Canada, down to the US, and even internationally as far away as Singapore and Malaysia. We look forward to hosting similar virtual events in the coming months.
We have also adapted our in-person fundraising events into virtual formats. We introduced the first-ever EMI Canada Walk/Run 4 Hope in the summer. This inaugural event was a great success, raising over $11,000 (thank you!), and including participants from across Canada and the US! This fall, we are presenting Freestyle 4 Hope, which is this year's version of the Ride for Refuge.
Prayer
Please pray for wisdom for EMI as we undertake ministry in new ways in 2020 and beyond, responding to COVID-19, but also being sensitive to and responsive to the ongoing needs of our ministry partners. Safe facilities for housing and medical care, safe water, and readily available power - these continue to be needs that EMI seeks to fill regardless of the obstacles we need to overcome.
Thank you for your partnership and for standing with us!