Lost in Translation

I haven't been blogging faithfully (can you say "nada") because I've been logging some quality hours on our church website for Colombia. You can check out the result here:

Impacto Bíblico

By the way, the site runs on Wordpress and the Thesis theme. My experience with Wordpress makes me want to change this blog over, but we'll see if and when that happens.

This is really nothing new for us who work in Latin America, but if you're not up to speed on the majority of growing "Christian" churches in that region of the world you should read the following article by Christianity Today:

Power Pentecostalisms

I just ran across a good source of material for missionaries, especially if you have a Kindle (see my previous posts on the Kindle for conversion of files to a Kindle-readable format).

Missionary ETexts

They say the following on their website:

"Our emphasis is on missionaries whose spiritual lives or missionary experiences are of potential value to us today. This is motivated by Paul's teaching concerning the value of following the example of worthy lives (Phil. 3:17)."

I don't know about you, but I like their focus, and I'm sure I can find much good reading material for the future on their site.

My brother just sent me a link to one of Kevin Bauder's posts on liberal education and the trivium.

Liberal education

Por San Juan Crisóstomo s. IV.

Queridísimos, es una cosa muy buena la lectura de las divinas Escrituras. Da sabiduría al alma, eleva la mente al cielo, hace al hombre agradecido, nos impulsa a no admirar las realidades de aquí abajo, sino a vivir con el pensamiento puesto allá arriba, a realizar todas nuestras obras con la mirada fija en la recompensa que nos dará el Señor, a dedicarnos al trabajo de la virtud con gran entusiasmo. Gracias a ellas, podemos conocer la providencia de Dios, siempre dispuesta a prestar auxilio; la valentía de los justos, la bondad del Señor, la grandeza de los premios. Nos pueden impulsar a imitar fervorosamente la piedad de hombres generosos, para no adormecernos en las batallas espirituales y para confiar en las promesas divinas antes de que se cumplan.

Por esto os exhorto: ¡leamos con mucha atención las Escrituras divinas! Alcanzaremos su verdadera comprensión si nos dedicamos siempre a ellas. No es posible, en efecto, que quien demuestra gran cuidado y deseo de conocer las palabras divinas se quede en la estacada. Incluso si no tiene ningún maestro, el Señor mismo entrará en nuestros corazones, iluminará nuestra inteligencia, nos revelará las verdades escondidas; será Él nuestro Maestro en lo que no comprendamos, con tal de que nosotros estemos dispuestos a hacer lo que podamos (...).

Cuando tomamos en nuestras manos el libro espiritual, hemos de poner en vela nuestro espíritu, recoger nuestros pensamientos, echar fuera cualquier preocupación terrena. Dediquémonos entonces a la lectura con mucha devoción, con gran atención, para que se nos conceda que el Espíritu Santo nos guíe a la comprensión de lo que está escrito, sacando así gran utilidad. Aquel hombre eunuco y bárbaro, ministro de la reina de los etíopes, que era un hombre importante, no descuidaba la lectura de la Escritura ni siquiera cuando estaba de viaje. Teniendo en sus manos al profeta [Isaías], leía con mucha atención, incluso sin comprender lo que tenía ante sus ojos; pero como ponía de su parte cuanto podía -diligencia, entusiasmo y atención-, obtuvo un guía (cfr Hech 8,26-40).

Considera, por tanto, qué gran cosa es no descuidar la lectura de la Escritura tampoco durante los viajes, ni yendo en carro. Escuchen esto quienes ni siquiera en su propia casa admiten que haya que leer la Sagrada Escritura, con la excusa de que conviven con su mujer o militan en el ejército, porque están preocupados por los hijos, dedicados al cuidado de los parientes, o comprometidos en otros negocios.

Ese hombre era eunuco y bárbaro: dos circunstancias suficientes para que hubiese sido negligente. Otros factores eran su dignidad y sus grandes riquezas, y el hecho de viajar en una carroza, pues no es fácil dedicarse a la lectura cuando se viaja así; más aún, resulta costoso. Y, sin embargo, su deseo y su celo superaban cualquier impedimento. Hasta tal punto estaba enfrascado en la lectura, que no decía lo que muchos repiten en el día de hoy: "No entiendo lo que contiene, no logro comprender la profundidad de la Escritura; ¿por qué, pues, voy a sujetarme inútilmente y sin fruto a la fatiga de leer, sin que nadie me guíe?". Nada de eso pensaba aquel hombre, bárbaro por la lengua pero sabio por el pensamiento. Creía que Dios no lo despreciaría, sino que le mandaría alguna ayuda de lo alto, con tal de que él hubiese puesto lo que estaba de su parte, dedicándose a la lectura. Por eso, el Padre benigno, viendo su íntimo deseo, no le descuidó ni le abandonó a sí mismo, sino que le mandó enseguida un maestro.

