Engineering Ministries International Site Plan Project in India

In September 2014, a group of engineers and architects from all over the US volunteered with Engineering Ministries International (emiworld.org) to design a site plan for a community farm and rehab center in Oddenchatram, India. The team traveled by plane, train, and jeep to meet with a group of Indian Christians with a vision to move into a farming village and build a community where locals can improve their farming practices, have access to basic healthcare, and where recovering alcoholics and those coming from abusive lifestyles can heal and grow and find purpose. The name for the community, Jeeva Jalem (Sanskrit for "Living Waters"), provides an amazing glimpse into its DNA - a humble reliance on a God who, though we have forsaken him, is able to and is offering to quench our deepest thirsts. The design professionals and interns on the eMi team were greatly impacted by the heart of the people we worked with, and by the end of the week a balanced and functional site plan was developed and presented to the ministry in order to allow development of the property to move on to the next phase. Music by Sara Groves, Jimmy Needham, David Crowder Band, and A.R. Rahman