I have celebrated many Christmases, but the one that is most unforgettable for me is the miracle-filled Christmas season of 2005. It started around July, that year, when we found out that we had been matched with a baby girl in an orphanage in Cebu City, Republic of the Philippines. Unfortunately, a paperwork deadlock followed, where agencies in Papua New Guinea and the Philippines were both waiting for the other one to make the next move. And waiting. And waiting. It felt to me like a hostage situation. We earnestly desired to bring our daughter home. I made phone calls, sent emails and faxes, all to no avail.

Then I prayed. The Lord said “Go there.” He also said “Tell people that you will have your daughter by Christmas.” The Inter-Country Adoption Board told me not to come, because they weren’t ready. I said I was coming anyway for other reasons, and went. After personal, face-to-face conversations with the appropriate people in Port Moresby and Manila, the bureaucratic paper jam was cleared, and the process started moving again. There was still some waiting, though, with no natural way of knowing how long. Lori had to go back to PNG to take care of our sons. I stayed there, acted as our own expediter, and kept telling people what the Lord said.

On the last working day before Christmas (a Friday), Rachel was released. I got stuck in a major traffic jam on the way from the store where I picked up baby cereal and formula, so I told the taxi driver that if he would wait for me, I would pay him double the going rate to get me to the airport. I got out of the cab about 3 blocks from the orphanage, signed the paperwork, gave Rachel a fresh change of new clothes, and walked back to the cab, which was now only 1 block away from the orphanage. Yes, traffic was bad, and I had a use-it-or-lose-it ticket on the last plane with any space on it from Cebu City to Manila before Christmas. The taxi driver, being highly motivated, drove with adrenaline and enthusiasm through back alleys and byways, in ways that defy attempts at diplomatic description. I prayed in the back seat, holding Rachel. “Lord, you know that we will probably be late. Please hold that airplane for us.” That airline had a 98% on time record. We arrived late. The taxi driver tore my duffel bag as he pulled it out of the trunk, still pumped with adrenaline. I thanked and paid him as promised, and calmly walked up to the ticket counter and checked in, asking for tape to repair the duffel bag. The flight was delayed, giving us a little time to sit in the waiting area as Rachel drank some milk from a bottle.

So, Rachel and I made it back to a guest house in Manila, which was officially closed for Christmas. We were allowed to stay there anyway, but without meal service. No matter– I had formula and cereal for Rachel. Someone had pity on us, and invited us for Christmas dinner: microwaved frozen McDonald’s hamburgers and an apple.

After another week’s delay, Rachel and I were cleared to leave the Philippines and return to Papua New Guinea, where we celebrated Christmas again, with the whole family. And yes, the meal was more traditional, the second Christmas of 2005, including ice cream and cake. It is, after all, a birthday celebration for Jesus, the Savior.

That was just a small sample of the many miracles involved in making Rachel a permanent part of our family. Praise the Lord!

Which is better: long term missions or short term missions?

Both have their advantages and disadvantages, of course. A long term missionary has time to really learn languages and cultures, to develop relationships, and to effectively work on projects or engage in types of ministry that take significant amounts of time. A short term missionary has opportunities to make a concentrated impact and/or to investigate future short or long term missions. So why would anyone even debate this issue?

Both have their potential disadvantages, too. Long-term missionaries risk creating unhealthy dependencies or burning out. Short-term missionaries risk doing damage because of inadequate understanding of language and culture, or by being more of a drain on mission resources than they are an asset. They are also more easily deceived. Do these disadvantages mean that we should abandon either strategy? Of course not! As with any hazard, we evaluate what we can do to minimize the negatives and maximize the benefits to the Kingdom of God. In all things, we seek the wisdom of the Ancient of Days Himself.

Which is better? Whatever the Lord has called you to do.

I often get scam emails where some criminal tries to deceive me into thinking that if I will get some outrageously large amount of wealth if I just pay some preliminary “fees” to clear the way. Of course, those “fees” have cost many people more than they can afford, and the promised wealth (an inheritance, unclaimed funds, or whatever) never appear.

