Our wireless internet access is down at home... you would think it would be good to live with a computer techie, but I can't seem to get it figured out. So I have to resort to posting after hours at the office.

Well, I'm just getting ready to leave the office. And four of my co-workers are still here! I stayed late because I suddenly had the opportunity to attend a training class in Dallas tomorrow so I needed to get a few things done this evening. Setting up printers to share, adding Word macros to profiles, writing down emails of conversations so other people can act on them.

Ooh! The "printer and macros" thing mentioned above is a good way of connecting me to the field. You see, the office in India sends us the updates of the missionaries via the SCP server (big secure computer). AJ, in our Missions department, receives the updates. She runs the updates through a series of macros (mini programs) that check, count, rename, and relocate the updates to the correct file system. Then she runs another macro that prints the correct number of the copies of each update.

Today... AJ's program had trouble access the SCP server, so she emailed helpdesk and I called her and we got that set up. Her computer had also lost track of the macros that she needed to run, so she called me and we made the changes so she could successfully process the updates. Then we setup the printer to share with another staff member so they could both work printing and sending the missionary updates to the Christians in the US who were praying for them and supporting them.

Thanks to all of you for your prayers and support!!! Pray that I can learn lots tomorrow and represent the ministry well.

Well, prayer meeting ended about 5:30. We cleaned up the kitchen and the meeting room and headed home about 6. I dropped Lei off so she could go to bed and then I went to breakfast with some of the guys from the office. We started talking about the pictures we have on the wall of the Dallas office. Pictures of missionaries witnessing, baptizing, and praying. Pictures of churches and villages and tracts. When the missionaries from Asia were here in May, one of them commented as he walked past a picture: "And there I am again."

BK had spoken with one of the missionaries and drew our attention to a parallel. You see, we have pictures of the missionaries up on our walls because, in a sense, they are our heros. However, in some of the offices in Asia, they have pictures of the office staff and supporters in America on their walls. You see, you are their hero. Your prayers and gifts make a difference.

Well, now it's 7:30 and I'm going to bed.

It's 11:15PM and All Night Prayer is just beginning. And my eyes are already getting heavy. So while others are down getting coffee and cookies during our 20 minute break, I'm blogging and trying to wake up. I thought about making short posts multiple times during the evening so you could pray with us. But I don't have computer access in the meeting room.

We've been praying for Bhutan tonight. A country of 2.1 million people, less than 10,000 of them are Christians. 73% are Bhuddist. 40% are below the age of 15. 82% are illiterate. Bhutan makes the top ten list of countries where Christians are most persecuted. It is also ranked as the second least evangelized country in the world. The Maldive Islands are the least.

Becoming a Christian in Bhutan means giving up your right to healthcare, education, land ownership, goverment ID card, travel, and citzenship.

Fun: Several of us went to a nearby town and watched their Christmas parade this evening. I must admit that it was a little strange to watch a parade and not know the people on the floats. Afterwards, we stopped by Starbucks to warm up with hot chocolate. As we entered Starbucks, we could hear the music playing through the speakers: "I'm my own grandpa. It sounds funny I know, but it really is so..." They played Froggie Went a-courtin' and Puff the Magic Dragon and so many others. Then, to add memories to strangeness, they had Shrinky Dinks on the tables with colored pencils for us to color. For those of us 25 and over, it brought back memories. Those under 25 had no clue what Shrinky Dinks were. We colored our patterns and brought them back to the house to shrink them. Too bad the oven light burned out after the first 45 seconds.

Ministry: Today was a day of restructuring and changes for IT. We're trying to rework helpdesk and staff computer training to make them more effective. Takes a lot of work on everyone's parts. Please pray that I can be a visionary in seeing what direction things need to go and how best to implement those.

This Friday night is extended night of prayer. And I mean extended. Starts at 8PM. Ends sometime around 6AM. Come join us! Stop by www.gfa.org and call us for more information. We'll be learning about and praying for Bhutan...among other things.

Several statements that have caught my attention or made me think (or laugh) recently:

1) Monday evening I took K. out for ice cream at Carvel's for her 16th birthday. I also arranged for three of her friends to meet us there. Between the ice cream and the laughter, the four girls (ages 14-16) were discussing what age one should be to get married. Although thoughts differed, they all thought that they needed to be married by 21 because, "everyone knows that 21 is so old!" "Thank you. Thank you very much," I interjected. "No, it's different for you," K quickly replied, "You know you're not old." (I just realized that her comment looks much different in type than it sounds in audio. The emphasis was on the "know"... never mind. It made it sound like it was the fact that I knew I wasn't old that made the difference.)

2) I was talking with Lei today and she referred to the music one listens to being "representative of the filter they're placing on their life." When someone says "filter" to me, I think internet filter. A device you deliberately put in place to keep bad stuff out. What kind of filter do I have on my life?

3) At lunch with a new staff member today, I was sharing about wheat harvest and how it affects my understanding of the Bible mentions of harvest. "You throw yourself into it, working, long days, pushing yourself as hard as you can for that short amount of time. You do whatever you have to do to get the harvest in. But there is a difference. Wheat harvest is an average of three weeks. You can push yourself to exhaustion for three weeks. This harvest [meaning spiritual] is much longer than three weeks. You can't push yourself that hard."

LJ turned to me with a look of sudden intensity and replied, "Oh, but it is three weeks." Confused, I just looked at him as he spread his arms wide, punctuating his words with his hands. "This and this is eternity." He brought his hands so they were barely an inch a part. "This is the harvest."