About us

Here is the text we sent to the nigeria team about who we are. I thought you might find it interesting!

Hello Team!

Kate and I wanted to introduce ourselves and express our excitement to be serving with you on the Nigeria project. This is our first EMI trip as well as our first trip to Africa.

Kate and I graduated from Iowa State University, in architecture and agricultural engineering, respectively, in May of 2007 and were married in December of 2007. Since then we have been living in Des Moines, Iowa where Kate works for DLR Group, an architectural and engineering firm that focuses primarily on the education sector and I work for John Deere where I have held a variety of positions including facilities design, construction management, product design and currently, product test.

We have both spent a significant time abroad in different capacities. Kate spent two summers working with Royal Servants in Nepal and Ireland and was in China for six months for a study abroad program where she worked with the IMB and the local house church movement. I spent 6 months with YWAM at a Discipleship Training School where I trained in Australia and had a two month outreach to Papau New Guinea. I also spent a semester studying/traveling in Brazil and worked for design/build firm doing construction management in India. These experiences, amongst others, have shaped our desire to serve people abroad and we hope to use our professional skills, coupled with our faith, to any capacity we can.

For fun we enjoy traveling, road biking, camping, sailing, rock climbing, skiing and tracking down good music/food/wine/beer. Kate has particular interests in photography, baking, mentoring young women, reading and art. I spend my springs coaching high school soccer and have taken to triathlons in recent years.

We look forward to learning more about all of you and the project in the next month.

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We're Going to Nigeria! (short term trip)

This email was sent to as many people as I could find emails for in a quick time! Apologies if you were not sent the email and would like to be included in future emails about Nigeria - just email me your email, and we'll get it added to the list!


Friends,

Hello from Brian and Kate! We hope that you are enjoying the last few weeks of summer and are ready for the new season.

This letter is going out to let you know about a few big events that have been going on around our household. First off, much contrary to our own mockery, we have started a blog. I do stretch the "we" word to great lengths when we all know that Kate actually started and will maintain the blog. I will merely act in a supervisory role and make occasional appearances in the photos. I promise that I've got the best person on the job. So, you can hear more from "us" and what we have been and will be up to at:

http://brianandk8.blogspot.com/

The second, and more adventuresome, piece of news is that we are going on the road againm this time to Nigeria, Africa. We are heading there with a group called Engineering Ministries International to help develop a Aquaculture and Hydroponic Training Center with a team of 10 people. We will be in country for 10 days where we hope to complete up to 70% of the design work before returning home. The team will consist of civil engineers, surveyors, architects and a hydraulics engineer and will be led by an EMI staff member who has led more than a dozen trips to Africa in the last couple of years.

We are going on this trip as a way of continuing the path that God has put us on, through a mix of missions trips, professional training and personal faith, and to serve the people of Nigeria. The group that has enlisted EMI's help is a group called Prayer Farms. (http://prayersfarm.org/index.html) Their mission is to develop this training center in Nigeria in order to train local people with a trade that will allow them to support themselves and their families, as well as gain biblical training while they are there. We are providing the engineering/architectural design services to get things going.

If you're interested in hearing more details about the trip, please let us know and we can send out a follow-up e-mail or will post more to the blog.

This is the part where you get to pitch in. We're asking that you pray for us and the project as we prepare for the trip and while we are gone. Please pray for wisdom and focus as we prepare the materials/information necessary to do a good job while we are in country. Also, please pray for our safety in our travels, protection from any sickness and for security in a sometimes unpredictable part of the world. Lastly, please pray that this would be a time where we could honor God through our time and talents, and be able to make a difference for the future of the people we are going to help. And in all things, we want to see Him glorified, no matter whether we are out in Nigeria or just doing our work here in Des Moines.

Like I said, we will be posting more about the trip and prayer requests either through e-mail or the blog, but this will be a good start.

Thanks for reading and we hope to hear from you all soon.

Brian & Kate

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the first!

Well, we are making our first attempt at blogging! I think we swore to some of our friends that we wouldn't do this until we either had a dog or a child, but I'm sorry to say we have to disappoint. It has just come to the point where we have so much going on in our lives, and so many dear friends and family far away that would like a way to keep up with our lives(we hope)! Plus, we have big events coming up in our lives soon, and we want you to be able to be part of that journey with us.
Oh, and by the way, when I say "we are making our first attempt" I really mean, me, Kate. We'll see how much Brian contributes directly - His commentary is always entertaining, so hopefully he'll be making some guest appearances.
Stay tuned as we go for an exciting ride!

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