Capsicum

This weekend had a few more firsts for me.
I nearly had a sandwich with capsicum.
What is that? It's the British/Australian name for Bell Peppers.
That's a good one to know since bell peppers don't agree with me.

I'm constantly learning new words and phrases. Or learning new meanings for old words and phrases. Sometimes someone will blush when I say an innocent word in my American English. Other times, someone will say something that strikes me as rude. Sometimes it's a new application of a less used word.

But most of the time, I'm hearing words I don't understand but inside the context they make sense.

It makes conversation interesting, I enjoy the vocabulary expanding interaction.

The other first was that for the first time since I arrived, the power situation was such that we shut down all non-essential servers for the duration of the weekend, so that the technicians wouldn't have to live in the network room.

I liked that. We shut down the servers, so that we could have a weekend. WOW, how anti-silicon valley is that culture? I love it!

After spending much of Saturday battling the power failures, we said, "shut it all down!" and we did.

And we rested on Sunday and did not work. Today, Monday we came in, and turned it all back on, after they had repaired the generator...we hope.

I come from a line of work that says ... "always be up, always be online, 'five nines uptime!!!' (that means 99.999% uptime which means you can't have servers down for long).

I come from a world of pagers and cell phones, of all nighters and priority ones.
I come from a world of catastrophic failures and emergency phone calls.
In 1998 I slept with my pager on my chest in vibrate mode, so as not to wake up my wife when it went off.
In 2006, I made over 10% of my salary in after hour emergencies, that were billed to customers.
In 2007, there was talk of me not working during the day, and simply being on call for emergencies.

But, in 2008, I came to work for God. And He said, "remember the Sabbath and keep it holy." And He rested.

And so we rest. Even as I type this I feel my blood pressure lower than it's ever been. It's been a hard weekend, lots of work... but....

If you look for them, there are blessings. All around me things are difficult and down right hard for folks, but if you see them, there are reasons to be pretty excited about the blessings God gives.

I'm not saying life here is easier, but the stresses come in different forms then they used to, and for that, I'm thankful. I worked 24x7 for 5 years. I turned the car around while we were heading to family vacation, I've missed birthday parties, I left get togethers, and I woke up countless midnights to work. I do not miss that.

We have emergencies here, but I really appreciate the mentality that says, "we can get along without when we need to." And people do.

I believe it is because we have faith in God who provides.

I'm once again thankful for all of you who sustain us here.
For your gifts, for your prayers, for your emails and thoughts.

POWER

Today, Friday, was a normal day. Do a few network patches at the school, double check backups, tweak a few servers.

But then at 3pm, the power went out.

Our server room is powered by a room full of batteries connected to an inverter. We used to use Deep Charge but they were hard to come by.

ANYWAY....
when the power goes out, the servers run on battery power. BUT, the air conditioning doesn't run.

Very quickly our little room of servers begins to heat up, and when that happens the hardware begins to fail.

Typically turning on the generated is automatic after 5 minutes.

So the power goes out..
we wait 5 minutes... no generator
we wait 10..
we keep our eye on the thermometer readout...
it's growing.
We call the electricians "hey what's going on, we're going to have to start shutting down."

today the answer came (welcome to life here) "We can't get a hold of [the guy who knows how to start the generator]"

My guess was he was watching his kids compete at the annual sport's day...
So I ask a co-worker with a radio, "can you call him on the radio?"

"he doesn't have it on him."

So.. a guy nearby him with a radio hears the call, taps his shoulder.. OKAY now he heads to the generator room.

Uh oh.. problem in the fuel line... he begins to work.
The call comes back "20 minutes to an hour before it's up"

So.. we... the network guys, at 3:15pm begin shutting down servers, which at this point, are basically heaters with strong fans.

Services go down, but people don't mind because they're houses are out of power too.

We finally get down to the bare minimum... open all the windows and doors, and the servers stabilize and begin to drop in temperature.

For those that are aware of the "watchdog reset"... ours kick off around 31 degrees celcius. The inside of the servers got to 29 degrees celcius.

That's 2 degrees... PHEW.. we made it.

If we let them get too hot... parts melt and break and it costs us money.

