Lost in Translation

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!

I just finished one of my projects for the year (nothing like last-minute work, heh?). Please visit our new seminary website:

Seminario Bautista de Colombia

Por favor visíte nuestro nuevo sitio web del Seminario Bautista de Colombia.

I finished about two weeks ago the biography on Jonathan Edwards by Ian Murray. Excellent and very interesting! My new goal is to start reading more of Edwards, seeing as I share his name, he is John Piper´s inspiration (Piper says he´s trying to be a 21st Century Edwards), and his theology is challenging to me.

A new guy at church loaned me Edward´s Religious Affections in Spanish, so I´ve started reading it. I was at the biggest Christian book warehouse in Bogotá today and noticed a whole section by the same publisher, called Faro de Gracia. They are publishing helpful Reformed books in Spanish, especially for pastors. What a blessing to see more and more good materials in Spanish!

Today started early at about 4:30 a.m. as Marcos woke me up. I got up, made some coffee (yes, I love Colombia!), and opened my new Bible (la Biblia de las Américas) to Jeremiah 24, where God says, "My eyes will watch over them for their good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them. I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart" (NIV). I was thinking about how today was such a crucial day for our church. We were going to vote on whether to accept Daniel as the new pastor. I didn´t think there was much chance humanly speaking because I had talked to a member last night about the vote, and he said he wasn´t going because he didn´t feel peace about the selection process; you gotta love boycotts of church business meetings.

Things didn´t look promising at church as we got everything ready. José and I had done the count, and apparently we had the potential to have a quorum, but everyone we were planning on had to show up. During the break between Sunday School and church I noticed Alvaro who had not been able to be at church for a month. Blanca showed up, who had been gravely ill for about two months. God was at work!

When we started the meeting we ended up with one more person than the quorum we needed. Of 37 members we had a total of 27 people to vote (we needed 70% of the members to have the meeting). We ended up voting for Daniel with 22 votes in favor, for a percentage 81% in favor!

We also approved three deacons and the rest of the administrative committee.

Later we went to Bogotá to see our friends Nic and Megan and their 3 new adopted kids! They now have five, and in my opinion they are heroes. I´ve mentioned their blog before... check it out -- Colombian Brewed