It’s been way too long since we last wrote an update here. I think we have a fairly decent excuse though..
The biggest news that we have is that we welcomed Jamie Esther Arensen into the world on February 22! She was a healthy 3.2kg (7.1lbs) and has been a complete joy these past 2 months. We are incredibly thankful for our strong, healthy girl that God has blessed us with.
Both Hannah and I have enjoyed maternity/paternity leave these past couple of months as we get settled into life as parents. We have also enjoyed having family here – Hannah’s sister Sarah was able to visit for 2 weeks right after Jamie was born, and then Hannah’s mom Mary Beth came for a little over 2 weeks just as Sarah was leaving. I went back to work at the end of March in order to be able to spread out my paternity leave and be able to stay home with Jamie when Hannah starts working again (part-time) in June.
We are excited to have my parents and sister come tonight (Sunday)! They are coming for about 3.5 weeks. We’ll spend a week here in Kampala, then we’re heading to Kenya to spend time with my extended family there. We are really looking forward to this time with family as well as some time of rest in Kenya.
EMI Update
Even though we haven’t been in the office too much over the past few months, a lot has been happening this year at EMI! The year started with a huge influx of new people to the EMI Uganda office. We had an orientation week that included 7 new staff (6 Ugandan, 1 American), 3 EMI Fellows from other offices (US, Cambodia, and South Africa) who are joining us for 6-8 months this year, and 5 new trainees who are here for a few months. For an office that only had about 40 staff, this was a large crew to all be starting at the same time! We praise God for all of the new people and for just how smooth it has been to bring in all of these people at once.
Our design and construction projects have been moving forward. Our office is actively involved in a wide range of projects, so I figured I’d give a brief overview of some those projects. I’ve also provided links in the titles of each organization if you’re interested in finding out more.
The Gem foundation provides a family home and space place for abandoned, neglected and/or abused children with special needs. EMI has been involved with the design and construction of their campus since it started. Hannah led a project trip there last year for a masterplan update and design of several new buildings, including a school, chapel, and playground. Following the project trip, Hannah has overseen the playground design, with the help of several landscape architects from the US that specialize in inclusive design. Hannah was able to wrap up that design work before Jamie was born, and construction started last week!
Amazima Ministries seeks to make disciples of Jesus through authentic relationships, excellent education, and strengthened communities. EMI has been involved with Amazima for a long time and has been involved in the design and construction of both their primary and secondary school campuses. We are currently constructing their administrative hub, recently completed the primary school phase 3B construction, which included an additional classroom, health center, and guard house, and are also working on several new building and infrastructure designs for their campuses.
I was excited when I heard that EMI was going to be working with RVA (Rift Valley Academy). RVA is where I went to school for 5th-12th grade (it’s also where my dad grew up and attended through high school). RVA is a boarding school in Kenya that provides education for the children of missionaries throughout Africa, making it possible for those missionaries to serve wherever God calls them and still provide a world-class, Christ-centered education for their children. The school was founded in 1906, so a lot of the infrastructure and buildings are getting old. EMI sent a project team in January to do an assessment of the campus and provide recommendations for future work. Although Hannah wasn’t able to go on this project trip due to the proximity to Jamie’s due date, she was very excited that a landscape architect from the US was able to join and provide input from that perspective.
Fields of Life works with local partners to transform the lives of vulnerable people in East Africa through the provision of quality education, clean water, health promotion and other community based programs. Part of their work involves building schools throughout Uganda. They do this by using a building template that is reused in every campus that they build that is cheap and easily reproduced. We are partnering with them to review their current design and determine ways to improve quality and decrease cost. Their price point is well below the typical price for an EMI building, so it is challenging our engineers and architects to figure out ways to hit this price point without sacrificing the building integrity.
This is only a short list of the various projects that the EMI Uganda office is working on. We’ll try to include project summaries and updates (even on projects that Hannah and I aren’t involved in) in our newsletters moving forward. We can so easily get bogged down in the projects that we’re focused on that we forget all of the amazing work that our whole team is involved in. We are blessed to be able to work so many wonderful ministries throughout the region that are changing lives by sharing the love of Christ in the unique ways that God has called them.
R&D Update
You’ll notice that I didn’t include any R&D projects in the list above. That doesn’t mean that we haven’t been doing any work! We’ve been working on a rain gauge that collects rain fall data and automatically sends out that data daily over cell signal, improvements to the wood burning stoves that we built at the Amazima primary school, a solar diaper dryer for Gem, and an automated percolation tester that I’m designing and fabricating for each EMI office that wants one. I’ll be definitely be writing an update about the percolation tester in a future newsletter, so watch out for that.
In our last newsletter we asked for prayer for the new R&D facility construction. Unfortunately, that construction is still on hold as we wait for building permits to be approved as well as some other legal issues around the building site. This has been difficult for our team as we’ve lost the space that we had and are currently taking up space in the back of the workshop as we wait for construction to start. Please be praying for all of the various legal issues to be worked out and for construction to be able to start soon.
Pray With Us
We are so grateful for your prayers and support! Please join us in prayer and praise for the following:
Prayer requests:
- Please be praying for my parents and sister as they travel to Uganda! Pray that our time with them and for all of the driving that we’ll be doing while they are here.
- We are still working to get Jamie confirmed as a US citizen so that she can get a passport. We are waiting for an interview for that to happen, but haven’t heard any estimate for when that might be. In the mean time, we are traveling to Kenya in a little over a week. There are a couple of different temporary travel permits that we can get to enable her to get across the border – please be praying this week that we’ll be able to get one of those permits and that it won’t take too many hours of waiting in government offices.
- Continue to pray for the new R&D facility as we continue to wait for building permits and other legal issues to be worked out.
- This month is quite busy in the office. The current group of trainees/interns are finishing in the next 2 weeks and then a new group will be joining a week later. We are also actively hiring for several staff positions, so please pray for the God to provide the right people.
Praises:
- We cannot praise God enough for the blessing of Jamie and for how smoothly everything went with her birth!
- We praise God for all of the family time that we’ve been able to have (and are going to have in the coming month).
- EMI Uganda is celebrating our 20th anniversary since our office was established! Praise God for His faithfulness through the years and all that He has done through EMI in this region.
Stay Connected
Each year, EMI’s people complete over 100 development projects which serve the poor and proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To keep these design services affordable for Christian ministries, professionals like the Arensen’s on EMI’s staff are responsible for raising their own salaries. We are so grateful for God’s provision through the generosity of donors. Would you prayerfully consider partnering with the great things God is doing through the Arensen’s ministry at EMI?