My dear friends,
I am sorry for being absent for so long, especially right after I asked you to pray for my trip to KS. My computer at home has been throwing fits and making it time-consuming to post to my blog.

Thank you for your prayers for my trip to KS. I enjoyed my time there, encouraged/was encouraged by several supporters, visited friends at Plainview Mennonite Church, shared with various peoples at the college, and stayed up late talking too many nights. God gave me a lot of favor and grace--because of your prayers.

One of my office projects this week was phone training for the Call Center. On the weekends, they forward the calls that come from radio listeners to a cell phone so the call center staff can talk to supporters without having to be at the office. In the past, IT has always had to redirect the calls for them. But this week, I figured out how THEY can do it. So we created documentation and trained three people in the call center. Empowering others.

Please pray for me as I've been coughing all week. I think it's leftover from my asthma acting up last Friday, but I would really like it to get better.

You are a blessing!

I spoke briefly this evening with my dentist, Dr. C. He answered a few questions for me and said that I probably have bacteria attacking my lower gums. (Please pray for this to stop/heal.) During the converstion, I asked how he and Mrs. C were doing and he asked, hadn't I heard? He had been volunteering at the GFA booth at Acquire the Fire St. Louis when his back went out on him. He's been flat on his back for four days.

I interrupted him. It was Friday night when this happened, wasn't it? He confirmed that yes, it was late Friday night when his back went out.

Friday night--we had the youth over at our house for the scavenger hunt. After most of the people were gone, about four of us were left playing Nertz. Just as I went to deal my cards for the next round, Dr. C came to mind. I didn't know why, but felt I needed to pray. I considered going into my room and kneeling in prayer, but I was scared of what the others would think. So I prayed a few sentence prayers under my breath asking for strength and healing for Dr. C's back and just the right words to say at the booth. And I continued on with my game.

When I spoke with Dr. C tonight and the pieces came together, I thought perhaps God had been calling me to intercede on his behalf...and I ignore God's promptings. No, I'm not beating myself up over this. Just learning for next time.

When we entered the Communications area of the building, we passed some private offices (Dan, Tom, SW, Terrill). Now the room is opening up into a large area filled with cubicles. Two of the cubicles on our left and one there in the center of the room are home to our Staff Services department. MC, CE, and JD work hard to take care of the paperwork and communication that needs to happen to keep an office of 77 full time workers working effectively. They care for everything from insurance to vacation time to office policies to support raising help.

The "support raising" leads me to another topic. Each of the staff here at the ministry raise their own financial support (like missionaries). Why? This allows the gifts that come in for missionaries and tracts and radio broadcasts to go to the mission field without us taking a percentage for administrative costs. I spent eight months raising most of my support before arriving down here and now I only have $100/month left to raise. That's 10 people at $10/month. So I'm off to Kanas this weekend to visit college friends and share with people and churches during this weekend as well. We'll be taking a break from the building tour until I get back mid-next week. Please pray for the time I have with friends and supporters and future supporters. I'll also be sharing in classes at the college. Pray for God to speak through me.

This evening, I held in my hands a letter in Hindi--written in response to one of our radio broadcasts in Asia. The man who wrote it had read a tract and listened to our radio broadcast and now led several church classes. He wrote the radio headquarters there in Asia to request one tract for each of the students so they could also read about it. The names of the students took up three full notebook pages.

Where were we on the building tour? Oh, right, here at the photo/videography department. Three people work in this set of offices. SW edits our video footage, Terrill travels to India and the surounding countries to gather photos for the SEND! Magazine and footage for the videos, and DB is our "digital librarian" who keeps all the reports and pictures labeled and sorted. We have several dozen field correspondents throughout the subcontinent of India who are sending reports and stories from the missionaries back to this office so we can encourage you. You can stop by www.gfa.org to see the stories that are updated ever day. OR check out the photo of the week. I've been doing quite a bit of work with this department recently. I routed requests for Terrill to get additional laptop batteries before he heads overseas at the end of the month. Talked to Terrill today about staff training he'll be doing on Thursday morning. Worked with SW's Entourage on her G5 Mac.

I stopped by SW's apartment this evening and enjoyed conversing with her. I was tired and having a pity party and needed someone to talk me out of it. And she did. We discussed time with God, dedication, discipline, and much more. I was challenged when she stated: "Each morning, I wake up with excitment, wondering, 'What is God going to show me today?'"