Este bárbaro está en condiciones de ser maestro de todos nosotros: de quienes llevan una vida privada, de quienes están enrolados en el ejército, de quienes gozan de autoridad. En una palabra, puede ser maestro de todos; no sólo de los hombres, sino también de las mujeres -tanto más que siempre están en casa-, y de los que han elegido la vida monástica. Aprendan todos que ninguna circunstancia es obstáculo para leer la palabra divina, que es posible hacerlo no sólo en casa, sino en la plaza, de viaje, en compañía de otros o cuando estamos metidos en plena actividad. Si nosotros hacemos lo que está en nuestra mano, pronto encontraremos quien nos enseñe. Porque el Señor, viendo nuestro afán por las realidades espirituales, no nos despreciará, sino que nos mandará una luz del cielo e iluminará nuestra alma. No descuidemos, por tanto -os lo ruego-, la lectura de la Escritura.

Tomado de Estudios bíblicos de la red

Several things have come together in the last month that have caused me to evaluate the books that I read and how I read them. I went to a conference at BILD International here in Ames, which challenged me on this topic. I read a post by Kevin Bauder called "Give Attendance to Reading." And I've been talking to my brother Josh, who is working on a master's degree in English from the University of St. Thomas in the Twin Cities.

Let me share a few things I've learned.

We should turn every book we read into a resource. In other words, we should have a system for saving the insights we receive from any book. Jeff Reid, the president of BILD, has a good set of points that this resource should include from each book.

• Bibliographical info


• Statement of main idea/thesis


• Description of core concepts


• Diagram or chart of key ideas (if applicable)


• Summary of key issues and questions: What are the "disturbing" issues or questions that the book raises for you? List at least two issues and several questions that come to your mind about each of the issues. These main issues and questions can be used later to engage others in discussion about the book.


• Significant quotes


• List of growth and development ideas that come out of your reading of the book

This information needs to be stored in a retrievable format. I'm using Mendeley Desktop for this task, although you could just as easily save it in Word.

The benefits of doing this for every book you read are obvious. Why didn't I start this about ten years ago? I also think that every pastor and missionary should read How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler. It was revolutionary for me.

Dr. Bauder writes about having a plan for reading. He reads regularly from six categories: biblical studies, theology, philosphy, history, fiction/literature, and miscellaneous. As a missionary, I would include a category on Colombia and another on Spanish, but I'm sure his system could include those two categories.

The idea of the trivium in classical education has an interesting application to the reading of books. The trivium includes three aspects: grammar (understanding the basic principles of any subject), logic (analyzing the subject), and rhetoric (expressing your ideas on the subject). This applies nicely to the reading of books, especially more difficult ones. We must first understand the book, which means we must read it through. Then we can analyze it, and finally we can express our view of it. Usually we skip ahead the the third level without doing the hard work at the first two levels. This also means we need to read books multiple times (if they're worthy of it).

The third level of rhetoric requires the interaction of other people. I can see a wonderful application of this stage towards ministry training. We can engage our disciples and interns in Socratic-type discussions of important books during their time with us. We all develop more depth of understanding and wisdom as iron sharpens iron.

This focus also lends itself very well to reading the "Great Books." Of course the Great Book is the Bible, but other books have stood the test of time. As Adler says, the Great Books are "over our head" by definition and therefore stretch us as we reach towards understanding them.

This approach also guards us from meditating too much on the latest fads in ministry. The Great Books have endured precisely because they are not faddish. We do have to occasionally read popular books because they are influening people (I'm struggling through The Shack right now), but I think that our long-term impact will be greater if we focus on reading books that have endured.

Well, I hope this post has been helpful. I know that I've been opened up to many new possibilities in reading as I've pondered these resources and ideas.

I just presented a 50 minutes session today in two missions classes at Faith Baptist Bible College on graphic arts for missionaries. If you're interesting in the topic, you can download the two sets of notes I used:

Basic Design Concepts by Dr. Wayne Haston

Graphic Arts for Missionaries by Jonathan Boyd

My dad hired fishing guide Ross Crowe for a day on Rainy Lake on Thursday. Believe me when I say it was the best walleye fishing I've ever had! We caught over 50 fish in total, and I think that I landed about 20. We had to throw back about 7 because they were in the slot size (about 20-23 inches each). Ross takes you to the best spots and has great equipment and had just the right hints to help us catch fish. He showed us where to find the walleyes (hidden reefs not on the topo maps are best), what bait to use (minnows on orange/red/black jigs), what rod to use (sensitive graphite), and how to fish (use a Lowrance sonar to find the fish and stay in one spot no more than 20 minutes because there are only so many active feeders).

