Aquí Estamos

The past week and a half has been an amazing time in my life.  If you did not already know, I just began an internship with Engineering Ministries International (EMI).  EMI is a non-profit Christian organization with offices in Colorado Springs, India, Costa Rica, Uganda, the Middle East, UK, and Calgary, which offers free design work to ministries in the developing world that are serving the poor and spreading the good news of Jesus Christ.

I am now serving in the Latin America office in Atenas, Costa Rica for the next six months.  But before I arrived here I spent a week of orientation in Colorado Springs with about 26 other interns who have been sent out to their respective offices.  We had a great week of studying God's word, cultural training, and team building.  It was great to connect with a ton of people that all want to serve in the same way that I do. It was sad to leave some of the interns in Colorado Springs and send some of the others to their offices across the world, but I have grown very close to my Costa Rica team as well.  Here is a link to Esther's blog which has a pretty good description of each team member: http://costaestherica.blogspot.com/2012/01/team.html

Brad, Esther, Myself, Allison (Team America Latina)

 While in Colorado Springs, the Costa Rica team +1 Ross Yeager (Colorado Springs Intern #holla), went on a trip to the Garden of the Gods and had a great time viewing God's beautiful creation and playing...

We like to have a good time

It has truly been a blessing already to have such amazing team members.  It is going to be a good 6 months!

Beginning our Journey from Denver to Costa Rica

I have moved many times in my life already, and even lived with host families (shout out to the Vargo family for being awesome), but this time has been quite a different experience from my previous ones.  This is due to the fact that I am in a completely new culture speaking a different language.  I have been in Costa Rica now for a little over 2 days, and the Rodriguez family has been gracious enough to let me live in their home for the next 6 months.

Mi familia nueva (Gustavo and his wife Adriana with their son Joel and Nephew's Jose, and Warner (not present))

Entering a brand new culture can sometimes be seen as a daunting task.  Luckily half of our orientation in Colorado Springs was preparing us for this task.  There were many things that I learned during cultural orientation, and here are a few of them that I have found to be true and useful so far:

• You are going to have less personal space
• Pedestrians do NOT have the right of way
• Do not blow your nose in public
• Always greet everyone individually
• You WILL have a loss of privacy
• DO NOT throw your TP in the toilet

Entering into a new culture without knowing some of the cultural practices can make your experience very difficult and sometimes just bad.  The most important lesson that I have learned is that you must come in with a very open mind and leave all of your cultural norms behind and start from scratch.  You may be pleased to find that some of your common practices are accepted by the culture, and others are not.  Just be ready.  So I will continue to learn more about the Tico culture while I a here, and I will let you know how I adjust...

My new little bro Joel and his new stuffed animal

As I mentioned before, I am working with EMI.  Here is a description of the project that I will be working on during my time here:

Ministry:                        Word of Life Fellowship

Project:                         Youth Camp & Conference Center

Location:                      Quito, Ecuador

Project Scope

Strategically located in over 80 countries, Word of Life (WOL) takes the life-changing truth of the Word to the youth of the world. Through its ministries around the globe, over 3.1 million people were reached with the gospel last year. WOL has been present in Ecuador since 1970. The property that EMI will be designing is intended to provide a venue for evangelism and outreach, bible clubs, camps and conferences, and discipleship training. Located about a 40-minute drive north of Quito and at an elevation of 7,500 feet, the property is in a remote cloud forest surrounded by jungle. The site is already partly developed with three camping cabins and limited meeting facilities. The ministry would like to improve and expand the current facility by designing the infrastructure (water/sewer/storm), building more camping cabins, and providing a multi-purpose building for meeting/dining/cooking activities. They would eventually like to house 250 people on the property.

The EMI team will provide a master plan for the site, integrating the existing buildings with the future plans. The team will also provide a detailed design for the multipurpose dining hall building and for site infrastructure. The existing water supply consists of a spring collection point and several holding tanks on the property, which will need to be upgraded to accommodate for future construction. A power line runs through the property to service a cell tower on the neighboring land, so electricity is readily available from this source. The constant rains require that the site drainage be designed and built properly. WOL has been operating from rented camp facilities for years, and they have experienced that many camps aren't reliable from year to year due to a lack of proper infrastructure design. WOL is looking forward to having its own camp facility that is designed properly and will be dependable for years of service.

More Pictures and Stories to come!

Dios Te Bendiga,

Kevin

A Winner's Journey
www.awinnersjourney.com