Reality is better than that. The greatest treasure you can imagine: eternal life, a mansion to live in, food for all eternity, great music, fun things to do, great company with good friends, joy, peace, love, righteousness, and more is available as a free gift from God, and He gives it before you pay anything. It is, in fact, a very costly gift that cost God His Son’s blood and more. Yet, because of His great love for us, He gives it for free to all who believe in Jesus Christ. There is no way we can earn that. Nothing in this world can compare to that gift. We don’t have to pay any fees up front. We don’t have to clean ourselves up, first. We don’t have to do anything to earn this great gift except believe in Jesus Christ in our hearts and call him our Lord with our mouth.

Now, once we have this gift of eternal life, the Lord works on teaching us His ways, teaching us to love like Him, and preparing us for life with Him. He also includes us in His work of Salvation by having us show His love and bring His message to every tribe, language, and nation. Now, this does cost us time, money, and all that we are in this world, but it is a great investment in the future of other people. Yes, salvation is already paid for by the Lord Jesus Christ, but it costs us plenty to bring that Good News to others who live far away and who don’t speak the same language. Yet, even then, the Lord provides the resources we need, including enough money to buy whatever we need for transportation, communication, Bible translation, etc. He usually does so through many different people, because He likes to see us work together to do what He wants to do in the world.

One important part of fulfilling the Great Commission is Bible Translation. See the current statistics from Wycliffe Bible Translators, which show both good progress being made and that there is a long way to go. The Lord has given such riches to us. It seems right to spend what we have in this world to help others believe in Jesus Christ so that they may also join is in living with the Lord forever. After all, we already have much greater wealth.

We live in exciting times. A few years ago, there was no telephone service in Papua New Guinea outside of a small number of towns, except for a few satellite terminals. Now, mobile phone service covers a significant percentage of the land area of this nation. And now, Internet access via mobile telephone network is available. We want to make sure there is something worthwhile for people to access in their own language when they start discovering this new medium in smart phones and certain computers. The beginnings of this effort is at PNGScriptures.org (for and English greeting) and TokPlesBaibel.org (for a Melanesian Pidgin greeting). Praise the Lord!

6 days before the following, I saw a vision of a bright white warrior angel descending on the SIL Ukarumpa Centre (where we live), watching towards Ukarumpa Village (which is right next to the SIL Ukarumpa Centre). The events that followed are not something I can explain, except to report a tiny part of what happened, and to say that I know that God is working to bring good out of this evil.

One good thing that happened is that in one of 72 houses that burned to the ground in the fighting, there was a stack of 3 Bibles. Not one page of them was burnt.

Another good thing that happened was that one man who was being pursued by enemies ran into his house, knelt down in prayer to repent of his sins and ask Jesus to save him. His enemies rushed in to kill him, but didn’t see him and left again.

If you want to help the homeless, the best way is to send us a gift and email us your intentions.

Here is the official statement:

Armed men entered the SIL-PNG Ukarumpa Centre gate at about 8:00 am, Wednesday morning, 12 August 2009, then left after threatening employees connected to Ukarumpa village, firing warning shots in the air and commandeering an SIL vehicle. One national employee from Ukarumpa village had his house on the SIL Centre burglarized and vandalized by the attackers when they were unable to locate him.

No SIL personnel or PNG employees were injured in either incident and the vehicle was recovered later.

At the time of the initial skirmish, the SIL-PNG Ukarumpa Centre was placed on complete lockdown until the security situation could be assessed. Residents of the SIL-PNG Ukarumpa Centre were encouraged to stay indoors and not walk outside.

By 1:00 pm the sporadic gunfire had ceased, but four individuals in Ukarumpa village  were dead, several injured, and 72 village houses had been burned to the ground.

A verbal warning from the attackers was given to SIL-PNG that any help given by SIL personnel to those who had been attacked would be seen as taking the side of their enemies and retaliation against SIL would result.

Papua New Guinean pastors in the Aiyura Valley were called upon to provide aid to the village families whom had lost their homes and belongings. Many of the women and children slept in churches overnight, while the men camped out.

The Provincial Police Commander in Goroka decided to send his mobile unit, which arrived at the SIL-PNG Ukarumpa Centre just after 5pm. They have patrolled the local village areas to restore peace since arriving.

In the aftermath, it has been determined that the reasons for the fighting and destruction were complex. Mercenaries along with villagers from the next valley had come to punish one village family line, because of the recent rape of a young girl; the recent killing of another nearby village member; and also in retaliation of village houses being burned earlier this year in a clan dispute.

