Kahunapule’s Journal

Here it is, again. Time to produce a missionary newsletter. Actually, it is more properly called a prayer letter, because we want you to pray for us when you get it. Prayer letters are great things, because they help keep us connected with our partners, serve as reminders that we are still doing the work of the Lord that He has called us and our partners to do. I say us and our partners, of course, because there is no way we can do all of this ourselves. One, we couldn’t afford it, financially. Two, we probably could not stand the heat of the spiritual battle without prayer backup. We were, in fact, partially self-supporting when we first started in full-time Christian ministry, but once our savings were depleted in about 2001, that stopped being the case. Now, we have just the Lord to rely on for our physical needs. Fortunately, He is faithful, and He has called some wonderful friends to partner with us and keep us going. Praise the Lord!

Now, what do I write about in our prayer letter? Lori and I have, since the beginning of our missionary journey in 2000, tried to keep our official prayer letters under 2 pages. We figure that one 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of paper, written on both sides, using pictures liberally, and without resorting to itty-bitty type, is about the attention span of most of the busy people we send these to. That may or may not be true. We get, and read, longer newsletters, but it is also true that the really long ones tend to pile up somewhere to be read later. They may or may not actually get fully read, even if they are from dear friends. The space limit forces us to focus. It is hard, though. So much is going on in our lives and our ministry that it is hard to condense it all. In this journal, I allow myself the luxury of rambling on longer with no set space limit, but I also know that much fewer people will read it. That is OK. I feel better sometimes for having written it.

If you were to ask Rachel what our biggest news is, lately, she would probably tell you that we now have a kitten. His name is Puma. Rachel named him. Mostly, she calls him “kitty.” Rodents beware! This animal will be a mighty hunter in our house.

We were asked by one church to provide them with a 1-2 minute video presentation that they could use to promote missions during a Sunday service. Many of my friends asked me what we could do to condense our lives serving the Lord here down to two minutes or less. Good question. I tried, anyway. The result of my effort in that respect is posted at http://kahunapule.org/kmpj2008-03-24.mpg for your viewing pleasure. It is a huge (109,199,360 bytes) file, so great patience is required in downloading it, but I wanted to keep it high enough resolution that it would look good projected on a screen in front of a church. I even put the slide show in a format you can create a video DVD from, if you are familiar with zip files, ISO images, and burning DVDs. That file is huge (86,037,612 bytes), too. Fortunately, I managed to upload these files just before the rates went up for Internet usage, here. Internet access in Ukarumpa is outrageously expensive. It is actually about $9000/month for the satellite connection, which gives us about 200 kbps download capacity. We share the bandwidth and the cost among 262 users. Instead of just dividing the monthly cost per user evenly, which would result in a charge of about $34.35/month, the SIL PNG Branch powers that be have decided to divide the cost proportional to usage in megabytes. It used to be, up through March, that the only bytes metered for billing were HTTP downloads on ports 80 and 443 (regular and secure web browsing). Those bytes were charged at $0.25 per megabyte. Starting in April, all FTP and HTTP uploads and downloads are now billed at $0.225 per megabyte. That means that it would have cost me $43.92 to upload those two files to our web site. I probably would not have done that. Our budget is too tight. This billing scheme obviously keeps our usage down and our bills high– especially at a time when we are doing college search work for Ben and trying to find bargain air fares for Nate and Ben. I hope you enjoy the show, and can download it for free (even if it takes a while).

Speaking of money, someone asked how we were doing financially. Since we computed our fundraising requirements for living here, the U. S. dollar has dropped 11.8% against the PNG kina. Our support has dropped by 2.6%. We have had some unexpected extra expenses and price increases. Our savings are depleted. And it will cost about $4760 to get Nate here and back for a visit/mission trip, and Ben back to the USA for college, just in air fare alone, not counting stuff like food and lodging on the way. Then there is the matter of college tuition at the Christian college Ben has chosen to attend. In other words, if the Lord moves on you to help with any of this, please do. If not, you can still pray for our needs to be met. Don’t worry, though. God is faithful, and will not let us down.

One thing I always want to know when I support missionaries is what they are actually doing, and if they are still doing it. I still have my 40-hour-per-week job at SIL PNG Branch Aviation, doing computer support work, plus various other “side” ministries, like leading Bible studies, working on the World English Bible, etc. Lori still has her teaching and HIV/AIDS task force chair jobs, and still takes care of our children. Household tasks always seem to take longer, here. Stuff like having no automatic dishwasher (and not being able to afford one at the outrageous prices they cost, here) make a difference. There is no ordering out for pizza or anything like that. We do eat pizza, but it is a lot of work to make them. Naturally, Rachel keeps us busy, as you would expect from an active 3-year-old. The adoption paperwork saga continues. How long do you think it should take for the Social Services office in Port Moresby to fax a copy of a letter of consent to finalize the adoption to us? An hour? A day? A month? They got it in January, and it is now May, and I’m still waiting, and still calling periodically and getting new excuses. A friend of mine, also working on an adoption, spent a week in Port Moresby, in person, trying to get some papers moved about one block. It did finally work. Rachel, however, is still blissfully unaware of her precarious legal status. She knows that beyond the shadow of a doubt, she has a mommy, a daddy, and three big brothers that really love her. She knows that her name is Rachel Brianna Joy Johnson. We will keep at it until we get the required court decree to make that her legal status as well, opening the door to get her USA citizenship.

