Category Monthly Update

Christmas 2025

As we celebrate Christmas and look toward the New Year, we find ourselves deeply grateful—for God’s faithfulness, for the work He is doing here in Uganda, and for each of you who prays for, encourages, and supports us. Your partnership…

Back to Uganda!

The past month has been quite the whirlwind! As we discussed in our last newsletter, we were actively raising financial support due to our increased costs and had to meet a target in order to return. We got approval to…

Home Assignment Update

In late June, we returned to the US for a 3-month home assignment. This is meant as a time to connect with our friends and family, share about our ministry with our supporters and churches, and raise any additional support…

Perc Tester: The Depth Sensor

In our last update, I wrote about the automated percolation tester and the issues that we were trying to solve. So how did we automate the percolation test? Let me first warn you that this update is going to be…

Perc Testers Delivered!

For the past 2 years, if you’ve asked me what I’m currently working on, I almost certainly started talking to you about the automatic percolation tester (or auto-perc tester). It’s a project that’s been my main focus at EMI over…

The Gem Playground: Construction Begins

Producing construction documents takes time, and I was able to complete them just before going on maternity leave last February! (Curious what those look like? I’ve included a small number of sheets below!) Thankfully once the drawings were ready so…

The Gem Playground: Design Process

Landscape architecture is a broad profession, but you can sum it up well by saying that anything outside the building is within the realm of a landscape architect. This means that your parks, trails, plazas, streetscapes, campuses and even zoos…

The Gem Playground

Aerial photo of the Gem Playground in the beginning stages of construction The months following our return to Uganda have been packed full of activity. After being away from our desks for 4 months you can imagine the work load…

Arensen Home Assignment Update

The past few months have been a whirlwind of travel across North America, providing us with invaluable opportunities to visit churches, connect with supporters, and share quality time with friends and family. I wanted to give you a glimpse of…

Friendships Old & New

We had some of our Ugandan friends over for dinner a few weeks ago. We made pizza, and apologized that we didn’t make them food. For it to be called “food” in Uganda, it needs to be a full meal…