Ever since I handed Elizabeth her first pen or pencil months ago, she has been good about only coloring on paper. Of course I supervised her very closely, but she never tried to color on herself or any other object. Recently, she has been wanting her crayons more than any other toy. It seems she has discovered, their "power".

From the guys that brought you the marvelous Bible Gateway, The Gospel.Com website has officially gone live.

You've all had one before, probably several. Today, I came back from vacation/family work day to find my work computer pretty well toasted. I think it must have been in the middle of a major upgrade I told it to do before I left. The only reason I can think that the computer would have shut down is an extended power outage. I have the computer on a UPS battery so it should have lasted through a short power outage.

Anyway, I've been struggling with it all day and have decided to backup my files and complete the upgrade by doing a full install instead. I'd really rather be doing something else, but here I am. Hopefully, I'll have a complete system by the time I leave today.

I also hit a snag in my top priority project, beside fundraising. I'd been pretty excited about using Moodle to build out a section of our new online approach to parts of our Candidate Orientation (due for a rename). Problem is that out current host doesn't support Moodle, so I'm having to think about adding on another host for this purpose or maybe a Moodle specific service to get us started. This has larger reaching impact than I'd hope this project to have in terms of infrastructure.

Maybe this is just God's way of reminding me to not only backup my files, but also backup and see the bigger picture of what I'm really doing.

Check it out: Delicious Bean Burgers.

I'm not a big tea person. I like coffee with lots of cream and sugar. But this tea is so good--Lyons original blend. Too bad Elizabeth likes it too. Now I need to figure out how to wash my couch.

The changes in the phone industry have me excited. I've hade a serious distaste for phone, but they are starting to become things I can live with. For example, imagine having a local phone number attached to your cell phone for each of these countries and having the best international rates possible for every one of these countries and more.

Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Chile, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States

I've got my eye on a new pre-pay cell phone service called MaxRoam. They provide you with a sim card that you can slide into any unlocked cell phone. The SIM card can have up to 50 phone numbers (2 Euro/mo each) associated with it. You can make international calls at rates that are reasonable instead of highway robbery. In fact, one of their main goals in business is to be constantly be negotiating the lowest international rates that they can manage and they promise to pass them on to the customer as soon as they get them.

The implication for missionaries seems rather significant. Consider this quote from MaxRoam's Sean O Mahony on their blog:

So I don't get accused of anything untoward here. These are my assumptions: A US traveler with a mobile roaming into these countries and calling back to the US. The exchange rate I have used is .71 eurocents to the US dollar.

Bahamas
MAXroam: $0.41 per minute
T-Mobile: $2.99 per minute
AT&T: $2.29 per minute

Greece
MAXroam: $0.64 per minute
T-Mobile: $1.49 per minute
AT&T: $1.29 per minute

...

There are so many ways that this will be disruptive to the cell phone industry. Just having a competitor with such low rates should help drop the rates elsewhere significantly, but forget the international stuff. They are also actually paying attention to their customers! When was the last time your cell company did that? It's been awhile for me. They are giving their customers flexibility that hasn't been imagined by many. If you travel much, it may be worth checking this out.

We had the pleasure of hosting a large (for our apartment) group of people tonight. Rachel put on a great three course meal. Brian McIntyre (minus his wife Debbie and kids) & Coleen Scigliano are in town for their exit interviews today and tomorrow respectively. This is the point in the process where the mission checks up to be sure that the departing missionary has all their paperwork, support, etc. together before heading to the field. It is supposed to occur 1 month before planned departure. Anyway, We had them as well as a Ghanian pastor, the President of the board (Don Clark) and his wife over. We enjoyed serving them. All had been to Ghana except us so we heard a lot of new things about Ghana and what these new missionaries expect to see when they arrive. They talked about the items they missed in the container that is already packed and on its way. Things like dishes and special pillows won't be seen for almost a month, maybe more.

Be in prayer for the container which holds all the items that they need to setup their home when they arrive. News came from the shipping company today that it is taking longer to process the container than they thought. In fact, if it doesn't get on the ship leaving in three days, they may have a delay of a full month. Having already made their plans and bought their tickets, they are understandably concerned that they may arrive in Ghana and have no household goods.

Don Clark, President of the FIM's board as well as CMTS's, shared a story. He told about a container that was loaded up by CMTS (like the Ghanian group's) and just as they were taking it away, the container flipped on its side. Apparently, it took a long time for it to be righted and caused it to miss its boat. A month later, just as it would have been arriving in the country, riots broke out and it is highly likely that the container would have been raided and emptied of all items of worth. God works in mysterious ways. Who knows what may be in store for this container going to Ghana, but pray for theses people as they make the transition into the country of Ghana, joining the group they will be working with there.

I was asked to talk on the topic "Each One, Reach One" at the Men's prayer breakfast. I encouraged the men to think about what they can do to become a part of evangelism in this place called the Internet.

Sand Gnat is a true short story by Pam McCormick, FIM missionary in Haiti. She tells about her interactions with a boy in Haiti that needed to see love and how that is beginning to change his life.