We'll return to the building tour tomorrow (as I return to work and get a few pictures to help out). I'll be returning to the office a little early tomorrow morning to take my shower there. You see, our lawn service was weed eating around the gas meter yesterday when it developed a leak. TXU got the leak fixed, but they neglected to turn the gas back on. So... no hot water. We'll call them tomorrow.

You know, a cold shower isn't that big of a deal compared to the rest of the world's challenges. I was blessed this evening to sit at the feet of one of our Indian leaders as he told us what some of the missionaries and workers on the field are going through. I am blessed in more ways than one. I came home after supper contemplating those blessings and then found this list on my sister's blog.

Let me take a quick break from the building tour... Tonight was a ton of fun. About 20 youth (ages 18-30) gathered at our house this evening for a scavenger hunt challenge! We were divided into teams and then sent through a series of clues. The first clue sent us to D&H's house where we put together a puzzle before we could get our next clue. The digital camera went with us to document the entire thing. We improved a two minute skit, dove fully dressed into a cold pool to get the clue at the bottom, built a pyramid with strangers in Tom Thumb, leapfrogged through Wendy's and bought $0.25 worth of gas. We also built community. I really enjoyed getting to interact with one of my teammates who arrived at the ministry two weeks before I did, but I've never gotten to know. It was really nice when my team won. All the teams returned to our house for hot cocoa afterward and we viewed the digital pictures of the night. When I get a good one on the computer, I'll post it for you.

Here's a picture Dan took of the printing presses. We have four presses currently operating--all of them in India. You can see more pictures at www.gfa.org/gfa/bibles or stop by to see footage of the presses in action.

Do you see the dark windows on the second story of the round entryway in the building picture? As we come up the circular staircase from the lobby, we're on the other side of those windows. The GFA library is located here with missionary biographies, foundational books on the Christian faith, tapes, CDs, and authors from Watchman Nee to C.S. Lewis to Chuck Swindoll. I keep planning to check out the MP3s of The Jesus Style by Gayle Erwin. I'm really enjoying reading the book.

Anway... there is so much to see in the office, it will take me quite a while to show it all to you. Oops, here, let me open those double glass doors for you. Okay, let's take a sharp right into the Communications department. Let's see... Dan's office is on the right. He's Bro. KP's son and spends most of his time in India with the work there. He's a pastor and a professor at the seminary. J's office is next. J. is the Operations Manager for the office. He oversees the day to day operations of the Dallas office, but he also travels to pastors' conferences and speaks in churches. J and his wife have four daughters--all of whom volunteer in the office. We might see them later writing stories for the website, scanning missionary pictures, packaging up missionary sponsorships, or processing gifts. Then on our right, we have Tom's office. Tom works with two areas: staff recruitment for the Dallas office and US radio broadcasts. He also travels to conferences and is out most weekends speaking in churches. His wife and two kids also volunteer in the office two days a week.

Off to our left is the Photo/Video department. Let me go check with Terrill. He should have some pictures of the printing press you were asking about. I think Dan was the one who took the pictures when they were setting up the presses in India, but Terrill keeps all those files. While I check on that, you can check out this staff picture. We've grown by 10+ staff members since then, but you should be able to find me.

Auntie B---- on the phone at the front desk. The white paper/clipboard at the center of the desk is where we sign in and out for lunch and errands.

Welcome to the new building. Ready to go? I usually use the far north entrance, but since I have a visitor with me, we'll use the front entrance into the round entry lobby. Behind the desk is B---- (whom most of us affectionately call "Auntie B----"). She's our receptionist and main switchboard operator. See that wall behind her? I'm sure you can read the English word "Welcome." The other characters also mean "Welcome"--spelled out in 13 other major languages including French, Hindi, Chinese, Bengali, and I'm not sure what else. Auntie B---- is a dear. She greets each visitor with a "honey," signs them in, and gives them their name tag... there you go with yours. (It says "Visitor" and has your name on it.) Now you're ready to start seeing the rest of the building. Since the lobby is the main entrance to the building, it also gets used as a welcoming center. Just this afternoon, we had two of our leaders arrive from India for a special conference and we all gathered here to greet them.