Also on the subject of waiting for the PNG government, all of our resident visas expired on the 31st of January. The PNG government has had our passports and visa renewal applications since December 2007, and still hasn’t finished processing them. Apparently, it is OK for us to stay here as long as the government is working on them, but if we try to leave without a valid visa, it is a crime. This has caused excessive stress to many people in this community. Of course, if the government should deny any of our visa applications, we would have to leave immediately. That would also be stressful, of course. I don’t think that will happen, but please pray that Ben’s visa gets processed by June and the rest of ours by November, at the latest.

Lori would like to go to a teacher’s conference in Hong Kong in November. That requires a visa. That also will require money for air fare, etc. Professional development for teachers is still important, here, but not very available in PNG.

We certainly have challenges, here, and I haven’t listed them all. I don’t intend to. Instead, I want to focus on some progress. I just started leading an inductive Bible Study for the current Translators’ Training Course. This is for about 49 people from 15 language groups. It is a joy to see how they pick up the Bible study techniques, and want to go back to their villages and show others how to do it. I got a little choked up, though, listening to one man lamenting how his grandparents didn’t know any of this. You see, the Gospel didn’t get to his village until after they had died. What can I say? We are working to fulfill the Great Commission, but I don’t think all of us fully realize how urgent the task is. At least the Gospel is going out to his village, now, and he is working on a Bible translation for his own language.

Translating a New Testament is a long task. It can take years, often decades. This year, the task finished for the Kube language in March, with a Bible dedication for those people. More dedications are coming up in June and August. Praise God!

Now, for my next trick, I’ll condense this to a few bullets, add some pictures and an article Lori wrote, and produce a proper prayer letter. It will lack many details, but it will probably be read by more people than this article.

We could really use some prayer, right now. There is an overabundance of circumstances that point to the likelihood of the enemy trying to cut off our supply lines in some sort of spiritual war turned physical. There is no way the Good News of Jesus Christ can be stopped by this, but I believe that we need to be active in prayer and in standing firm in the authority and responsibility granted to us by Jesus Christ to overcome these things. Some help agreeing with us in prayer and holding onto the promises of God on our behalf would be greatly appreciated. Here are a few concerns:

• Heavy rains and flooding have caused a bridge to be closed between us and Kainantu (where we could get on the Highlands Highway). There is no alternate bridge. There is no real alternate road (but there is a long motorcycle trail and a 4WD trail that goes through the river (not over it). This makes it harder to get supplies (like fuel and food) that are normally trucked in. The government has been informed of the outage on this national road, but higher priority road disasters (land slips on Daulo Pass and Kassam Pass), coupled with depleted funds from earlier repairs due to floods in other provinces make it unlikely that this will be fixed quickly.
• A man named Yanis Manki claims that because the creek that our community draws water from gets water drained from his land (with a valid government permit), he wants more money in compensation for that water. He got tired of waiting for the courts to act, so this morning, he took a mob of people past our guards to disable our water intake, in violation of a court order. Remember, this is in the rainy season, with about 29 inches of water in the last month falling out of the sky for free, and the issue has nothing to do with him needing more water. He clearly doesn’t. It would just run down the stream, into the river, past the eroding foundations of the afore-mention bridge. He just wants more money from the “rich” missionaries that what they offered him. Much more. We get plenty of drinking water from our roof, but this is the water we use to flush toilets with and do much of our washing.
• Our Internet access via satellite has been in a slow, intermittent, degraded state for about 3 weeks. In addition, our ISP just cut off access to the port I needed most to manage the web/ftp/mail server that hosts eBible.org and 40 other domains. Shortly after that, the server went down.
• There is more, like the still-missing engine on the airplane in the picture, the PNG visa situation, and adoption paperwork hassles, but I don’t want to whine, just motivate you to pray.

Now, it is a good time to remind ourselves of the GOOD NEWS.

• We win! Jesus Christ always causes us to triumph!
• We have eternal life.
• We get to live with God in Paradise.
• We will accomplish what Jesus sent us to accomplish, including getting the Word of God to more people in their own languages.
• We still have supplies, communications, etc.

Praise God!

The best place in the world to be is where God wants us to be, when He wants us to be there.
In 2007,

• We moved twice (once within Colorado, once back to Papua New Guinea).
• Lori renewed her teacher’s certificate.
• I continued Bible translation software development while in Colorado.
• Upon return to Papua New Guinea, Lori returned to teaching, and I started a new job doing custom database programming for the SIL PNG Aviation Department.
• Two of Rachel’s post-placement home study reports were mailed to oblivion while we were in the USA, and never received by the Social Services office in Port Moresby. There were no backup copies anywhere. It took us being physically present in Papua New Guinea to recover from that mess. The process still has a long way to go, but at least the paperwork is moving, now.
• We distributed about 1,000 fix-tuned radios that are permanently tuned to Wantok Radio Light.
• I repaired the Wantok Radio Light station in Kainantu twice.
• I have been leading a Bible study for 10th grade boys.

In 2008, our plans and goals are to:

• Continue with our present jobs (teaching and Aviation Department Computer support).
• Continue helping with Christian radio ministry as practical.
• Continue leading a Bible study for Evan’s class.
• Have a family vacation, including Nate.
• Get Ben enrolled in college in the USA.
• Complete Rachel’s legal adoption.
• Attempt to participate in some Bible translation software global open source programming projects.

Long-term missions have long-lasting benefits. We don’t plan to retire before Jesus comes back, as long as we are able to keep serving Him on Earth.

Alas, I just lost over a hundred photos and a camera, all in one loud “pop!” My Sony DSC-S600 camera, the one that I used to take the Asaro Mud Man photo, here, self-destructed. I had just shot a picture of a yellow-lapped honeyeater dining on hibiscus nectar, turned the camera off, and set it on the table next to me. Suddenly, it made a loud popping noise as the camera destroyed itself and the 4 GB memory card that was in it, without any apparent provocation. Sigh. That was annoying. Also lost were some really neat pictures I took on a recent trip to Goroka and back.

