17 days ago I lived in the UK – I may have been a bit here there and everywhere but it was my home. Now for the next little while I’ll be living it Canada.

Crazy – still feels completely surreal if I think about it too long.

Tomorrow I actually leave for Uganda for 12 days, and then I’ll have just 91 days left in Canada before I’m off again.

… I’m not counting, I just need to know these things for customs and such, well I guess I am counting then…

This first fortnight (plus) of living in Canada feels like it has flown by. I’ve been in the office from the get go and really hit the ground running – jetlag be damned!

I’ve met my fellow interns, my housemate, the eMi Canada staff, and as interns we’ve been working on the Trip Booklet for our time in Uganda. I’ve also been re-familiarising myself with computer progammes such as AutoCAD. It’s all good stuff, but it’s also a bit daunting.

I’ve enjoyed getting stuck in so fast – even though it’s been a lot all at once I think it’s almost better than being slowly eased in! Now we’ve got the excitement and challenges of Uganda to face. It will be wonderful to meet people from the Chayah Children’s Home ministry we are serving, and to visit the project site and the current children that Chayah will be providing a home for. However, it will certainly be challenging – to be in Uganda, to see and hear the stories the Chayah children have, to work on a real-life project, to work with a team I’ve am mostly still to meet, and to work in such a short time frame.

Why should it be easy though! It’s a difficult thing we’re aiming to do and it involves the skills of professionals and the whole-hearted commitment to join a team, and serve a ministry. Our over-arching intentions as members of this eMi trip team is to design the masterplan for Chayah Children’s Home and to use our professional skills to serve people who are already serving Ugandan children. We’re not aiming for it to be hard, but I’m not naively thinking it’ll be a breeze either.

So it may not be simple, and already so much has happened in a fortnight, but it’s all exciting alongside its challenges. I’m excited to be working on a project that will bring real-life change and improvement to people’s lives. Chayah are already working to save children, and bring them into a loving, stable and safe home, but the designs we will work on will provide scope and permanency to their lives too. This is not fruitless busy work – but work for active social change and work to not just display the Kingdom of God but to practically bring change because of who God is and how that has lead to this project.

How can that be anything other than exciting!