Being in missions in Europe is weird. I mean, its like nothing else one can experience. One day you can be in Ukraine installing a computer center and just a few days later, you can be in southern Switzerland face to face with a cow. Krista, Alex and I are currently in Switzerland on our “First Termers Retreat”. What this is is a time for us to get away with some other GEM missionaries who have come to the field in the last couple of years to assess how well we are doing in transitioning to living in a different culture. Much of the information we have heard is the same as what we heard in our pre-field training only now it’s in a different perspective as we have experience living in this different culture.

Our group here is made up of people who are mainly living in Germany. However, there is a family who is a living in Ireland. Those of us living in Germany, there are two groups: those that are in Germany because the whole of their ministry is to the Germans and those who live in Germany but whose ministry is all around Europe. We are a part of that later group. Its really interesting as we discuss looking our new culture, those of us who work all over Europe are having to look at all the different cultures we interact in. It is all very brain hurting. Pray for us.

Yesterday, we went to a farm (hence the picture of the cow above) that is owned by the owner of the hotel we are staying in. Alex had a lot of fun running around the barn seeing all the different cows and calves. The farmer did tell us that he was expecting one of the cows to go into labor either tonight or tomorrow. Alex wants to go back and see it.

Well, I’ll blog more about this later. I’ll also be uploading a lot more pictures when I get back home and have my really high speed internet connection. Until then - Tschuess!!!

Well, after installing and working with WordPress >2.0 on several other people’s websites, I finally upgraded mine from WordPress 1.5.2 to the latest and greatest - WordPress 2.3.1 . Yeah!! I am so happy. I just finally got sick of all the comment spam that I was getting (they didn’t show up on the site because I have to approve all comments before they go live here). Today, I had 20 comment spams before lunch. I got fed up so I upgraded.

I didn’t even have an upgrade plan - I just downloaded the zip, unpacked it, deleted the files they told me to, uploaded the new ones, and ran the upgrade script for my database. I know, I should have backed up but it was a last minute thing anyways.

Well, it looks like the site on the whole is in good shape with the upgrade. And that was a big upgrade too so I really thought more things should have been broken but for the most part things are working.

I just gotta fix my blogroll and I think there may be a couple of other things but I just have to find them. I also need to update my theme (what makes this site look and feel the way that it does). Let me know if there’s something the matter with my site - I’d sure appreciate it!

Well, I’m back on the road again this next week. Should be able to do some posts from where I’m going and the best part of it - Alex and Krista get to go with me. I’ll try and get some good pictures in too.

We received a package the other day from my sister with some things we can’t get (or easily get) here in Germany. In the package, she sent Alex this police uniform with a baton, handcuffs and radio. He’s been having a blast with them.

Me? I got several boxes of Kraft Mac & Cheese (should really be Cheese & Mac but I think they’ve had the debate before).

Check out more pictures of Alex in uniform here in the Photo Album.

Thank you to all of you that prayed for us while we were in Ukraine. It was an amazing trip. It was awesome to see and hear how God is working in Ukraine - using technology to train leaders and for outreach purposes.

The first part of our time in Ukraine was an eLearning Center (eLC) Directors meeting. We have over 18 (actually more now but that in a moment) eLCs in Ukraine and most of these eLCs are in churches scattered across the country. eDOT invited those church leaders who are involved in using the eLCs to come to Kiev (Ukraine’s capital) for a time of encouragement, more training on how to use the eLCs more effectively and for them to meet each other. Our goal is that they will be each other’s greatest resources and to hear how each of the centers are being used is just amazing. Some are a part of ministries that are focused on outreaches to orphanages, some are focused on adult education, while others are focused on reaching local ethnic communities. How they use the computers is just slightly different in each context but they were able to share these differences with one another sparking new ideas and excitement. It was just great getting to know these church leaders and to share in their passion to reach Ukraine for Christ.

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Above you see a traditional Ukrainian toilet. No, you don’t sit on it! This is how most of the public restrooms are here and honestly, it took me a while to figure out HOW to use them and I’m still not able to really USE them. Unfortunately, I get a leg cramp.

Thank you to all of you who prayed for our eLC Directors Conference that eDOT sponsored this last weekend. There was a great exchange of ideas and it was awesome to get updates from many of the elearning centers and hear more about how God is using their computer ministries within their communities. I hope to share more of these stories later.

Half of our team left today and returned to Germany. There are three of us still in Ukraine as we are working on installing a new configuration of an eLC. In the past, our eLCs have been either all Linux based or part Windows and part Linux. This new configuration is an all Windows based configuration. After spending several days trying to get Windows 2003 Server loaded and configured, we figured out that the server we were using was designed for Linux and will not support Windows 2003 Server. So I am taking this moment to write to ya’ll while our partners here in Ukraine are running the server back for one that will run Windows 2003 Server.

So please pray for us as we are suppose to leave tomorrow for the location to where we are to install this new eLC which is about 300 km from Kiev. We are scheduled to fly back from Ukraine on Friday and so we really need to finish up the configuration tonight (sleep, not needed right? We can sleep in the van on the way there!)

Also pray for our families as this has been a long trip with little communication (we have been in areas without Internet access and what access we have had has been very slow). We are at that point in our trip that we are missing being with our families.

Thank you and God bless. Oh, and remember us the next time you are able to SIT on the toilet.