If that wasn’t enough, the same day, I found out that my old dog, Mandy, was so old and sick that my sister took her to the vet to be put down in the USA. And today, the first day of 2008, my elderly dog, Dallas, seems to be so sick that after several days of not eating, she just wants to lay down in a ditch and die. I didn’t know what to do, so I asked God to take care of it. He did.

You know, even when trouble comes, and it does that a lot on planet Earth, God is good. His mercy and loving kindness last forever. Keep smiling. Jesus has overcome the world. The glory of His reward far outshines the annoyances along the way. Blessed be the Name of the Lord!

The year just rolled over to 2008. What do I see? I see a more intense year in the battle between God’s light and dark enemies. Battles rage, and many people are so distracted that they don’t even see the conflict.

Have you noticed the drop in missions funding, and the trend away from long term (career) missions to short-term missions? There is, of course, a place for both long-term and short-term missions, and the important thing is to make sure you go the way the Lord leads. Don’t substitute one for the other when God calls you– do what He says if you want to be fruitful. I am concerned that more people are being called to long term missions than are going, however. You see, there are things you can do long term that are impossible short term. You can truly learn new languages and cultures and understand what it takes to truly impact people and cultures with the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a way that sticks and bears fruit far beyond what you see initially. Take a moment and ask yourself if you are one of those people called to go into a career as a Christian missionary. You can have all kinds of vocations within such a career– pastor, evangelist, administrator, aircraft mechanic, pilot, motorcycle mechanic, rocket scientist, custodian, doctor, nurse, teacher… whatever it takes to get the Word of God to people. There are also a lot of different organizations and movements that need help. Do some research, and listen to the Lord.

Is there a cost to long term missions. Yes. It costs you your life, really. You end up losing your life to gain it back again. The Lord may lead you outside of your comfort zone. OK, I’m pretty sure He does that for everyone who follows Him, at least once. There are dangers to going into another place and culture, but safety can’t be guaranteed anywhere this side of Heaven, really. When we get to Heaven, I plan to have lots of friends there worshiping the Father with us– friends I helped find the way there: Jesus Christ.

Think about it.

Ben’s auto mechanics project in the picture isn’t exactly what I’m talking about, although I’m thankful for that. Ben is making good progress on it, and it should soon be able to pass a safety inspection and be street legal.

What we really need is a reliable, rugged, 4-wheel-drive vehicle that we can drive along the Highlands Highway and lesser roads without fear of breakdown or getting stuck. Cars and trucks cost a lot in Papua New Guinea, because none are made here, there is a high import duty, and transportation charges are high. Nevertheless, I believe that the Lord will provide both an affordable vehicle and the money to buy it debt-free. If He puts it on your heart to help us with this need, please do.

In a land where only about 10% of the people have electrical power in their houses, you might wonder what good such technology as electronics, satellites, radio, and cell phones might be. Actually, such technology is very useful, indeed. Technology is no substitute for living and proclaiming the Word of God. It can, however, make it easier to reach people with the Word of God and make the logistics of getting the Word of God to new people groups much easier.

We rely heavily on communication satellites. All of our telephone calls from Ukarumpa to anywhere farther than Kainantu are carried by satellite, no matter which way we make them. The Papua New Guinea Christian Broadcasting Network (also known as Wantok Radio Light) uses a satellite channel to distribute its programming to FM radio stations scattered all over the country. Our Internet connection is via satellite. In a country consisting of about 600 islands, including the very large and mountainous island of New Guinea, satellite links are the most practical way to communicate in many cases. Running cables all over the place is way too expensive, and far to vulnerable to damage by vandals, earthquakes, and other problems. We also make heavy use of HF and UHF radio links.

A few weeks ago, the local Wantok Radio Light station in Kainantu stopped working. Its receiver (shown in the picture) apparently suffered damage to its RF front end in a lightning storm. The station manager sent a replacement up via an SIL flight, and I put the new one in place. Many people were happy to be able to hear their favorite Christian programming, again.

Although few people have electrical power in their houses in Papua New Guinea, there are many battery-operated radios listening in. We have distributed about 700 fix-tuned, solar powered radios to people in Wantok Radio Light’s service area, so far.

Yes, the Good News of Jesus Christ is simple enough for a child to believe. Rocket science can help deliver that good news.

A helicopter is a wonderful but expensive machine. With it, we save lives. We do that by moving Bible translators into places they can’t get with fixed wing aircraft or wheeled vehicles to bring the Word of God to people so that they can be saved. Eternal life is the greatest gift we can get from God. God, in His great wisdom, has tasked us, His children, with sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ with people so that they can believe in Him and gain eternal life with Him.

Of course, we also save lives with this machine in the more common sense, too. SIL Aviation recently made national news by saving the life of a pregnant mother in distress. It is good to show Jesus’ compassion in practical ways. See http://www.thenational.com.pg/100207/nation12.htm for that article.

So, how do we pay for this expensive machine? With a combination of donations and commercial work done with that machine in between Bible translation and life-saving runs.

