Liz and I have a fun start to our story.  

We can’t say it was “love at first sight” – we were both 2 years old when we met at Westview Baptist Church.  Liz and I grew up together in Sunday school, youth group and family gatherings, never realizing we were spending time getting to know our future spouse (and in-laws for that matter).

We both were raised in healthy, loving families that shared the same faith, and we’re both incredibly grateful for that.  

As Liz grew up, she developed a love for writing and a natural ability to care for others.

As for me, I had “The Knack” (see this Dilbert cartoon clip).  

The picture to the right shows me trying to fix (or disassemble?) my parents desk at a young age.  I got my first drum kit when I was 3 years old and while I loved playing music with them, I also spent a lot of time taking each piece or the hardware apart and attempting, unsuccessfully, to build a robot.

So my path towards a career in engineering seemed well on its way.  However, another piece to the puzzle didn’t come up until much later – the missions piece.

In 2005, Liz and I both ended up on the same trip to Tijuana, Mexico with our youth group to build houses.  

I loved every minute – all of the travel worked out perfectly, I felt like I made a difference being there, and for the first time I began to feel that my future career may not be “typical”.  Of course I had no idea what that meant at the time.  

Unfortunately, Liz’s experience was not so positive.  

All of her flights were cancelled and had to be rescheduled, she and a few others spent hours in the airports on both ends of the trip and to top it all off, her bag was stolen from our van while we were in McDonalds for a mere 20 minutes.  At that point, she swore she’d never go on a mission trip again.  

These days, we like to think God laughed a bit.

This trip ignited my passion for missions and ministry.  I joined our youth group’s “SERVE” trip to Victoria in the summer of 2006 and became a youth leader that fall.  I was able to return to Tijuana for another house-building trip in the spring 2007, which confirmed my passion for ministry in the developing world.  

I quickly followed this with spending the summer working at Gull Lake Camp (see photo to the right).

By this point I was entering my second year in the engineering faculty at the University of Calgary.  Even being able to join to 2007 Mexico trip was a miracle – my physics professor allowed me to miss a test to be there (these sorts of things rarely happen in first-year engineering).  

Shortly after beginning my second year, Liz joined our youth group as a leader.  By November of 2007, we were dating and by August of 2009 we were engaged.

2010 was a big year for both of us.  In the spring, I graduated from the University of Calgary with a BSc in Geomatics Engineering.  Then, on August 7th, we were married.  I began a job with a local consulting/surveying firm while Liz was working as an administrative assistant for our church’s denomination.

After less than a year, I began to feel God pulling me in a different direction in regards to my career.  The passion for missions had only grown bigger since that first trip in 2005, and God began to nudge me towards vocational ministry.

This took a while for us to figure out.  I almost joined Youth For Christ as a staff member in 2011.  As Liz and I prayed about it, however, God showed us that we were looking in the right direction, but that YFC wasn’t quite where He wanted us.  Shortly after, I was reminded that a guy named Kevin at our church worked for Engineering Ministries International.  I looked at the organization’s website and was instantly overcome with excitement.  This was what I was looking for!

I went out for lunch soon after with Kevin, where he told me the first step was to go on an EMI project trip.  Incidentally, he was leading a trip within a month to Haiti.  I rushed home a told Liz I wanted to go.  As crazy as it seemed, she must have heard the excitement in my voice and supported my desire to go.  

By time I left in June of 2011, I had fundraised the necessary costs and found myself surveying in a medium-sized town in central Haiti called Mirebalais.  We landed in Port-au-Prince, and my view of the world changed almost instantly.  

This was very different from Tijuana.  

The poverty was much more severe, the effects of the 2010 earthquake were still very obvious and there were people in need everywhere.  I was overwhelmed

We drove by slums.  
Huge cities of tents (housing people displaced by the earthquake). 
Crowded markets.  
Begging children.  
A man with no clothes.  

People, real human beings, were all over the place struggling just to survive.  As I sat quietly in the van observing this, I thought, “How could I possibly hope to make even the smallest dent in this poverty by myself?”

Luckily, I wasn’t alone. Not only did the people on our team share the same desire to do something, the ministry we were serving there did – an orphanage called Haiti Children’s Home (see the projects page for further information on this trip).  As we went through the week, I met more and more people who believed that together as the church, through Jesus, we could help build His Kingdom bit-by-bit.  They reminded me of God’s joy when just one person is saved.  They reminded me that, “if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward” (Matthew 10:42).

I came home with a strong sense that God was leading Liz and I to be a part of EMI through joining staff.  

We waited and prayed for three months, and in the fall of 2011 decided that I would join as a full-time staff member.

At this point, we were told about the next step in the process of joining staff – both of us needed to go on an EMI project trip together.  Liz flashed back to 2005, when she said she’d never go on a trip again.  God was changing her heart though.  At first, she decided she would “sacrifice” and go because she really did believe we were called to eMi.  

By the time we left for Honduras in February of 2012, Liz was excited (despite a last minute bout of shingles that was miraculously healed by the time we took off).  God used the trip as a confirmation of His calling for us.  Liz even said she might be interested in joining another project some day!

After that trip, we began the process of fundraising.  All non-administrative EMI staff members are required to raise support to cover their salaries.  Through this process, God has taught us so much about trusting Him.  Both coming from good families that never seemed to have to worry about having enough, God has called us to a path where we simply can’t do it all ourselves (or at least we can’t think that we did).  We have been blessed to share our story with a lot of people, many of whom we may not have thought to spend the time with otherwise.  We’re so glad we have.  Support raising is difficult, but it has been a huge part of our ministry so far.

In May of 2013, I switched to working two days a week at EMI and the other three at my other job.  I spent most of my time helping with projects, coordinating the intern program and managing EMI Canada’s survey equipment.  I also had the privilege of joining my third EMI project team to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in February 2014.  This was my first trip to Africa, and I certainly felt a long way from home as we were working in the fairly remote town of Bunia (most towns in the Congo are remote compared to the rest of the world).  Never the less, it was another great trip with lots of amazing stories.

​In February of 2015, while still working at EMI part-time, I travelled to Tactic, Guatemala on my fourth EMI project trip to help design an orphanage for Impact Ministries, as a co-project-leader to EMI Canada's Executive Director, Greg.  Around that time, God provided us with some major pieces of our support team, enough that I was able to join staff at EMI on a full-time basis by April of 2015.  God's provision has been so clear and so amazing.  Our trust in Him has grown immensely already, and continues to grow as He continues to provide.

In May of 2015, our first child Asher was born.  He has already given us so many amazing memories, funny stories to tell and new challenges to overcome.  He is cute, hilarious, entertaining and energetic.  To say the least, life in our house changed drastically!

In 2016, I had the privilege of joining EMI teams in Cambodia and Uganda.  Each project tends to give me a big shot in the arm of encouragement and renewed energy and passion for our ministry. 2017 included projects to Rwanda and Haiti, with another two projects to different ministries in Haiti in 2018 and a very unique erosion mitigation project in Costa Rica in 2019.

Late in 2016, our second son Maverick was born, while our first daughter, Avery, was born in 2018. Now a family of five, we find ourselves joyful, busy, tired, happy, exhausted, stressed and relaxed all at the same time.

Liz and I are so thankful to our supporters for following God's call to join us in ministry. We know the joy of giving back to God what he has blessed us with, and want to share this joy with others through EMI.

​Please pray and consider giving to God through joining our support team.  We pray He blesses you, as He’s blessed us, as you follow where He leads.

Braden Swab (with Liz, Asher, Maverick, and Avery)