Well, after the thrill of victory on Thursday, Dad and I took Holly out on Friday. I figured that we could give her a little of our experience. Wrong! Can you say "agony of defeat"? We got basically skunked (Dad caught a baby walleye) and came back wet and cold.

This made me think about ministry. Why is it that some churches flourish like the fishing with Ross, while others languish like our experience yesterday? I obviously don't have any definitive answers, but here are a few of my thoughts. (Note: These are not formulas to success, rather they are emphases that lead to God's blessing. He's ultimately the One who blesses or withholds his blessing.)

1) How central is the gospel to your ministry? The more we can center our lives and ministries on the gospel (the fact that Jesus died for our sins), the more we will see God's blessing. Now, numbers don't give us a good indication about how central the gospel is to a given ministry. I know that some ministries in difficult countries (e.g. Germany) may be more gospel-centered than a ministry with big numbers in an "easier" place of ministry (e.g. Brazil). My question is, "How gospel-centered is the average member in my church?" In other words, when a conflict comes up, does your average member think about the cross, or think about other things? What motivates our members? It should be the love of Christ in the cross (2 Cor. 5:14-15), but I'm afraid that's far from many people's minds on a regular basis.


2) How well are you working as a team in your ministry? The longer I serve as a missionary the more I see that one guy cannot build a ministry like a team can (even Paul worked with a team). Are we looking for qualified servants in our churches and training them for ministry? Are we handing over ministries that do not match our gifts and abilities? Are we humble enough to work with a team and hear them tell us what we're doing wrong?


3) Are we passionate about Jesus Christ and the ministry we're involved in? I've seen a number of churches in which it seems that no one is passionate about anything (except maybe sports). I tend to be a fairly laid back guy, but I've realized that I need to grow in passion for Jesus Christ and ministry. I'm asking God to change me. I'm not content with where I'm at.

We also need to be passionate about the location and people we are called to serve. As one writer said, you need be able to say "Give me [insert your location here] or I die!" This passion for Jesus Christ and a love for the people should translate into a passion for evangelism. Just as we caught a lot of fish with Ross, we should long for a sould harvest in our communities. It's happened before; why can't it happen again?

These are just a few things I've been thinking about as a result of our fishing trip...

Acabo de encontrar unos mapas de ciudades de Colombia (como Mapquest) que se pueden usar para encontrar las direcciones:

Mapas Publicar

We just got back from our whirlwind trip to Colombia. All we had to do was touch down so they could stamp our passports, but we tried to use the time as profitably as possible.

We ended up staying an extra night in Newark because they offered us $400/person in credit, hotel, and food for the night because the flight was overbooked. Not a bad deal.

We arrived late on Thursday night and spent Friday resting because Lucas got sick from the change in altitude.

On Sunday I preached at Grace Baptist Church in Chia... wow, my brain didn't want to work too well in Spanish, but people said it was okay. Later we ate lunch at the pastor's house. Pastor Daniel has had his share of struggles in the ministry but things are looking up.

We visited our friends Alfredo and Juana in Tenjo and had a refreshing time with them. We visited a number of other friends during our time in Chia.

Conclusion: We enjoyed our time in Colombia, but it was clear that our burden for the country has changed. We felt like visitors in Bogotá and Chía because our burden has moved to the coast. I can't believe that it's only about 5 months until we go back! I'm more excited than ever about beginning a new church plant on the Colombian coast.

I'll be facilitating the first online course ever offered by our seminary in Bogotá through the Horizon International Schools (ABWE's distance education entity). I'm pretty excited as the course looks very well-designed. It's on the panorama of the NT. I'm looking to only have ten students as this is the pilot course we're offering. The course runs for 15 weeks, starting on September 1st.

http://moodle.horizonintl.org/
Look at the link below that says, "Español - Bogotá" (haga clic en el vínculo de abajo que dice "Español - Bogotá").

Voy a dirigir el primer curso por internet que nuestro seminario en Bogotá ofrece. El curso empieza el 1 de septiembre y va por 15 semanas. Si quiere inscribirse, por favor comuníquese con Claudia en la Denominación Bautista en Bogotá.

Aquí está la descripción del curso:

Por siglos la Biblia ha demandado los mejores esfuerzos de los que la estudian. Es nuestro privilegio unirnos a la legión de estos eruditos, conforme iniciamos un estudio sistemático sobre la literatura del Nuevo Testamento, la cual relata la historia de Cristo y sus apóstoles. Si nos entregamos a la tarea de todo corazón, cosecharemos beneficios eternos al adquirir una comprensión de la obra de Dios en el pasado y el presente. Cada libro del Nuevo Testamento, sin excepción, testifica de Jesucristo. Por lo tanto, queremos que nuestro estudio tenga como resultado una relación personal más profunda con el Cristo resucitado. Como Pablo, queremos "conocerle" (Filipenses 3: 10). En la medida en que lo conozcamos mejor, seremos enriquecidos personalmente y nuestras vidas harán un impacto cada vez mayor para Dios.