Another missionary working in Papua New Guinea (and currently on another island) told my wife that they only got a newsletter out about once or twice a year. It is hard, and they just can’t “whip one out like [Michael] does.” I have a confession. I don’t just “whip out” a newsletter. OK, maybe a quick photo of the week email with no major content is pretty quick, but the “official” newsletter that we archive on our web site, email to our partners, and have printed and mailed to our email-less partners takes about two days of labor to produce. It would take less time if we made it longer, actually. We know that people are busy, so we endeavor to keep the newsletters short; no more than one sheet of 8.5 x 11 inch paper, printed on both sides, using type that most people won’t need a magnifying glass to read. In addition, we know that people like pictures. We like them, too. Pictures aren’t just fun to take, they are also effective tools to communicate a lot in a little time. Pictures tell stories. Of course, pictures bring to mind stories, too— usually more stories than I tell. Actually, one of the best things about our web site is that it gives me a place to put the overflow from stuff that didn’t make it into the newsletters. It also is a nice place to be able to post pictures without a really small size limit on the captions. Of course, I realize that not nearly as many people will read all that I post or enjoy the pictures as read our newsletters, but that is OK.

The richness of the full-color range of experiences and adventures with God here and in our travels just flat-out won’t fit in two pages every month or three. There are many significant things going on, times where God has gotten glory by protecting and healing His people, trials and victories over trials great and small, all mixed in with cross-cultural salsa and sprinkled with miracles. Sometimes it seems like a real struggle just to not lose heart, and other times, the joy of the Lord just overwhelms a guy. Through it all, God is faithful. Of course, adventures with God don’t require crossing large quantities of salt water. People struggle to grow close to the Lord in the busy USA, too. So, we keep trying to condense significant events, prayer requests, vision, thanks, and news of what we are doing into less than a page a month. Why do we even bother? Accountability. Reminders for both senders and sent of their dependence on each other. Reminders to pray. That makes it worth it.

Lately, I’ve been experimenting with making the newsletters a little “deeper,” at least for some people. By embedding hyperlinks in our newsletters, I make a way for people who are reading the electronic version online to dig a little deeper or see a little clearer picture with a simple click. At least that works for people who are on the Internet at the time. If they aren’t, or if they are looking at a printed copy, then they still get a decent newsletter.

I’ve also used prayer letter writing as a learning experience. I suppose that a normal person would figure out one software program for creating prayer letters and stick with it. I’ve used a wide variety of programs, sometimes just to learn to use that program. The most recent newsletter I produced was the first one that I produced with Scribus running under Ubuntu Linux. I like it. I think I’ll keep using Scribus for our newsletters for a while. It makes a really good PDF file for our purposes.

I haven’t written much, here. I’ve been pretty busy with life, in general. There is so much that I want to do, and there seems to be so little time to do it. It takes some time to adjust to such a different place and culture, even though we have been here before. Not only is it different than where we were in the USA, it is different in that many things have changed since I was here, last, and I’m doing a different job, here.

As I write this, I hear a flying fox outside. It seems to like the fruit on one of the trees by the front of our house. Fortunately, it is leaving our bananas and oranges alone. Flying foxes, bats with 4-foot wingspans, are interesting animals with a distinctive flapping sound to their flight. I still haven’t gotten a very good picture of a flying fox at night, although I’m thinking that a flash camera trap aimed at that fruit tree would work… but that sounds like too much expense and trouble to go through for a picture, right now.

Since arriving in PNG, I have felt four noticeable earthquakes, none severe enough to do any damage or wake up any teenagers trying to sleep in.

Last weekend, I worked on writing a newsletter. This time, I tried something different. I wrote it using Scribus instead of Adobe InDesign. I was very pleased with how well it worked, and how little time it took me to learn how to use it. Scribus is no where near a sophisticated as Adobe InDesign, but it is also nowhere near as expensive. Scribus is free and open source software. Adobe InDesign has a price that I never would have paid just to get software to do newsletters with. (I had a copy for use in Scripture typesetting applications.) Scribus has a very simplistic story editor that serves to emphasize the fact that you should author any nontrivial length of text in OpenOffice Writer, not Scribus. Actually, you can write a decent newsletter, complete with pictures, in OpenOffice Writer (also free software). However, the layout options and precision of picture placement and much richer in Scribus than OpenOffice Writer. I was also pleased with the PDF creation options built into Scribus. OpenOffice Writer can create PDF files, as well, but it doesn’t have an option for picture downsampling and recompression like Scribus does. Being able to tweak those things really helps when trying to find the best trade-off between high picture quality and small file size. Besides, it just plain feels good to be using free/libre open source software. Some activities are just too important to be locked into expensive proprietary software.

So, why would I post a picture of a truck carrying more than a truckload of people? Maybe you’ll be inspired to agree with us in prayer for the Lord to supply a good, reliable 4WD vehicle for us to use while we are in Papua New Guinea. The road in the photo is paved, but many roads are not paved around here, and some are often impassable without 4 wheel drive.

I told you this was a posting of random thoughts, didn’t I.

I’m back living in Ukarumpa, again, and reflecting on life as a nomad for Jesus Christ. It is hard to express the full depth of the experience, strength and variety of emotions, the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, and the precious that we go through as a family when moving internationally between such diverse cultures. So, I won’t really… but I’ll attempt a quick glimpse.

Some happy points:

• Confidence that we are following the Lord’s leading
• Getting back to the tropics (where my wife doesn’t object to snow, because there is none)
• Seeing good friends again after being apart for a long time
• Seeing fruit from our prayers for Christian radio
• Enjoying natural beauty in the area
• Seeing the funds come in to make this trip possible
• Seeing administrative barriers come down
• Tracking down the 1,000 lost radios and starting distribution
• Finding a faster and slightly cheaper Internet connection in Ukarumpa

Some hard points:

• Rats infesting our attic (we have killed at least 3, but I saw 2 more last night eating our bananas)
• Leaving friends and family in the USA behind
• Seeing Marie with advanced cancer saying “good bye” at the air strip, in hopes of seeing her family at her home village for a few days before heading on to Heaven
• Seeing that Rachel had been bitten by mosquitoes
• Discovering too late how complicated and time-consuming it is to get permission for Rachel to go on vacation with us in New Zealand
• Changing jobs without proper closure on the last job
• Dealing with another stall in Rachel’s adoption process
• Not having a working vehicle, yet

Points of hope:

• We trust Father God, and rest in His love
• We found a godly lawyer who may represent us in Rachel’s adoption
• No weapon formed against us will prosper
• We believe God will provide all we need to do all He wants us to do
• Making progress in my new job

To God be the glory!

