Lost in Translation

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.