Finally! An emi update!

So I have been in Colorado for about one month now- wow!  The first eight days I was here we had orientation for Engineering Ministries International (eMi) with the 28 interns for the fall semester and 2 longer term staff volunteers for all the offices around the world (Colorado Springs USA, Canada, Middle East/North Africa, Costa Rica, Uganda, and India).  It was so great getting to know and meet everyone- it is crazy how well we all connected as design professionals serving God around the world.  I met some really amazing people and it was such a blessing to get to hear everyone’s 7-minute testimonies on the final Friday we were together.  It was bittersweet to see everyone leave at the end of orientation because I made some really good friendships with people who are now all over the world- so it is sad because we are not together anymore but I am so happy they are serving God in those places. 

Following orientation we started our time at the Colorado Springs office and I finally got to move into the apartment where I am staying- it is quite cute and homey and I really love my host Jeni.  She is an event planner for Focus on the Family, pretty laid back and lots of fun.  We have roommate bonding nights on Tuesdays- her, Elena (my roommate) and myself.  The first week in the office was a lot of orientation, learning where everything is, and getting acquainted with the programs used in the office.  There are nine interns in Colorado Springs for the fall (boys: Mike, Seth, Ben, Stephen, and Jay and girls: Janae, Janine, Elena, and myself) so we do a lot of things together- however we won’t all be together again until the end of October because different project trips are coming and returning until October 28^th.  

The Colorado Springs and Canadian office interns after mini-golfing.

One thing that is a blessing is starting each day with a devotion from an office member and then pray for the upcoming projects, other offices, and some personal matters.  It is pretty cool that we get to pray together as an office- and on Fridays we have a time for worship as well so some people play instruments and we all sing.  On Fridays the interns also help serve at a local soup kitchen run by Catholic Charities called the Marian House.  This is really cool because we get to help serve the Colorado Springs community while serving at eMi- and after we help with the food we get to sit and eat at the tables with the people there.  I have been blessed to have some really good conversations with a man named Cain and a lady named Cyndi.

This is my desk with an umbrella over it because the roof leaks when it rains a lot.

In the office we are now helping our project leaders with finishing up older projects and preparing everything for our upcoming project trips.  Learning AutoCAD for the projects has been very challenging sometimes but I have been getting a lot better.  My trip leader’s name is Andy and my fellow intern for the Guatemala project is named Janine.  I love working with both of them.   Janine and I have grown very close which is a gift from God and really exciting.  She was born in El Salvador and moved to Houston when she was 13- she is really funny and we have a lot of laughs with some of the ways she messes up English words. 

For our Guatemala trip, we have officially gotten the team together and the trip packets sent out with the airline tickets ordered!  Our trip is going to be from October 6-15^th and we will have a team of eight, including Andy, Janine, and myself.  We are the last of the project trips to leave from our office this fall, so I keep getting more and more excited as the other trips have been leaving.  The more I learn about the Guatemala trip the more excited I am getting! 

Last weekend we climbed Pike’s Peak which is a 14,115 foot mountain by Colorado Springs.  It was so much more intense than my typical east coast hiking. But at the top there was a restaurant with donuts so that helped give me motivation to get there.  It was so pretty and as I look at my pictures, I am sad to say that none of them do it justice. 

This is me climbing!  There was ice and snow at the top!

Ok, that is my update for now, I will try and keep up wit what is going much better than I have been and try to elaborate on more of the amazing things God has been doing!