Please pray with us for those who are grieving and those who are still afraid of more violence. Pray for the local churches who are reaching out to those who are now homeless. Pray for us (SIL-PNG) to have wisdom in reaching out to the village community near us.

Something missionaries have to deal with is security in unfamiliar and sometimes unknown conditions. We go where we go because the Lord calls us there, or maybe because we have to go for some reason, not necessarily because it is “safe” to go there. Search the Scriptures and see that this is nothing new. There really isn’t any place on earth that is 100% free of sin, crime, or war. (If you found a place that was and went there, you would probably ruin it before too long with your own imperfections, if nothing else.) There are, of course, places that are scarier than others, and statistically much worse in terms of crime per capita, war, etc.

A friend of mine, Pastor Joseph, was doing some church planting work in the Western Highlands Province, recently, when he was in a prayer meeting that was interrupted by the sound of some youths making a racket outside of his door. They had a gun, bush knives (machetes), and masks, and evil intentions. The people inside kept praying, and the racket suddenly stopped. After they were done praying, Pastor Joseph went to the door to see what was going on. He saw the would-be bandits kind of frozen in place with their knives and gun. He asked if they were OK. They couldn’t really talk, but kind of made a tiny “no” motion. He asked the Holy Spirit to release them, and the gun and knives dropped to the ground and the youths kind of shook themselves to work out the kinks in their muscles from holding still so long. He invited them in, prayed with them, and had his wife make dinner for them. It turns out that these were from the church youth group, supposedly Christians. They learned some fear of the Lord and some of the love of the Lord that evening.

Compare this with the story in 2 Kings 6:15-23.

There is no power on Earth or in Heaven greater than the love of God.

I’ve been dealing with bugs a lot, lately. Not the living insect variety, but the computer bug sort. It is my job. Yes, I’m a missionary, and I do “missionary-like” stuff like living in a remote area in an exotic nation, preach in another language, and continually have faith in God to supply the needs of my family, my ministry, and myself, because I get no salary. My 40-hour-a-week job, though, is IT support and custom programming for a mission aviation organization with 7 aircraft. I support Bible translation work by supporting the people who get the Bible translators in and out of their villages, and who keep supplies coming in a land with very few roads.

In combating computer software bugs, I have learned to recognize some really common ones. I have also learned some things about writing software to avoid them. Just like bugs in the animal kingdom, there is a taxonomy that can be used to describe them. One major distinction is the source of the bug: bad design, bad implementation of a good design, or both. The bad implementation side is the one people usually focus on. I have seen several lists of common errors, like stack overflows, arrays with indexes out of bounds, improper validation of input (especially if that input is going to be interpreted by another process like a SQL server), etc. Such things are important to pay attention to, but those are like miller moths (the kind of bug found in a relay of one of the first computers, and for which all computer bugs are named). They can’t bite you, don’t normally carry diseases, and as long as you keep them from laying eggs in your stored clothing or wedging their bodies into your relays, it takes a lot of them to really do much damage. Design problems, however, are more like centipedes, scorpions, and poisonous spiders. They can be lethal to a project.

One particular design problem that I have seen too much of is in the form of bad user interface design. Human interaction with machines is very complex, because humans are extremely complex and the machines they use tend to be a little complex, too. I enjoy the computers on Star Trek, because they are so speedy, recognize natural speech in almost any language in the galaxy, can store the collected information from multitudes of civilizations and search and analyze it all in seconds, and can produce any kind of food or beverage on command. They always seem to just understand what the user wants. Not so with the computer I’m typing this article on. I could name at least two projects that had serious user interface (UI) problems in the world of Bible translation and Bible translation support software, but I won’t, at least here. One of those is basically irrelevant except as a how-not-to lesson, as it is essentially dead, killed by lack of use. The other has credible hope of being resurrected with a UI make-over in at least the most critical areas.

