So much has changed since EMI was first incorporated in 1982. We’ve added many programmes and locations, and our full-time staff has grown in size and diversity in exciting ways.
But all that change and growth is still pointed at one thing:
EMI exists to guide Christian leadership and Christian ministries to success in their development projects.
These projects matter because they are a physical expression of the ministry God has called these leaders to.
These projects matter because they bring missions into greater focus—supporting, fostering, and expanding ministry activity among different peoples and in different places in Jesus’ name.
These projects matter to EMI because they are where God calls us to use our technical gifts to serve the Body of Christ.
At the same time, EMI also knows a development project and all it entails can be an incredibly challenging experience for Christian ministry leaders, with high stakes and high costs.
So what we celebrate most of all is seeing those leaders become captains of their ministry’s growth and development projects.
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“We had it all in our mind—the vision,” said Emmalee Quisenberry, Founder and Executive Director of the Gem Foundation in Uganda.
“Seeing it put down on paper to share with donors, but also to be able to see it [ourselves] was really special.”
“It was so much easier to show someone instead of trying to explain, ‘well, this is what we’re thinking,’”
added Josh Quisenberry, Gem Operations Director.
Their ministry is full-time care of the Gems—children with severe special needs who were orphaned or abandoned.
Moving from a rented multi-storey building in urban Kampala to the Gem village with acres and acres of undeveloped, open ground was going to be a major shift.
Gem leadership also knew it was a major opportunity to re-imagine their ministry rhythms of care and recreate the daily experience of the Gems to be as accessible, life-giving, and joyful as possible.
Now it’s been almost five years since the Gems moved into their new site.
Supported by EMI, Gem leadership has been able to confidently navigate the development of the Gem Village and, more importantly, give tangible expression to the character and heart of the ministry God appointed for them.
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In Cambodia, AIM has learned accessible, quality primary education is one of the best ways to strike at the root of human trafficking.
They worked and prayed hard to secure land—promised land—to build a new AIM school.
But once the building work got underway, ministry leadership quicky found themselves overwhelmed with many choices and changes in managing a construction project.
AIM realized they weren’t directing their project, only reacting to it. Things were moving backwards—instead of them leading the project, the project was beginning to lead them.
“In that time I feel like—messy!—I feel like I don’t know anything,”
remembered AIM School Director Eng Leang Hong.
“I’m a teacher—I don’t know construction well. We jumped to manage the building, so it was difficult for us.”
But AIM stepped back into leadership over their project-in-progress with support from EMI. Support that placed the construction timeline and financial decision-making back into the hands of AIM leadership.
Rather than trying to learn to be construction managers on the fly, AIM leadership was empowered to captain their project without losing their freedom to keep working in their area of passion and gifting as teachers.
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For Christian leaders, there’s always a first development project.
They ask, ‘Who can help us find our way?’ ‘Where do we even start?’
Ministries in Canada have been able to get the process orientation they need and get their project ideas organized with EMI.
These ‘pre-design’ services prepare Christian leaders to efficiently engage a local design firm with their development project.
And local design firms applaud EMI involvement, valuing EMI’s deep experience working with non-profit organizations to define and refine project vision.
“EMI helped us to be in touch with engineers and architects to progress with the design of the pavilion, because that's the most complicated piece for us,”
said Rev. Dr. Anna Robbins, President of Acadia Divinity School in Nova Scotia.
“They've continued to walk with us, in design and engineering, and in building the relationships we need to get this done in a way that makes sense for us.”
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Development projects often become more complex than they first seem at the envisioning stage.
Other times, and this is especially true in the healthcare sector, projects start with a high level of complexity that only gets higher with further planning and definition.
Starting with a small, urban compound in northern Egypt, Harpur Christian Hospital knew they had a major planning challenge on their hands.
Their vision was to pivot to discipleship and training of Egyptian healthcare professionals in a new surgical residency programme and nursing school expansion. The key need? Resident housing.
Assisted by EMI, they defined this vision and set it in order. But more than unlocking or solving their site development puzzle, Harpur leadership were able to understand and take ownership of it:
“…then we build apartments, we move nursing school students in, we tear that old building down, we build a new building—” said PAACS surgeon Dr. David Thompson, rehearsing the steps of phased redevelopment at Harpur.
“Suddenly we have all the housing we need—28 apartments instead of 9!”
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In Guatemala, EMI had a series of engagements with a group of Christian church leaders who had been asking God, ‘what is our role to care for abandoned babies in our community?’
This question led to vision, the vision for a children’s home—a physical space to enact the ministry God had called them to.
“It’s one thing to talk about it and dream about it,” reflected Rita Peters, Impact Ministries Co-Founder, sitting in the completed Vida children’s home, “It’s another thing someone comes and actually designs it.
“We’ve now got the plans, what’s stopping us?”
This is precisely what we want:
Christian leadership confident and equipped to move ahead as captains of the projects and plans God has called them to around the world.