Let's go ahead up the circular stairs through the library and then to the Communications department.... Oh, did you hear about Ratnaraj and his classmates in Maharashtra, India? We just got the report in. 45 new Christians in a town that was originally hostile to the team of Bible School students who were sharing their faith. In the midst of persecution, God's still answering prayers.

A partial front view of GFA's new building. We'll enter through doors in the front round section.

It continues to be busy in the IT department and I continue to attempt to discipline myself to get to bed on time. Working at a desk all day requires more sleep to achieve the recommended level of alertness.

I was thinking... I could take you, my readers, through a tour of the office building here at Carrollton, introducing you to office staff (names changed) and helping you understand what our part is in reaching the villages of Asia. Would you like to come along? Good! Just stop by the office tomorrow and we'll get started.

I'm tempted to create a "Good Morning George" parody for either my life as helpdesk or for GFA. It might have too many inside jokes for everyone to understand, but maybe you can help me. We're struggling with the: "I have to drive a truck--to make a buck--so I can send it home to my family." Our last (pathetic) try was: "I have to pray real hard--and write my cards--so I can send a native missionary."

I'm trying desparately to get my newsletters sent out to you. Pray that I can get them finished and in the mail this week! I'm off to bed now as I'm tired and my head hurts. I did get a 4 hour nap this afternoon--that was good!

Somehow it seems hard to imagine that tomorrow is Monday again. I've got several goals for the week: training users on Project Web Access, setting up IT training tips to be available on the intranet, and... um... phone training on Thursday!

We had a beautiful rain here all day today--the gentle kind of rain that any farmer would love for his newly planted wheat. I wish I could have sent it to Kansas, but I know that the farmers (somewhere) around here must love it too.

This morning many ladies from the office gathered to share time-saving and organizational tips. So this afternoon I came home and attempted to work on cleaning out my clutter. Then this evening I think I wasted all the time I saved visiting www.flylady.com where I read about how to keep my house clean. If just read about it, is that enough?

Tomorrow is the Lord's Day. May God refresh you as you worship with your church family.

It was a crazy day today and I'm just now finishing up my weekly report. End of a long week. So I've got some shopping to do and some baking to do and some cleaning to do and some paper sorting to do. Even "missionaries" have normal stuff in life.

I'm planning on being at Sterling the 22nd - 25th of October. If you're a Sterling person currently, spread the word around and leave me a comment. But don't leave your email with the comment. The spam machines will pick it up and send you yucky stuff. I'm already planning on meeting up with Luke and April and Jen and Laura. So many others can't come. Quote David: "What is K. thinking, not buying a ticket to fly back up from Quatemala? So selfish!"

I'm grateful for friends... and for quiet.

The blog has been a little slow due to the fact my home computer isn't listening to me. It's talking to the router, but won't ping an outside IP address. We're working on it.

I would urge you to stop by www.gfa.org/latestnews. We've had report of at least three missionary death threats, two missionary kidnappings, and of various other ongoing persecution.

Sunday at church, Pastor John asked the church to pray for Pastor Kumar. He and his church members were being threatened with death. Afterward, several people asked if that was one of GFA's missionaries and if I worked with him.

"Yes, it's one of our missionaries," I replied. "However, I don't work with him directly. One of the mission field correspondents emailed the report to H---- who wrote it up into email form and sent it to T-- who sent it out to the email update list for people to pray. I worked with H---- on her laptop last Wednesday and worked on T--'s computer the week before that. I just work in the background so the other people can get their work done."

And you? You support and pray in the background so I can work in the background so others can work and the missionaries can work and the Gospel can GO FORTH!

The Making of a New Testament

If you've ever toured a pressroom when printing is under way, you know what a noisy place it can be. Every 90 minutes, two massive rolls ("webs") of paper, each weighing 700 pounds, run simultaneously through our web press to produce 32-page printed signatures, or sections. The signatures are then collated and assembled into complete New Testaments.

After Scriptures come off the press, they are loaded onto trucks and shipped to the appropriate field leaders for distribution to native missionaries. They are placed in the hands of GFA workers like John in Maharashtra. Before he goes witnessing, John stuffs his cloth shoulder bag with a fresh supply of Hindi New Testaments. He offers one to those he meets and explains, "This tell you everything you need to know about Jesus!"

www.gfa.org/gfa/bibles

Quote from my church's secretary: "You're so sweet. If only we could duplicate you multiple times!!!"

Asked Pat: "Is that redundant?"