I was recently informed about the existence of a new freely downloadable Bible study program, called Bible Explorer. I’ve seen many of them, and some are rather amateurish, but this one is of professional quality. It reminds me of the old WordSearch software that I used to use a long time ago, except for the most annoying thing that made me stop using that software. Indeed, the same people wrote this program as wrote that program. (I stopped using WordSearch because it kept accusing me of being a thief and stopped working whenever I upgraded my computer, reformatted, changed hard drives, or any number of other normal things people do. I just deleted it and bought copies of the same Bibles for another program instead of tolerating the repeated phone call activation process.)

I found the user interface to be intuitive, and easy to use, except for the confusing Internet connection setup options. There is actually no setting that really fits my situation as a nomadic missionary. I periodically use wireless Internet hotspots, sometimes use dial-up, sometimes use wired Ethernet, and often operate totally off line. It turns out that if you configure for an always-on connection, then pull the connection at the wrong time, you can get a long series of divide-by-zero errors and crash the program. You pretty much need an Internet connection for a while to get it set up. As near as I can tell, you can’t pre-download the extra books and such from the web site, but you have to do it from the program after it is installed. You are encouraged to register online, and rewarded with a copy of God’s Word translation of the Holy Bible and 14 other books if you do. All of those have to be downloaded (unless you have a CD, which I didn’t).

I didn’t test the purchase and download of for-pay books (since I already own an electronic library of Bibles in another format, and the cost is too high for this missionary to pay just to play), but the free books seem to use the same process, except for asking for payment.

Good points:

• Free for the downloading and registration, including the God’s Word translation. (Thanks go to both the software developers and translators for this one.)
• Easy, intuitive user interface.
• Preserves poetry and prose formatting.
• Multiple windows scroll together or separately, depending on which you prefer.
• Lots of Bibles and other books are available.
• Devoid of software activation and DRM restrictions, at least for the program and free books.

Not-so-good points:

• Proprietary source code and format for books.
• Missing an import mechanism for minority-language Bibles.
• Requires Microsoft Windows (but runs OK on my MacBook running Parallels and Microsoft Windows XP).

Recommendation:  if you are running Microsoft Windows on your computer, and you have a reasonable Internet connection, by all means download it. Try it. You might love it.

The U. S. Postal Service could learn a valuable lesson in customer service from the Australians. In Australia, you can decline junk mail at your mailbox, and the letter carrier honours your request. Cool, huh?

Speaking of junk mail, I’d like to take this opportunity to answer some of it. This is most likely the only answer much of my mail will ever get. We really like getting good mail, especially personal notes of encouragement, personal news, and things that you actually write yourself. Thank you for sending those. Now for the rest:

First, to the Nigerians (and others) who have a very large sum of money they would like to transfer to me, in exchange for personal information and perhaps some preliminary “smaller” amounts of money: Just use some of that massive amount of money to cover the costs involved, and send a certified cheque or money order to my current address. If you can’t do that, then I’m sorry, but I have no reason to believe that you are telling the truth. I admire your persistence, creativity, and apparent large numbers, but I strongly recommend that you repent, turn from your dishonest ways, and ask Jesus Christ to take charge of your life.

Second, to those who write to me asking for free Bibles and other Christian literature or money for your ministry, especially those of you in African nations, please note that the only free Bibles I give away are those Bibles in electronic form only that can be freely downloaded from http://eBible.org and associated web sites and those that my wife and I hand out in person to people the Lord leads us to do so with. Since you obviously have Internet access, please make use of this opportunity. Ask the Lord about what honest ways you can get a printed Bible, too, and if you are sincere, I have no doubt that He will answer. As for money for your ministry, we are already committed to give in ways the Lord has directed us, so we don’t really have anything to give out to strangers who send unsolicited email. Unless the Lord specifically directs otherwise, we don’t even answer such email requests (especially when they are mass-mailed).

Third, to those who want to sell me drugs by email, but lie about who they are and break the law in making their offers, I’m truly amazed that there are enough people stupid enough to take you up on your offers that you haven’t stopped trying, yet. Also, if you are advertising ways to enhance experiences that used to be taboo to discuss in mixed company or enlarge anatomical parts that really don’t need it, please stop. You are perpetuating lies about what really matters in such areas, and someone might actually believe you and suffer for it. Check out what the Scriptures say about marriage and proper relationships, and you may also see the keys to better physical relations that flow from better spiritual relations.

Fourth, to the pump & dump stock tip givers: may the FTC and IRS visit you soon, unless you repent, make good any unjust gain, and turn to Jesus Christ.

Fifth, to the phishers, pharmers, and liars seeking information for the purpose of theft: repent. Jesus Christ is merciful, but He does ask that you repent. That means stop doing evil and start doing what is right. He’ll help you to do that, too, if you ask Him to.

Sixth, to those who forward chain letters to us: please don’t. We don’t forward them. If it has good content (which a few actually do), we have probably already seen it. If it warns of a virus or some other evil, it is probably a hoax; and if it isn’t, we will have already been warned by some other more reliable and reputable means. If it promises riches, it is probably false. Email chain letters are really hard to kill. They mutate in the wild and keep coming back. Some email hoax chain letters have been circulating for decades.

