Adelante Hacia Orientacion

After two days of travel and introduction to eMI, I am well into orientation now, having met my three interning colleagues in Costa Rica -  Kevin Winner, Esther Lynch, and Allison Byrd - all of whom I am thoroughly excited to be working with.  I can definitely sense a thriving excitement for God and engineering in each one one of them and I'm looking forward to spending life with in Costa Rica.  I know many of you may be eager to hear how orientation is going, and I can say that it's going really great right now, but I have to share with you my experience on the flight over here when I first noticed I could see the mountains.  This is from my journal (kind of this entry in advance). 

After pondering when I'd be able to look out my airplane window (I had a middle seat, but I was sure not to be that guy leaning over my neighbor to see out the window) and see the mountains when the pilot announced we were just past Lubbock and the ride was about to get a bit bumpy.  I looked out the window and saw the snow-tips of the Rockies and my heard leaped.  I can barely keep my eyes on my journal to write this because i'm so enthralled by the sight of those majestic peaks that are so far away I can only make out the tiny white tips.  But I know those are the Rockies.  Admittedly being a bit obsessed with climbing and mountaineering videos late last December, seeing the mountains on screen became a bit commonplace but seeing them again, even so small as they are right now, reminds me that I haven't been in the mountains in a year and a half.  But what's more is that God knows that I love the mountains - love being in and around, and on top of them.  He really knows this and gives me this joy and celebration of his creation.  

In orientation, we learned in our first session the history of eMI, and how it began.  Mike Orsillo, over 30 years ago was an engineer whom God had called to ministry work and was in a place where he was not sure at all where God wanted him specifically to fulfill his calling.  He had even gone to seminary, but found himself working a prominent engineering firm and was wondering how God's plans were going to play out for him.  He was working with a youth trip to an island called Saipan when a couple of weeks before their departure the island was hit by a destructive typhoon.  In this midst, God revealed to Mike the combination of engineering and gospel spreading into an organization dedicated to projects worldwide that would assist in bringing the gospel to the nations.  On the trip, Mike began work on a project to restore some of the destruction on the island, and so eMI was born.  Here's more on the birth and history of eMI.  

I am blessed, and so are you - all you who are praying for me and I bless you for your prayers.  

I love yall

Brad