We had a great week of camp at Bass Lake Camp in Winnebago, MN. Thanks for your prayers! I was noticing that being in your home culture makes things easier for communication. I could say "aunt" with the MN pronunciation and no one would look at me funny.

I've also been thinking about cultural adaptation and location. I could work in any part of Colombia and adapt. I'm a missionary to Colombia. But I don't know if I could work anywhere in the U.S. because it's my country and I've developed ideas and prejudices about certain regions. Or to put it more positively, I would really struggle with certain regions. I would constantly be fighting the culture. I've recently heard of several pastors who've had this problem. You can't expect to move from the South to Iowa or Minnesota and not have a bit of culture shock. Things are just different.

This is another reason that cross-cultural missionaries are needed. Many times the "locals" are blinded to the needs or unwilling to meet them. Take the example of hispanic ministry here in the U.S. How many churches are reaching out to them? For many it's a stretch that they're not willing to make. I was excited to hear that First Baptist in Austin, MN has started an outreach to hispanics and now has over 50 in attendence on Sundays!

May the Lord stretch us all to reach people with the gospel... even if they're from a different culture.

We'll be at Bass Lake Senior high camp next week. Please pray for the following four sessions that I'll be leading (Tuesday to Friday).

Class outline – 4 class sessions

• The gospel should be the center of life and ministry.
• The cross is the key to peace with God and growth in God.
• Colombia is a beautiful country with a great need for the gospel.
• Missionaries are normal people who’ve been called to share the gospel in another culture.

Here are some prayer requests for the students:

• That they will feel more profoundly their sinfulness.
• That they will feel overwhelmed by the grace of God in the gospel.
• That they will feel more interest for Colombia and her people.
• That they will feel that if God calls them to missions, they will gladly surrender themselves to him.

I didn't want to forget where this tool is located on the web... It's fantastic for getting a color scheme that impacts. I've just been thinking about designing a church website, so I was looking at some color schemes. Oh, it's also a fun toy.

Color scheme designer

I was talking to Holly about the changes we made to our website. One thing I'd dropped was the prayer blog, mostly because I wasn't disciplined enough to update it regularly. But prayer is indispensable for our ministry. We're going to be on the front lines of church planting and leadership training. Satan does not like that! So, from now on I will post our prayer requests here on my blog and on our homepage there will also be a link to the "prayer" category.

Prayer requests for July:
1) We're traveling out to ABWE for our board meetings this Thursday.

2) We'll be at Bass Lake Camp from July 20-24. Please pray that God would work mightily in the teens' lives. I have four sessions to teach them, and the topic is "Cross-centered missionary ministry in Colombia." Pray that they would understand the gospel and all of its implications for our lives. Pray that teens would be saved and called to missions.

3) We are praying that the last $260 of monthly support needed would come in. Pray that the new churches considering our ministry would have the economic capacity to take us on as missionaries.

4) Spiritual growth in our lives. Prayer for chances to share the good news of Jesus with more people. Pray for our personal walk with God and as a family.

Think Smart: A Neurologist's Prescription for Improving Your Brain's Performance

I skimmed this book on brain health and learned some interesting things. I've always felt that missionaries, pastors, and seminary professors need to take care of themselves. As we seek to share God's Word, we must devote much energy towards studying.

A lesser emphasized point is that we must spend time taking care of our bodies (which directly affects our brain and thus our ability to think well). For biblical proof, note that Paul says that God is "for the body" (1 Cor. 6:13) and that our body is the "temple of the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 6:19). Obviously our body can become a god to us if we overemphasize it, but we must not neglect its care either.

Here are a few points about our brains that were new for me:

• Our bad cholesterol level affects every aspect of our health, including the ability of our brain to function well. This is an important point for me to read, as the doctor said that I need to lower my bad cholesterol levels.
  
• Our short term memories are stored in the frontal lobes of our brain. We need to develop this part by intentionally trying to hold different things in our memory at the same time (work it a little), and by trying to remember things that we should know (Google doesn't help here).
  
• Memory experts use the part of the brain that deals with spatial relationships to remember things. For example, a man who could recite about 10,000 digits of pi saw all of the numbers in a landscape of colors and sounds. Now, I can't do that, but I have tried to view the Bible as a spatial entity. For example, I almost see Romans as a cathedral in my mind. People sometimes wonder how I can remember passages so well and that's how I do it. I don't just think of a the numbers of a Bible reference, but think about the book like a building and note where I'm at in the building.
  