Rather than detailing all that is wrong with the UI designs I have seen, I prefer to be a little more positive, and focus on what is good and right about the best UI designs that I have seen. Here are some things to keep in mind when designing a new program or program suite that may save you some grief:

• Before writing a single line of code, design at least the basics of the user interface. What are the inputs, outputs, and interactions? How do they fit with the work flow of your customers? Is this the same as what they do, now, or better? (If it is not the same or better, then scrap the idea and start over.) To really do this right, you need a good understanding of what problem(s) you are trying to solve, and good lines of communication with your customers. (Yes, you have customers, even if you write free software.)
• Know your customer base. Know their education level range, their familiarity with computers, other programs, and operating systems. Know what kinds of computers they use and are likely to use. Know why they would want to use your new and/or improved program. Talk with them frequently before, during, and after design and development of the program. If the entire user base is too daunting and could consume all of your time, talk to a few truly representative users, and make some way for others to send feedback (i. e. bug reports, feature requests, etc.).
• Make your UI intuitive. That means make it so obvious how things should be used that someone who has never used it before can use it. In reality, the only way you will get this done is to copy the good ideas and behaviors of other common programs that users have likely used, before.
• Read up on good UI design. Microsoft and GNOME both have good things to say in this regard. Even if you don’t like all of their ideas, you need to use most of them or your interface will seem strange to people, because it is different.
• Use a good UI design toolkit/library. Not only does this save you from “re-inventing the wheel,” it makes it easier to both be consistent and be more like other programs (and therefore more intuitive).
• Do not get too “creative” with your UI. Sometimes even something that is arguably better is much less intuitive, because people aren’t expecting whatever you are throwing at them. Choose a “normal” way of doing things. Read Microsoft’s Common User Interface guidelines and the Gnome project’s user interface guidelines for some good ideas that you should probably stick to unless you have a good reason not to.
• Match the UI to the task. For example, if it is a control system for a physical system with fluid or material flows, lay out your UI in an easy schematic diagram of that system. If is a calendar, make it look like one. If it is a recipe book, make sure it is easy to find the recipe “cards,” and once you present them, they look like what cooks are used to seeing. If it is a flight simulator, make it look like a cockpit. I once visited a business web site that was programmed like a video game, but the business had nothing to do with video games. Match the form to the function.
• Make the common stuff easy to do and easy to find. Minimize the number of mouse clicks and keystrokes it takes to do stuff that is done frequently.
• De-emphasize the more esoteric or “advanced” stuff, lest it confuse the beginners and casual users of only the basic functions.
• In de-emphasizing the advanced or infrequently-used features, take care not to hide things too well. Make such things reasonably obvious to find, too. Sometimes it is better to have a larger set of options shown at once, and sometimes you need to show just a few. Knowing when to do which is a matter for experience and wisdom. Usually, this balance has to do with putting “advanced” features on a separate dialog box, or having a less/more button on a dialog box. It also explains the partially-hidden menus in some programs, although I never liked that feature myself. So, if you do that, make sure the users that are annoyed by that can turn the menu-hiding off.
• Be consistent. This includes layouts of dialogs (i. e. normal locations of OK and Cancel buttons) as well as when and how things get saved. Some programs automatically save everything you do instantly, with no “save” button needed, but some require an explicit “save” function. Try to do it the same way within the same program.
• Give the user good feedback. When something happens, make it look like it happened. Users are ALWAYS confused if you don’t do this. Better yet, give feedback of exactly what happened, visually, audibly, or both. Make it obvious what is going on.
• Provide an “undo” function where appropriate. People goof. Often, they recognize immediately that they goofed (especially if you give good feedback), and they want a way to repent, undo, and avoid disaster. Make it possible.
• “Are you sure you want to launch a nuclear missile?” messages are no substitute for a good undo function. Choose wisely where you put “Are you sure?” prompts, and don’t over-use them. Otherwise, they will be ignored when they are really needed.
• Avoid overusing modalism, or the shifting of controls into different modes. Computer interfaces are inherently modal. Different menus, buttons, controls, etc., appear on your screen at different times in different situations. This is both flexible and annoying. It is both powerful and non-intuitive. Consistency is intuitive and easy. Consider the automobile. The accelerator pedal is on the right. The brake is to the left of it. Turning the steering wheel clockwise turns the car to the right when moving forward. It is always the same, in all cars, all over the world. I like that. When practical, keep the same kinds of controls in the same places.
• Keep it SIMPLE! This is probably the most important suggestions. It takes careful balance. Don’t bedazzle & befuddle the user with too many things at once, but don’t make it too tedious to find all of the things that the user wants to do. Group things together that logically go together in the user’s normal work flow.
• Make the program forgiving. I detest programs that you have to press 3 buttons exactly once, in order, exactly one time per month, or things get messed up. If one of the buttons doesn’t work, programmer intervention is required. Don’t do that. If a button can be pressed, make it do something safe and useful. If not, disable or hide it. If something has to be done exactly once a month, reconsider the design.
• Write clear, concise, indexed, illustrated instructions. If you can’t write well, find someone who can to help you. Include the instructions with the program and keep them up to date with the program.
• Keep the design of the over-all program simple. If you have trouble explaining to someone how to use it, chances are that it really is too hard to use, and needs to be changed.
• Keep the number of controls to the minimum needed to accomplish the task efficiently. Remember that for each control you add, you raise the minimum I. Q. of the operator by 3 points.