I wish this little note worked as well as the notes on mailboxes in Australia.

I got to read Tom Sholes’ book, Rocks in my Backpack, before leaving the USA. I found out that he did, indeed mention me in his book and its associated web site, http://rocksinmybackpack.com, both by name and by photo, as he did many of the hundreds of boys (and girls) who had participated in his BSA troops and Explorer post. It wasn’t my solo arrival the morning after I was due back from an afternoon group hike that merited the mention, though, as I wondered out loud in my previous post. Mr. Sholes was nicer than that, although he did report several other death-defying incidents involving other boys.

I rate this book as definite recommended reading for anyone who is involved in scouting, including both BSA and Royal Rangers. There is wisdom that can be mined from the pages of that book.

By the way, the guy in the red nylon windbreaker and bell bottoms in the picture isn’t Nate. That also isn’t a scout uniform, but it was a scouting outing. I still like enjoying God’s handiwork like that.

Thank you, Tom Sholes, for being an excellent scoutmaster.

On Mother’s Day, my Mom told me that my scoutmaster wrote a book about his scouting experiences. Now, I’m curious. I wonder if, among all of the many boys he had grow up in his troop, he mentioned me, either by name, or by incident. Thinking back, I probably didn’t do much to deserve a mention… except maybe one unplanned night all by myself on Missouri Mountain (visible in the picture I took yesterday evening). What with all the snowy cliffs and the dark, moonless night, the thought of a stubborn boy named “Mike” splattered at the bottom of a cliff or frozen to death might have tormented him. I’m really sorry to have done that. I really didn’t plan to inconvenience him or the search and rescue patrol. I didn’t die, obviously.To make a long story short, I fell behind a group that was going to climb Missouri Mountain and Iowa Peak, but climbed to the top of both, anyway. I didn’t know that they turned back and didn’t climb the second mountain for lack of sunlight, which I did, indeed run out of on the side of Missouri Mountain. I very slowly found my way back to within about 200 meters of our camp, in the dark, with a penlight with dead batteries (good for a brief flash every minute or so), and waited for sunrise. I didn’t get much sleep that night, but thank God I didn’t die.

Maybe I’ll have to buy the book to see if my scoutmaster had a different take on that little adventure. His book is at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1412091128/worldenglishb-20

“Not for these only do I pray, but for those also who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that you sent me. The glory which you have given me, I have given to them; that they may be one, even as we are one; I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that you sent me, and loved them, even as you loved me.” — Jesus (John 17:20-23, WEB)

Being one with the Father, in perfect unity, just like Jesus Christ is one with His Father is exactly what I, like Jesus, pray for. That is one reason that I am not a big fan of denominational labels and doctrinal distinctions between different groups of believers is Jesus Christ. Group labels are a great way to encourage division. You see, once you label a group, such as a denomination, movement, race, nationality, tribe, clan, social caste, or whatever the grouping may be, it is easy to consider yourself inside or outside of that group. It is also easy to find fault with any group that you are not part of. It is especially easy if that group name is somehow derogatory. For example, many unkind “jokes” have been made at the expense of “Pollocks.” In time of war, propaganda is issued against the enemies that groups them together with such derogatory names as “infidels” or “gooks.” The crimes and sins of any member of the enemy group are attributed to the entire group, no matter if this is justified or not (and it usually isn’t). Even when conducting war against a nation, it is wise to remember that there are many people within the nation who are not responsible for or contributors to the war.

I got a telephone call from someone the other day wanting to know what kind of church I went to. He said that he wanted to know, because he couldn’t support anyone in certain groups (and he named some) because of the “excesses” he had seen in those groups. Apparently, he had seen our web site, and was thinking about financially supporting us. Or maybe he was just looking for an excuse not to. Whatever his motivation, he felt like it was important that he know which of certain labels applied to me. The funny thing about those labels is that many of them apply to me in one way or another, but none of them really defines me perfectly, except perhaps “Christian” or “believer in Jesus Christ.” Even those labels would probably be misunderstood by some unbelievers, who assume that all Christians are Roman Catholic and guilty of the atrocities of the Crusades. My loyalty is to Jesus Christ, the Holy Son of God, and not to a denomination. I was baptized in a Baptist Church, but I was baptized in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and not in the name of a particular church group or denomination. I discovered that there are many Christians that go to churches with different names that are just as dedicated to serving the same Lord. There are also some people who go to churches with good names that are very religious, but show no outward signs of actually knowing Jesus Christ. I remember one time that I visited a church with the name “Baptist,” but I was shocked at the blasphemous speech that came out of the pastor’s mouth. I probably sinned by not leaving the service before it was over. I have also been to churches with the same name on the door where Jesus was sincerely worshiped and the Truth of the Holy Bible was preached. (Fortunately, the latter case has been more common in my experience.) We associate with many denominations and non-denominational churches, but there is just one Body of Jesus Christ in this world, the Universal Church. The original meaning of “catholic church” is “universal church,” a body of believers that includes both Catholics and Protestants. Some people like to make a distinction between denominations based on the Holy Spirit, as if some people “had” the Holy Spirit and some didn’t. That actually sounds silly to me, since the Holy Spirit is God, and we don’t own Him. Rather, we surrender to His will and allow Him to help us live right, or we don’t. The real question is if the Holy Spirit has me or you, not vice versa. God is not just a God of the Pentecostals and Charismatics, but He is the only real God for all Christians. I believe that He is alive and well, and just as relevant today as ever, and active in believers of Jesus Christ no matter what kind of church they may or may not attend. I also believe that He is a gentleman, and does not force Himself on us, and will be only as active in our lives as we let Him. My goal is to yield to Him completely.

We believe in Jesus Christ.

We believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.

We believe in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead.

We believe in the Holy Spirit; the one Body of Christ; the fellowship of believers; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting.

We believe in the absolute reliability and inspiration by the Holy Spirit of the Holy Bible. We believe that good doctrine comes from the Holy Bible, and that sound doctrine always agrees with the Holy Bible.

I just wrote and posted a brief history of the World English Bible. The World English Bible is a Public Domain (not copyrighted) translation of the Holy Bible into modern English. It’s main claim to fame is that it is an open-text free project that can be freely copied and published without paying royalties or even having to ask. The only thing proprietary about it is its name and logo, which are trademarks that may only be used to describe the unmodified text of the World English Bible as published by Rainbow Missions, Inc.

More…

For though we walk in the flesh, we don’t wage war according to the flesh; for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the throwing down of strongholds,throwing down imaginations and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ; and being in readiness to avenge all disobedience, when your obedience will be made full. — 2 Corinthians 10:4-6 (WEB)

Here is one important factor in gaining victory over sin and addictions in your life. Bring every thought captive to Jesus Christ. That is probably totally impossible to do if you haven’t yet placed your faith in Jesus Christ, so start there. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you, and then strengthen your spirit and retrain your mind by meditating on the Word of God. You can save yourself a lot of grief, that way.

There was once a man who thought that he could battle evil thoughts in his mind with physical weapons. One time, he was so troubled by his thoughts that he started swinging an ax around wildly. It didn’t make the thoughts go away, but he accidentally lodged his ax in a friend’s head. (I’ll not tell you his name or tribe, except to say that he wasn’t in the same tribe as the gentleman in the picture, but in the same country.) Ironically, his friend was a Bible translator, working to make the Holy Bible understandable to him. The Bible translator’s wife continued the work, and this man’s language group learned the Truth of spiritual warfare from the New Testament.
Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world’s rulers of the darkness of this age, and against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having the utility belt of truth buckled around your waist, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having fitted your feet with the preparation of the Good News of peace; above all, taking up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; with all prayer and requests, praying at all times in the Spirit, and being watchful to this end in all perseverance and requests for all the saints: on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in opening my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the Good News, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. — Ephesians 6:10-20 (WEB)

You may think you have freedom of speech, just because you live in the United States of America. I have news for you. There are people elsewhere who have more freedom of speech. There are also many who have much less freedom of speech. I know of a man who was just yesterday arrested by Muslim police on charges of engaging in activities involving telling the Truth about Jesus Christ– something that could likely cause a Muslim to forsake Islam and become a Christian. Please pray for this man for God’s will to be done, be it release or martyrdom. (I’m being vague about who this is and where he is for security reasons, but rest assured he is a real man with real feelings and real danger. God knows his name and location.) As an American, you can proudly say that wouldn’t happen in the USA, and if it did, it would be illegal and not tolerated.

Now you can stop the pride, and consider just how bad the subtle change from freedom of religion, guaranteed by the U. S. Constitution, to freedom from religion, made up by anti-Christs, has become in the USA. Although Congress is forbidden by the U. S. Constitution to make any law that prohibits the free exercise of religion, it did pass a law that restricts religious organizations from participating fully in politics unless they are willing to accept a much higher tax burden. OK, so freedom isn’t so free when it is taxed, is it? Or what about the freedom of individuals within any level of government down to the local school teacher to express their beliefs? There has been so much concern about appearing to establish an official religion that the net effect has been to restrict the practice of some religions, especially Christianity. Christianity is especially vulnerable, because Jesus Christ commanded his disciples to tell others about Him, and to teach them all He commanded. Some countries that are officially Christian but tolerate dissenting views are actually more free than the USA with respect to the ability of Christians to be honest in public schools.

It is difficult in the USA to be both a politician and a preacher, for example. My Papua New Guinean friend, William Edoni (pictured in this article), didn’t have that problem. He was both. I do know of an American who is both… but I had better not write praises about him here, lest anyone think that I’m speaking for a nonprofit corporation. I can still speak as a citizen in other places, though.

I still remember when I first found out about the World-Wide Web and HTML-based web browsers. I had know about the Internet, text-based email, ftp, and Usenet, but this was a new thing, still highly experimental. By that time, the Lord had already directed me to start work on the World English Bible for free electronic distribution. Electronic bulletin boards were popular among a few people, and a 2400 baud dial-up modem was considered fast. Flash forward in time to the present, and Internet web site addresses adorn the packaging of much of the food in your kitchen, the backs of trucks, and TV commercials. Students do research using Google and other search engines, Wikipedia, and the on-line databases of libraries with their favorite web browsers. Paper library card catalogs are being phased out. Large numbers of people, especially young people, exchange information about themselves on social networking sites like facebook and myspace. Large numbers of people like to write web logs or blogs (like this one). Some of them are even worth reading. All major public relations efforts in the technologically developed world include an Internet web site presence. Domain names become valuable property, like trademarks, and sometimes sell for surprisingly large amounts of money.