• Working on memorization or on a certain skill is only effective up to a certain point on any given day. Your brain needs a night of rest to cement the memorization or the new skill. In other words, writing your whole sermon on Saturday night is not the best way to recall your study on Sunday.
  
• People who have an advanced degree (or extensive informal study) are less likely to suffer from Alzheimer's disease (or at least it staves it off). Along a related note, watching TV is one of the worst things we can do for our brains. In contrast, reading a book or writing or even playing video games can help us develop our God-given mental capacities.
  

One final note for those who love Colombian coffee: It's very likely that drinking two cups a day is beneficial for our brains. Yeah science!

I was thinking yesterday about how we should spend our time on furlough. I thought about how I should be doing everything that I might want to do next year but won't have time because we'll be in the midst of a new church plant.

One goal was to redesign our website and blogs. You can see the results. Let me know what you think.

The Boyds to Colombia
Holly's blog

I finished reading a free ebook on my Kindle last week called World Wide Rave, which the author offered free for a number of days on Kindle. What an interesting book! His basic idea is that you need to write something and offer it for free on Internet. If a ton of people start downloading it and talking about it, you'll soon be known as an authority on the subject. Then you can charge big bucks to speak at conferences, etc. Although his focus is different than mine, you can learn a lot about how today's culture works and how to spread your ideas better.

All that to say that he recommended negative titles in blogs. So you'll notice the word NOT in the title, which according to the author will drive more people to this post.

Here are a few reasons not to use a Kindle reading device (see my previous post on the Kindle to hear my initial reaction):

1) You don't want to read great Christian classics for free.
I had wanted to get Calvin's Institutes for a long time. The price tag was stopping me. Now I have it on my Kindle and I can read it lying down (try that with the print edition!). To access lots of free Christian classics, go to the Christian Classics Ethereal Library and download the book in PDF (unfortunately it can't be scanned images of the pages). Download the free Mobipocket eBook Creator and convert the PDF to an ebook. Then just dump the SRC file into your Documents folder on the Kindle and you've got a free Christian classic. But if you want to pay for all of those free classics or not read them, don't get a Kindle!

2) You don't want to get a feel for new/interesting/important books for free.
How many of you have read The Shack? Neither have I, but I have read the first chapter for free on my Kindle. You can always download the first chapter for free from the Kindle store. If I see a book that listed in "Books of Note," I'll often download the free content just to get a feel for the book. Or if I am reading in one book and it mentions another one that interests me, I'll just download the first chapter for future reference. But if you don't want to be up on anything new for free, don't get a Kindle!

3) You don't want to be able to take advantage of downtime on the spur of the moment.
Yesterday we were traveling back from Illinois and it dawned on me that I had some time to do some reading in the car, but I didn't have the book I wanted. I talked to Holly about buying it and went onto the Kindle Store and bought it within about 2 minutes. In our trip back I read about four chapters of my new book on apologetics. But if you don't want to be able to stock your library in a few minutes with a new book, don't get a Kindle!

Well, it's kind of fun to be negative, isn't it?

I've mentioned various cross-centered books before, but I received a book for free that is frankly one of the best books I've read on the Christian life. It's entitled The Bookends of the Christian Life by Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington.

The book explains practically how the righteousness of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit need to be the two bookends of our Christian life--in other words everything in our lives must be channeled through these two aspects of the Christian walk and rely on them.

The book helps us answer the following questions (taken from their material):
* How can I overcome persistent guilt?
* How can I deal with the pressure to measure up?
* Where can I find the motivation it takes to grow?
* How can I live the Christian life with both my head and my heart?
* How can I be sure God loves me?
* How can I change in an authentic and lasting way?


I'm not done with the book yet, but I've already been encouraged and challenged by a number of points in the book, especially when the authors talk about the gospel enemy of persistent guilt. For each topic they ask a series of practical questions to see how you're doing. The section on persistent guilt spoke to my heart as I tend to beat myself over the head with my failures and shortcomings.

The authors also have a website that includes study guides. I would recommend this book for every Christian, for small groups, for church-wide reading, etc.

My only question is, "When is it coming out in Spanish?"

(Photos of Santa Marta from vcardenas' on flickr.com)

Well, it looks like Operation Cali has been put on hold. I talked to José two days ago, and his family will not be able to accompany us to Cali for various reasons. I told him not to worry about it because God is sovereign and we have other options.

We are not committed to a Plan B yet, but right now our most likely option would be to join the Carters and the Medinas on the Colombian coast. In fact, Alfredo called me today to encourage me and talk a little about the possibility of working on the coast. I've gone with Alfredo and Scott on three investigative trips around Colombia and have always had a blast with them, not to mention been spiritually encouraged and challenged.

