An Update from David

I’m aware I haven’t described at all what my work with Engineering Ministries has consisted of yet. Before I describe some of my work, I want to explain a little about why I haven’t and what I’ve learned in the process.

It would be easy to dismiss my lack posting because it seems to take at least a couple of hours, if not more, but that’s not the real reason. The real reason is a bit more personal.

For a while, I’ve felt the things I’ve been doing here aren’t really what our supporters thought I would be doing. In fact, some of the things I’ve done so far aren’t really what I thought I would be doing. These two ideas made it easy for me to not want to describe my work. I haven’t created glamorous renderings of a new school. I haven’t designed a structural system to protect children at an orphanage. I haven’t engineered a water system to provide drinking water to an unreached tribe. I don’t even have a touching, sentimental, National Geographic-quality picture of me with African children.

A couple of weeks ago I was telling Chad, the eMi EA director, that I got jealous of my friend John (see link to the left). John has been able to visit a project sites in western Uganda and in Kenya, see the locally-famous Rwenzori Mountains, stay in the Rift Valley, and even interact with the Massai. Now that’s adventurous. That’s what I want to do. And then I realized I was thinking, “That’s what I want to do.” Somewhere in this mess of jealousy and self-pity I remembered that “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” And this is exactly opposite of how I sometimes think about my time here. I’m often prone to think about what I’ll enjoy most instead of what I can do to help. So for those out there praying for us, you can specifically pray that my attitude will be continually molded by the grace of God to desire serving others versus seeking my own gain.

With those things in mind, I want to share with you a little about what I’ve been doing. Before I do that, I should describe AutoCAD very briefly for people who aren’t aware of it since I’ll refer to it frequently. AutoCAD is a computer program architects and engineers use to transform their ideas and calculations into drawings (which used to be called “blueprints”) that construction companies use for building. It’s like a gigantic piece of digital paper where I can draw lines, shapes, and patterns with varying degrees of thickness and on different layers before adding dimensions and notes. Best of all, I can make changes without wearing through a piece of real paper with an eraser. Onward…

So far I’ve worked on two different projects making drawing changes. Both of these projects were at the 95% percent completion level but needed final edits since the previous group of interns wasn’t able to finish them. Unfortunately, making these changes has been somewhat tedious and frustrating because some of the drawings were poorly drafted from the beginning. When I say “poorly drafted” I mean that certain lines or shapes get drawn on the wrong layer (or one of a slew of other problems). For instance, I had to change some railing from “Extra Fine” to “Fine” so it would show up properly when printed. This should have taken one minute to change 12 or 16 different objects. However, the person originally drew it incorrectly, so it ended up taking 20 or 25 minutes to edit.

Anyway, the drawings were both for great ministries. The first group, New Life Ministries, has a babies’ home for 11 children, a nursery/primary school with 230 students, a vocational training center for unwed teenage mothers, and a training center which host groups like Compassion International, World Vision, and Food for the Hungry. eMi helped this ministry design a 1.8 acre site for a primary school and an 8.6 acre site for a secondary school (needed to educate the students finishing their primary school).

Mto Moyoni was the second project to which I contributed. This ministry was started by a Dutch lady who has been robbed at gunpoint, shot and accused of being a rebel leader and political agitator. She started a “restoration ministry” for other Christians enduring difficulties in their ministry. eMi surveyed and master-planned three sites in close proximity to each other and developed detailed fundraising documents for one of these plots. My part in both of these projects was really quite small, but I’m grateful to have learned about them and contributed anyway.

I’ve also had the task of developing our eMi EA AutoCAD standards. Interns at eMi, and apparently universally, do a lot of the drafting work, but unfortunately come in with varying levels (mostly little-to-none) of AutoCAD experience. So part of my time has been spent adapting and adding to a manual from my dad’s company to help future interns draft more effectively. The hope is that when changes do need to be made in the future, they’ll only take one minute, instead of 20 or 25, if they’re drawn correctly from the beginning. The eMi architect, Steve, estimated that the poor drafting practices led to an additional 20 hours of work during the crunch time of a recent project. Hopefully my work will enable future interns to learn AutoCAD quickly and correctly.

It’s 9:35 PM right now, which does in fact confirm that blogging can take a considerable portion of someone’s life. Amanda’s ready to go to sleep so I won’t be able to describe my upcoming project trip tonight, so please check back before the weekend for another post about what I’ll be doing between October 7-15.

(I’m not sure who drew the renderings I’ve included above, but if you are really interested I can find out for you. Incidentally, the first drawing is the 8.6 acre New Life site and the second is a view of Mto Moyoni's three plots)