Why should a nonprofit organization or a missionary have a web site? After all, the work of the Great Commission and missionary work have gone on long before the Internet. And before radio. And before jet aircraft. And before Gutenburg’s printing press.
Here are my favorite reasons for a nonprofit organization to have a web site:

• To provide contact information for people you want to hear from (partners, potential partners, potential members, clients, etc.). Often people search the web before even thinking of a phone book– and those are so limited in reach, anyway. If you don’t do anything else, a simple web page with contact information and a clue as to who you are and why you exist would meet the minimum expectations of many people.
• To further the mission of the organization by direct ministry. For example, if an organization exists to publish and promote the Holy Bible, the text of the Holy Scriptures can be published on line for reading and downloading. Information to help hurting people with their problems can be posted on line. Churches can post sermon recordings on line.
• To solicit donations. Fund-raising is not evil. Rather, it is a necessary part of keeping the organization running and fulfilling its mission. Donations are voluntary contributions by like-minded people and groups to further the cause of the mission.
• To recruit more volunteers, members, or (in some cases) employees.
• To communicate with partners and others. Communication runs both ways. The communication may be news, prayer requests, praise reports, answers to questions, etc. Outbound communication is fairly obvious. Inbound communication can be handled with web forms (usually more spam-resistant than regular email), email, email discussion lists, web-based forums, comments on blogs, etc.
• To communicate with members or employees things of a personal nature (such as financial statements or mailing lists) or things of interest only within the organization (such as policies, forms, etc.). This sort of thing should obviously be placed in a password-protected secure area instead of a public area.
• To sell things related to the mission of the organization, such as books and audio recordings, if applicable.
• To promote your organization and cause. Public relations is important both in terms of being able to perform your main mission and to gain funding for that work. The image cast must be truthful and reliable, as well as being positive. (This, of course, implies that your organization must also be good.)

My favorite reasons to not have a web site are:

• Your organization is secret. You don’t want any unauthorized people to know you exist.
• Your organization can’t properly manage even a simple web site, nor can it find a trustworthy and knowledgeable person to do so, and wants to save itself from very public embarrassment.

A good web site:

• Is up-to-date. Information marked current is really current. Archives of old or superceded information is clearly marked as such.
• Is accurate, truthful, and reliable. Not everything need be made public, but what is should reflect reality.
• Is efficient and loads quickly. Just because you have an extraordinarily fast broadband connection doesn’t mean that everyone else does. Even people with broadband connections tend to have short attention spans, and expect snappy performance. Some people are still on dial-up connections, and some people have even worse or more expensive connections in developing nations.
• Is compatible with the top browsers on multiple operating systems. Currently, this means reasonably current versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox (and other Mozilla derivatives), Opera, Netscape, and Safari. Web pages should not do anything that tie visitors to one operating system (like using Microsoft Active-X controls).
• Is safe. Private and financial information is kept safe using careful design and proper use of encryption. Site infrastructure is kept reasonably well updated and secure against hacker attacks.
• Is accessible. Consider visually impaired people using smaller pixel size screens or audio screen readers. A design that looks great at 1280 x 1024 pixels may be unusable at 640 x 480 pixels. Tag pictures with meaningful alternate text. Make sure the site is navigable if graphics are not visible. If the target audience speaks more than one language, translations of the site are available.
• Has appropriate content. Things are made public that should be made public, and things are not made public that should not be made public. The content of the site accomplishes the purpose of the site.
• Is culturally sensitive. Web sites are international in reach and subject to being read by people of many cultures, religions, races, and nations. It may be impossible to avoid offending absolutely everyone, but try to minimize the offense.
• Is attractive and easy to read. Pay attention to graphic design. Great graphic design is no substitute for good content, but it can sure help enhance that content or at least make reading it more pleasant.
• Is intuitive to navigate and consistent in operation. Just say “no” to novel user interface ideas unless you have very compelling reasons not to. There are many ways to create consistent navigational structures, technically. Some are much easier to maintain than others, especially as the number of pages in a web site grows. With large sites, including a search engine may be a good idea. Avoid menus that are too long. (Nest or cascade menus, if necessary, to keep them manageable.)
• Has stable URLs. People can link to pages within your site and expect the links not to break right away. Search engines can send people directly to the page of most relevance to their search. Among other things, this means not arbitrarily changing page names or directory structures. Sometimes it means leaving a trail from the old to the new with a redirect, alias, or other technique. Useful content doesn’t disappear before its usefulness expires.
• Uses pictures to tell a story, but not to hold large amounts of text. Pictures should be big enough and clear enough to do their job, but not so big as to slow down page loading. If someone might want to see a larger version of a smaller picture, it is normal to make it available by linking the smaller picture to a larger version, or to provide links to multiple sizes.
• Is functional. The links, buttons, and other controls all work, and do what you would expect. If you feel compelled to make dead or stub links, either do so for very little time (like less than a day), or (better yet) go study web design some more until that feeling goes away.
• Is maintained and under construction, but doesn’t have a lot of “under construction” signs and excuses up. We expect web sites to change content, sometimes daily, but the really good sites that change the most never give you an “under construction” page. Either the page is there, and there are links to it, or it is not public, and there are no public links to it. It is clear who has authority and responsibility for site maintenance, and they do their jobs. It is actually unusual for one person to have all of the skills necessary to manage all aspects of web site design and maintenance single-handedly. Therefore, those working on the site must work together to combine their strengths.
• Is corrected promptly when things change or errors are found. Out-of date information is promptly removed.
• Displays journalistic excellence. Accuracy, spelling, and grammar count.
• Properly represents the organization. The views and opinions expressed in the web site accurately reflect the organization as a whole and its leadership. It is an advocate for the organization that emphasizes the strengths of the organization, the work and qualifications of its members, and the merits of its mission, without losing sight of humility.
• Doesn’t annoy people without just cause. Use flashing text, animated video, pop-ups, etc., sparingly, if at all.
• Keeps content primary and presentation technology secondary.
• Has an easy-to-remember and easy-to-type URL. The domain name is properly registered and kept safe from inadvertent lapse in registration. In some cases, it is worth registering more than one domain name for the same site. In other cases, it is fine just to use a new directory or subdomain on an existing domain (like eBible.org/Johnson or AdaptIt.ebt.cx).

So, how can you improve your web site, today? How can I improve mine?