Our most likely starting point for working on the coast would be Santa Marta. If that's the case, I'm sure we'll have more "work teams" that want to come down to help us.

Note: I'm blogging from a Mac... We bought the kids a used iMac G5. It's nice.

Since we've been on furlough I've have had more time to read. I've been reading a number of "cross-centered" books, but have also had time to read some more diverse books. Here are a few:

Living the Cross Centered Life by C. J. Mahaney
This book is easy to read, but the concepts are wonderful! I've been on a six-month quest to think through the implications of cross-centered living and ministry and this book helped me.

The Cross of Christ by John Stott

I'm reading an older edition (McGrath doesn't show up), but this book has given me a deeper understanding of the cross. Stott is great for pointing out things that I'd never noticed in the text before (e.g. Jesus was "saying" "Father forgive them...", not just "said").

The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University by Kevin Roose
This has been the most fascinating book I've read this year (I read it on my Kindle). It's about a student from Brown University who goes to Liberty University and pretends to be a Christian. He experienced in one semester more of college life than I think I experienced in four years at my Bible college. He writes from a secular persective and sheds light on many aspects of Liberty's culture and the way that American college students view the Christian faith. There are a few things that are a little rough around the edges, but I felt like I was living in the Liberty dorms with Kevin. Highly recommended for you Bible college deans out there!

Cross-cultural Servanthood: Serving the World in Christ-like Humility by Duane Elmer

Pastor Will loaned me this one and I enjoyed it. I thought that most of the book was common sense, although I know that that isn't always that common. We need to model openness, acceptance, and trust in order to serve people as Jesus did. The author shares a number of moving illustrations of these truths. Note: this book is not just for missionaries. If we look around we need cross-cultural servanthood almost every day in a lot of the U.S. (Today in Ames I interacted with two people from Colombia, a friend from Morocco and a lady from Israel).

I just ran across a site that offers free-of-charge hymns that are Christ-centered. I've only sung "His Robes for Mine," but it brought tears to my eyes. Wonderful piece!

Church Works Media

We used Innovative Graphics for our first prayer card, and Nate Horton did a great job. I was thinking about using his services again, but a missionary told me about a way to do it myself. Note: I'm a second termer now, so I tend to think more about the budget (if I spend less on the cards I can spend a little more on conferences this year).

I designed our new card in Photoshop Elements. The key is to use large images and set them to a resolution of 300 DPI. We had to get a copyright release from Target to be able to use the photo for our prayer card. The only other thing that I had to learn about is that they should be formatted in CYMK (cyan, magenta, yellow, key [black]) for printing, rather than RGB (which is for graphics on your screen). Photoshop Elements can't do that, but the Copyworks in Ames has the full version of Photoshop which can easily convert the file.

Once the design was ready, I went to Overnight Prints (thanks Jim Leonard for telling me about this site!). 1,000 glossy cards only cost $115 plus shipping!

Here's the front of our new card:

Acabo de encontrar un sitio bueno con recursos centrados en el evangelio:

Traducciones de recursos

I have several goals for this home assignment year that have to do with organization. So far I've been doing well at improving. I thought that I'd mention two tools that I think are helpful:

1) You Need A Budget (YNAB): I bought the Excel version of this software about two months ago. So far it's been working wonders on our budgeting. The software is simple. Each month you allocate all of your money to different categories and then track your spending. To make the budget work you need to spend last month's income, so you need to have a buffer of one month's pay. This tactic makes living off of a variable income more manageable. I've never stuck to a budget very well before, but we're doing great so far. The only problem will be dealing with two currencies in Colombia... I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

2) Getting Things Done by David Allen: This book is great! It's teaching me how to organize my life into a coherent system so that I don't lose things and waste so much time. My problem before was that I had systems for some things but not for everything. This book teaches you to manage the "stuff" that comes into your life in one system.

I just received my new Kindle 2 reading device on Monday. I wanted to write a review of the Kindle with special attention given to this device as a huge blessing for overseas missionaries. Missionaries, although it's a little expensive ($359) this might be a good gift that you could suggest to a church (Thank you to the family that sent us a personal gift that covered more than half of the cost of ours!).

First impressions: I didn't get to look at the Kindle for a while because it was Monday and I was the professor in our homeschool. My wife began reading the book (of course on the Kindle) about how to run it. Not a bad idea seeing as I messed something up today because I didn't know how to connect/disconnect it from my computer. The device is slick looking, and not too heavy. The new screen technology is interesting. When you shut it down you see a light impression of the last image that was on the screen. When you put it into sleep mode, a full screen picture or painting of some famous author appears. Very stylish touch! I expected the screen to look a little whiter, but you get used to its light gray color after a little bit. As far as the physical aspect of reading is concerned, a book beats the Kindle. Unless it's an unwieldy tome, in which case the Kindle would win (I think of Grudem's theology as a possible Kindle winner).