Now I’ve reminded myself of what I’m shooting for as I redesign some software. I hope it helps you, too.

The following is a list of Scripture dedications already celebrated or planned in 2008 and 2009. It is possible that some were missed, or possibly omitted from this list for security reasons, so really there are probably a few more. Please be in prayer for the people who speak these languages and for the translation teams as they work through the final stages of checking and typesetting. Spiritual warfare tends to be intense at this time, but we are on the winning side. Please also pray for the people getting new Bible translations in their own language that they will read, hear, study, and meditate on God’s Word and that it will bear much fruit in their lives. Obviously, I feel a stronger personal connection to some of these dedications than others, because of help I have provided and/or knowing some of the translation teams and some of the people who speak the languages listed below, but I thank God for ALL of them!

This list is compiled by Wycliffe Bible Translators, but includes work by several different Bible translation agencies.

PACIFIC Old or New Testament DEDICATIONS 08/09

AUHELAWA; Papua New Guinea; 1,200; January 18, 2008

BIMIN; Papua New Guinea; 2,500; November 1-2, 2008.

DJAMBARRPUYNU; Australia; 450; June 7-9, 2008

IPILI; Papua New Guinea; 26,000; August 13, 2008

KUBE; Papua New Guinea; 10,500; March 22, 2008

KUMAN; Papua New Guinea; 120,000; June 27, 2008

MAPE; Papua New Guinea; 12,000; December 21, 2008

NATQGU; Solomon Islands; 5,899; July 20, 2008

NGAANYATJARRA Shorter Bible; Australia; 1,200; May 11, 2008

PIJIN Old Testament; Solomon Islands; 24,390; July 7, 2008

TANGOA; Vanuatu; 900; April 12, 2009

TANNA, North; Vanuatu; 2,000; July 20, 2008

WALA*; Solomon Islands; 6,978; March 16, 2008

ASIA AREA DEDICATIONS 08/09:

BAUZI; Southeast Asia; 1,500; March 17, 2009

IFUGAO, ANTIPOLO Bible; Philippines; 8,000; June 12, 2009

KAGAYANEN; Philippines; 25,000; April 19, 2008

KEMTUIK; Papua; 5,000; July 25, 2008

KINARAY-A; Philippines; 378,000; September 26, 2009

KISAR; Southeast Asia; 20,000; May 8, 2009

TBOLI Bible; Philippines; 90,000; January 30, 2008

WANA; Southeast Asia; 100,000; New Tribes Mission; February 17, 2008

AMERICAS Area DEDICATIONS 08/09

CAKCHIQUEL, SOUTH CENTRAL; Guatemala; 43,000; April 13, 2008

CHA’PALAA language, Chachilla people (Chachi); Ecuador; 9,000; August 16 & 17, 2008

IXIL, Nebaj; Guatemala; 59,500; August 12, 2008

MIXTEC, TEZOATLAN; Americas; 6,200; March 15, 2008

TERIBE; Panama; 3,005; August 17, 2008

TEPEHUAN, Southeastern; Americas; 9,937; May 17-18, 2008 Audio NT & OT abridgment

ZAPOTEC, OZOLOTEPEC; Mexico; 6,500; March 15, 2008

AFRICA AREA DEDICATIONS 2008/2009:

DINKA, Southwestern; Sudan; 450,000; April 20, 2008

FAREFARE Bible; Ghana; 845,100; April 26, 2008

GABRI-KIMRE; Chad; 15,000; April 12, 2008

GUJI; Ethiopia; 2,000,000; August 2, 2008

JOLA-KASA; Senegal; 40,850; January 3, 2009

KONO; Sierra Leone; 190,000; June 14, 2008

LOKAA language, Yakurr people; Nigeria; 120,000; March 15, 2008

MAALE; Ethiopia; 53,779; August 2008

MOBA (Ben); Togo; 191,200; March 15, 2008

MOFU-GUDUR; Cameroon; 60,000; February 16, 2008

MWAN; Cote d’Ivoire; 17,000; March 29, 2009

SENOUFO, Supyire; Mali; 364,000; December 20, 2008

SERE-SINE Bible; Senegal; 1,183,120; January 6, 2008

TAABWA; Democratic Republic of Congo; 250,000; Distributed 2008

TIRA; Sudan; 40,000; February 18, 2009

VOLTA region multi-project*: Lelemi Old Testament 48,900, New Testaments in Sekpele 23,400,

Selee 11,300, Siwu 27,000, and Tuwuli 11,400; Ghana; April 12, 2009

EUROPE COMPLETIONS/DEDICATIONS:

AVAR; Russia 600,959; September 19, 2008

KOMI-ZYRIAN; Russia; 345,000; October 10, 2008

MARI, MEADOW; Russia; 534,569; March 4-5, 2008

Check for updates to the above list at The Seed Company.

When I was very young, I had an idea of what a missionary was: a person who went off to extremely remote areas of the world, far away from anything resembling the civilization we were used to. He or she had to learn new languages, convince people that it was better to listen than to eat the messenger, and somehow get lots of people saved or die trying. The missionary image in my young mental image worked pretty much alone. The cliché cartoon image of the missionaries tied up in a large cauldron, boiling over a large fire almost always came to mind. Somehow, teamwork, computers, rocket science, and aviation didn’t usually cross my mind, although I had heard stories of some of the early uses of small airplanes by missionaries. Now that I have had some experience, I have a different view. For example, I’ve never seen a large cauldron out in the jungle. (Other dangers, sure, but no cauldrons.) I see and experience lots of teamwork. I see lots of applications of appropriate transportation, communication, and computation technology in getting the Word of God to people, even in very remote areas. I have also noticed a lot of variety in the vocations represented on the mission field. I also see a wide variety of mission fields, with a wide diversity of cultures, languages, economies, and stages of development.

The Body of Christ really does have many diverse members, with many diverse missions and organizations, but we all work together in the same mission of fulfilling The Great Commission and The Great Commandment. My little niche is mostly in computer support, although I do teach and preach and do some other things from time to time. Finding and eliminating computer bugs may not sound very glamorous, but it is one of many very different jobs in the Body of Christ. All of this works together for good, according to God’s good plan.

Can you imagine what it would be like to go back to living without computers? I can, and it isn’t a pretty thought. It would take a whole lot more manual labor to do pretty much anything you can think of. This is definitely true of Christian mission work in general, and Bible translation in particular. The most useful software for missionaries and missions is software that can be freely shared. I’m a very big fan of Free/Libre Open Source Software on the mission field. (And yes, I’m writing this article using open source software on Linux.) The work of the software developer gets used far more, and by more people in missions, that way. The only down side, of course, is that the software developer has to raise support, just like most of the other missionaries, and live on donations instead of royalties. That is OK. A million years from now, what will matter is the souls brought into the Kingdom of God, not who paid the bills for the work of the Great Commission.

I was really happy to have succeeded at fixing a satellite relay station of the Papua New Guinea Christian Broadcasting Network (Wantok Radio Light) in Kainantu. The man in the picture is smiling because I just gave him a solar-powered fix-tuned radio, playing Wantok Radio Light. That nice little Galcom radio is really good for PNG, because batteries cost lots of money relative to people’s income, and people don’t always have access to electrical power. The thrill of victory turned to the agony of defeat quickly when I got back to Aiyura, and the station had gone off the air, again, then drifted on and off rapidly enough to make the station pretty useless. I had done all I knew to do. I just turned to the Lord, and asked Him to either fix it Himself, send an angel to fix it, send someone else to fix it, or show me how to fix it. That evening, the radio station came back on. And stayed on. I’m listening to it, now. Glory be to GOD! He is a better electronics technician than I am. He is the master architect, engineer, designer, and Creator of all that is used to make anything electronic.