We heart this new, ongoing series–a virtual trip to the coffee shop with organizations to help you go there, serve Him, and love them even better. (For more thoughts about why you might join an agency–and a handful of reasons you might not–make sure to check out He Said/She Said/You Say? “Should I go overseas with an organization?”, both the pros and the cons.)
Today, we’re grabbing a chai with Engineering Ministries International (EMI). You’ve seen them in posts like these:
We’re excited to welcome back Sheri of Engineering Ministries International. EMI mobilizes architects, engineers, construction managers, and other design professionals–including those through an incredible internship program–to provide design services for those helping the poor. We’re talking water projects, hospitals, schools, orphanages, you name it. Meanwhile, they raise up disciples and trained professionals in-country.
Sheri applies these cross-cultural points poignantly to the elements of designing cross-culturally–but we believe you’ll find inescapable parallels to any cross-cultural work. Hopefully it will help jumpstart real solutions for cross-cultural sensitivities, and help any culture manifest Jesus Christ according to its own cultural icebergs.
We heart this new, ongoing series–a cup o’ joe with organizations to help you go there, serve Him, and love them even better. (For more thoughts about why you might join an agency–and a handful of reasons you might not–make sure to check out He Said/She Said/You Say? “Should I go overseas with an organization?”, both the pros and the cons.)
Today, we’re grabbing a cold brew coffee with Africa Inland Mission (AIM). Grab a chair.
Wondering what to pack to go overseas long-term? It can get tricky. Every country has different items available…or not. (If you know someone available to write a list for another area of the globe, please contact us here at Go. Serve. Love to equip more global workers to go overseas!)
This is shaping up to be a long post, so let’s get to it.
On your first trip over, prioritize items you absolutely cannot get in your host country, or that will be of considerably less quality. I should add “or are really expensive.” Don’t panic if you can’t get them all. Rebuilding a home is a process of slowly accruing and adjusting what you need. (See our post on Worked for Me Wednesdays #WFMW: The Luggage Edition.)
Your first year overseas has a way of rearranging your life, your brain, your family, your body. So it makes sense your holidays would follow.
You may be wondering what Christmas looks like away from the lines to meet Santa, the obnoxious Black Friday ads–but also far from the welcoming hugs from mom, the family clustered around the tree or piano belting out carols.
My experience? Like most of overseas life, there were notable griefs and clarifying, memorable triumphs. Here, thoughts from my first Christmas season in Africa (edited from the original post on MomLifeToday.com).
We get it that sometimes it’s hard to know how your career and education could manifest itself over there. So today, we’re welcoming back a construction manager in East Africa with Engineering Ministries International (EMI) to give you a “day in the life” glimpse of how his career has transplanted.
We’re tickled pink today to welcome Jaimee Sekanjako. Jaimee has spend the past year and a bit living in the crazy-beautiful chaos of Uganda, East Africa. She spends her days designing water systems, toilets, and–as a civil engineer with Engineering Ministries International–having meetings on the controversial topic of urine diversion (her words, not ours!). She loves dark chocolate, rescuing dogs, and her husband Paul (not in that order). She’s proud of Paul surviving his first trip to Canada’s -42 degree winter, after meeting and marrying him in a story that could have only been written by God himself.
I was bent over the stove stirring a pot of something when my husband brought me the phone. The voice on the other end was musical, full of life and joy. I heard a sweet young woman say, “Auntie, I love you so much. I miss you and I can’t wait to see you. I want to hear all about your life.”
If you’ve ever stood in the middle of African worship, it’s…well, it’s pretty hard to stand still.
Gotta admit. At a refugee center staff retreat, I started as a mild observer. I marveled at the literal full-bodied movement and vocalization: music that took over my heart, my body. I was, um, really dancing (don’t necessarily try to picture it…) to worship for the first time. Moisture leaked from the corners of my eyes. Perhaps you can see what I’m talking about:
After a rousing snippet of this kind of worship in staff devotions the week before, I’d told the teachers, this is just a sliver of what the African church offers the world. Every culture has its own strengths, its own vibrant display of the image of God.