Big blessings: Hey, let's be honest, the Kindle has some features that are better than a normal book. For example, I've found many books for free. Amazon has classics for free, and with the free Mobipocket eBook Creator you can convert many books in PDF to books that you can read on your Kindle. I just downloaded a bunch of John Piper's books (including one in Spanish) in PDF and converted them. They're now happily on my Kindle waiting to be read. This possibility to read PDFs is a huge benefit as a missionary. I had a number of PDFs on my desktop about church planting that someday I was going to read. But reading a PDF on my computer is about as fun as dealing with traffic in Bogotá (it's not). Now they're on my Kindle, waiting to be read.

Another blessing is the dictionary that comes with the Kindle. I was reading Robinson Crusoe (another freebie) to Lucas yesterday. I love that book! When I read it the first time in book form, I didn't understand a lot of words, but now I can expend roughly 2 seconds to place the cursor over the word and see the definition at the bottom of the page. I would like to see more language support for the Kindle (español por favor), but until then I'll have to use my dictionary in book form while reading books in Spanish on the Kindle.

Two other cool features:
It's very cool to be able to hear about a book you want, look it up, and have it in your hands in roughly 3 minutes. The Whispernet feature, which allows that, isn't available in other countries yet, so we missionaries will have to enjoy it while we're on furlough. On the field we'll have to rough it to such an incredible degree that we'll have to connect the Kindle to our computer to load the books on it (granted, on the Amazon River that may not work so well, but in Bogotá or Cali it'll be fine).

Do you like things for free? I do! As you may know, the best news about something free is the gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ (look up Ephesians 2:8-9 on your Kindle). The Kindle also offers something for free--while in the U.S. you can read the first chapter of books for free in order to sample them. My pastor was talking about the book Worship Matters by Bob Kauflin. So I downloaded the first chapter for free. As Dr. Myron used to say, dating before marriage with books. Read the first chapter and buy the book if you like it. If you don't, say goodbye and get on with your life (without losing a penny).

The best benefit for overseas missionaries: For me the best benefit for missionaries is the cost savings on books. I believe that missionaries should stay connected to the rest of the world to some extent. Gone are the days when missionaries had to live in isolation from all theological and ministry discussions going on outside their country of service. For that reason I read Evangelical Missions Quarterly (a journal for missionaries) and like to order a book every so often. But the shipping prices were ruthless. To ship to Colombia we were paying about 50% of the total cost in shipping, and about six months ago the government started taxing any package from overseas (even gifts) so we were going to have to pay that. Say goodbye to shipping costs with the Kindle! Not to mention that most Kindle books are cheaper than the print versions. For example, Worship Matters costs $12.23 in print form and $7.99 on Kindle. That's a 34% savings if you like math. In my case I suspect that the Kindle will pay for itself in a year or two.

Bottom line: Churches, think about blessing your missionaries with a Kindle. Missionaries, weigh the cost and the benefits to see if a Kindle might help you live out the gospel better where you're at.

Okay, Scala is not the way to go for your presentation needs because it is a program from about 9 years ago. I called ABWE, and they recommended ProShow Gold ($69.95). Wow, what a great program! I was able to set up all of our presentation yesterday (granted I had all of the pictures in order, etc.) in several hours. You can add video, sound tracks, images, and cool transitions. The best thing is that you can export the presentation to various formats, including DVD. No more worrying if my computer will function properly because almost every church would have a way to show a DVD.

The word (great) is in parenthesis above because I don't claim to have all of the secrets, but here is the basic strategy I used for our presentation.

1) Start with your script. It's best to center the script around one basic idea. In our first presentation we used the idea of "A new perspective on Colombia." This time I used a comparison between the operation that rescued Ingrid Betancourt and Operation Cali, which will be the effort to rescue people from spiritual darkness in Cali. Read your script out loud several times and have another person read it to help you evaluate it.

2) Record your script. I used our church's sound system in Colombia to record it.

3) Pick your music. For our script I used about five different tracks to go along with the script. A site that I used was Audiosarx. Since a missionary presentation is an educational use of the music I was able to purchase two tracks for about $2 each. You can search based on mood and style. I also purchased another track or two from Amazon.

3) Edit your recorded script and mix the music. Thanks to my ministry partner José for the idea to download a 30-day trial version of Adobe Audio Adition. Excellent program! I was able to fix up a few errors in my recorded script and mix the tracks together to make the final version of the sound track.

