The Great Commission is our Mission.
Our last field term in Ukarumpa, there was no mobile phone service at all in Ukarumpa, except for bulky and expensive hand-held satellite phones. Now, there is service from two different companies! One of those (B-Mobile) has excellent signal strength in Ukarumpa but high airtime prices. The other (Digicel) has better coverage most places in …
Read More Mobile Telephone Service in Ukarumpa!A helicopter is a wonderful but expensive machine. With it, we save lives. We do that by moving Bible translators into places they can’t get with fixed wing aircraft or wheeled vehicles to bring the Word of God to people so that they can be saved. Eternal life is the greatest gift we can get …
Read More Saving LivesWhen doing Christian mission work, it is often necessary to consider the effects of email and the Internet when going into areas with opposition. Much mission work goes on in technologically advanced, developed countries. (That isn’t a good description of where I work, but I did take this picture within about 200 meters of a …
Read More Missionary Email Security in Sensitive AreasAnother missionary working in Papua New Guinea (and currently on another island) told my wife that they only got a newsletter out about once or twice a year. It is hard, and they just can’t “whip one out like [Michael] does.” I have a confession. I don’t just “whip out” a newsletter. OK, maybe a …
Read More Behind the ScenesI haven’t written much, here. I’ve been pretty busy with life, in general. There is so much that I want to do, and there seems to be so little time to do it. It takes some time to adjust to such a different place and culture, even though we have been here before. Not only …
Read More Random ThoughtsI’m back living in Ukarumpa, again, and reflecting on life as a nomad for Jesus Christ. It is hard to express the full depth of the experience, strength and variety of emotions, the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, and the precious that we go through as a family when moving internationally between such …
Read More Morning CloudsI was recently informed about the existence of a new freely downloadable Bible study program, called Bible Explorer. I’ve seen many of them, and some are rather amateurish, but this one is of professional quality. It reminds me of the old WordSearch software that I used to use a long time ago, except for the …
Read More Bible Explorer 4The U. S. Postal Service could learn a valuable lesson in customer service from the Australians. In Australia, you can decline junk mail at your mailbox, and the letter carrier honours your request. Cool, huh? Speaking of junk mail, I’d like to take this opportunity to answer some of it. This is most likely the …
Read More No Junk MailI got to read Tom Sholes’ book, Rocks in my Backpack, before leaving the USA. I found out that he did, indeed mention me in his book and its associated web site, http://rocksinmybackpack.com, both by name and by photo, as he did many of the hundreds of boys (and girls) who had participated in his …
Read More Rocks in my BackpackOn Mother’s Day, my Mom told me that my scoutmaster wrote a book about his scouting experiences. Now, I’m curious. I wonder if, among all of the many boys he had grow up in his troop, he mentioned me, either by name, or by incident. Thinking back, I probably didn’t do much to deserve a …
Read More Night on Missouri MountainIt turns out that my journal entries were not totally obliterated, just temporarily inaccessible. With a bit of labor, I was able to recover all of the posts in my blog. In the process, I decided to move the blog from the Rainbow Missions leased server to a “free” account on WordPress.com. Although this has …
Read More Blog RestoredYou would think that after more than three decades of working with computers, I would be better about backing up my data. Apparently, I’m not. I’m OK with regular files, but I hadn’t gotten around to setting up a proper backup system for MySQL data on my server, including my WordPress blog entries. A software …
Read More Backup!