4) Organize and edit your fotos and backgrounds for the presentation. I used Photoshop Elements 2.0 for this task. Elements (now available in a more advanced version) is cheap and great for this kind of thing. I bought a book before we got to the field on using the program and it was worth every penny. You can make some very professional looking slides. I used flickr.com to find many photos for the presentation. I use Advanced Search and search for photos that are licensed under a Creative Commons license, which can be used for non-profit stuff. Just be careful because sometimes photos show up that are not helpful spiritually, although that is rare if you're using search terms for a missionary presentation.

5) Put the photos into the presentation and sync to the sound track. I'm at this step right now. We use Scala's iPlay Studio (now a legacy product) as our presentation program. It can sync each image to a hundredth of a second. I think that it costs about $60 and you can google it's name to find it.

This process has definitely gotten easier since we did it six years ago. We didn't use any of the above websites, which make the process a lot easier.

(Note: The picture of Marcos has nothing to do with the post... it's just to make you smile.)

We've been back a little more than a week now. How do I feel about being in Iowa? Here are a few contrasts I've noticed:

1) Iowa is cold. I'd forgotten just how cold, but after four years in climates ranging from 55 degrees to 85 degrees, these Iowa winds and temps are making me miss Colombia.

2) Sticker shock on some things. Some things are a lot more expensive here. We're paying twice as much for our two bedroom apartment as we paid for a three bedroom house in Chía. Eating out here is expensive! But some things are cheaper here, like cereal and pork.

3) A lot of things are easier here. The Qwest guy came to hook up our phone and did it in about 1 minute without even entering our apartment building. In Chía we struggled for almost two months to get that line installed. Here we have a dishwasher, hot water in our sinks, Clorox cleaning wipes, etc. Driving is a cinch here. I could probably go to sleep at the wheel and be safer here than driving in Bogotá or Cali with three Colombian coffees to keep me alert. One blessing has been a good-sized pothole in our parking lot here. It reminds us of Colombia.

4) The language. Although English is my native tongue, I have to admit that I like Spanish better. Maybe because it's a challenge and I have to keep working at it. Several times I've been tempted to answer people in Spanish, especially over the phone or in the supermarket.

5) Our church. Wow, talk about organized here! It seems that every ministry has leaders; people seem to arrive on time... we would like to see that happen in Cali in our new church plant. Obviously it takes time, but I think that starting well will help.

All in all, it should be a good year in Iowa. It's a bit of culture shock, but we're missionaries and that's part of the fun.

We're back in the States now, and I'd like to write something about the contrasts I'm noticing after being out of the country for four years, but that'll have to wait. In the meantime (since I use this site to remember things) I found an online digital library from Colombia (in Spanish) that may be of help in the future.

Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango

As many of you know we homeschool are kids with Sonlight curriculum. I find the concept fascinating and ran across a new option for earning an accredited college degree with a homeschooling type model. Interesting idea!

CollegePlus

I preached my farewell sermon at La Gracia today on 1 Corinthians 13 and the gospel. We looked at 1 Cor 13 through the lense of the gospel, noting that the gospel equips us to love. For example, love is patient (a verb in Greek), and God has shown his patience with us (we looked at the parable in Mt 18 of the man who owed 10,000 talents and wouldn´t forgive the one who owed him 100 denarii... it uses the same verb as we see in 1 Cor 13).

As I pointed out this morning, 1 Cor 13 is beautiful but doesn´t tell us where we get the strength to put it into practice. But in the gospel (which Paul focuses on in chapter 1-2 and 15) we are freed to love.

I didn´t see what the attendence was, but it was the fullest the building has been in a long time. Pastor Daniel has a lot to learn, but I trust that God will bless him and the church.

A group from one of José´s supporting churches is here, and they´ve been an inspiration. On Sunday we went to Zipaquirá to do street evangelism and pass out flyers to the new Baptist church that´s starting there. We went to the main plaza in the city and the group started singing. José preached a short five-minute message and we started to talk to people about Christ, using the Evangecube. Wow, people were really open and several people made professions of faith in Christ.

We did something similar but even better yesterday here in Chía. The team brought their huge Evangecube (www.e3resources.org), and they starting making free balloon animals for kids and painting faces. While the kids got their gifts, José preached the gospel using the huge Evangecube various times (I did it once). We estimate that 300 people heard the gospel in about 2 hours as we gave out 200 balloons and about 1,000 tracts. The amazing thing was how many people were interested in learning more. In fact one of the teachers in Lucas and Eliana´s daycare was really interested. We going to have her over to our house next week to share more with her.

My biggest regret: Why didn´t we do thing sooner? I would guess that at least two new people will come to church on Sunday because of our outreach. If we had done this every week, how many would have come to Christ by now? But no, instead we got wrapped up in church problems and missed many blessings. Oh well, in Cali!