So it's not frantic but it is a little bit of... hustle.. bringing things down so they don't break.

Well it's all back up now. This happens a few times a year, and when it does... the computer/network geek appreciates three things in a major way:

-Air conditioning - and those who can maintain it
-Electricity - and those who can maintain it
-CB/HF radio - and those who can operate them

Keeping this room running safely was truly a team effort, and if there is one great thing to say about this place, it's that people pull together during a crisis, be it ever so minor.

Coffee Festival

Kendal and I drove to Goroka a few weeks ago to pick up some friends from the airport. In the interest of killing time and seeing some local culture, we attended the Coffee Festival.

Unfortunately we didn't spend a lot of time there. The crowds were huge! We parked, but were wary of leaving the car, because it doesn't take long for someone to open it and take the belongings inside.

So we went for a quick 5 minute visit. We snapped this photo with permission above of some of the ladies in the area, resting between their dances and performances, which we didn't get to see in person, because a few moments later...

I heard "pait pait" which means "fight fight", and turned to see maybe 200-300 people running right towards us. I was completely unsure if they were running TOWARDS the fight or away, but I had prepared for this eventuality.

Fights in town can break out quickly, and can turn into riots. The best thing to do is to get in doors quickly. Stores will let white skins in during fights to protect us as visitors to their country. I have never been in one, but typically the interest is not in harming us as we are guests and typically treated nicely.

But here we were, in the middle of a field, near a thatch wall. Not seeing an exit, I very quickly surrounded Kendal with my body, back to the crowd, and moved us up against a nearby wall where the odds of any fallout were diminished.

Well the crowd very quickly dispersed, nothing happened at all. It was odd to see that many people herding right at us, and then stopping, and laughing. AT first I thought it was a massive practical joke, but that wasn't a realistic thought. The laughter made me uncomfortable. I thought it was a "hey let's play a prank on the white skins!!" but later found that laughter is a nervous reaction to embarrassment. They were most likely embarrassed of running and panicking.

We quickly left the field, having our fill of the environment for the day. We didn't feel it prudent to stay in the wake of that, not knowing the situation.

This highlights an interesting part of living here.

Even if you are 100% fluent in the language, (which I am not) you are never fully aware of all the forces at play in any given situation. Trying to stay up on the political, social, and religious news of the day is busy work. You can never be sure when you walk into a town, if you're walking into the middle of a tense situation.

It's best to always be alert, and always trust in God for your protection, we pray a LOT when we go into towns.

A thought struck me, I wonder if that was what it was like to visit a town in the old west... riding into town... not knowing what has recently transpired.

Hmmn.

DHCP

obtain your ip address automatically? Nope.

For weeks, I've been instructed to draw personal boundaries better. Don't let people call me on the weekend about work. So this Sunday, was family day, we even had a visitor, I had turned on the oven for our traditional pizza that my wife made.

The phone rings "the entire network is down in finance department."
I looked at my equipment everything was giving me the okay sign
"can you be more specific?"
they were unable to, and I realized this would be a few hours, so I said, "well it is Sunday, so I'll look into it first thing Monday morning."

I was proud of myself for drawing the limits. The last 3 weekends I've had to run up to the network room for some emergency, and this time, I was proud I drew the limit.

Only, Monday I came in and in fact the network WAS down!
It wasn't the network so much as DHCP, which means, no one was able to get an ip address.

Departments began phoning in like mad "I can't get to anything on the network."

Other people in the dept, came in early trying to troubleshoot. The problem was resolved 5 minutes after I arrived.

I don't say this to brag, because I honestly feel all the skill I have is because God has given it to me, and I'm the first to recognize where I am weakest.

I thank God that somehow, one of my talents seems to be quickly finding the root of a problem and solving it, under pressure.

I honestly do not know how it happens, a thought pops into my head, then another, and I always pause to pray for guidance during moments like this.

The clinic was unable to sell it's drugs, the finance unable to transact, the director's unable to check email... everything was coming to a halt, electronically. The phone was ringing like mad.

I thought it ironic that THIS weekend was the time I chose to be more assertive in my personal space.

This place has challenged me in new ways. Many ways. So I tend to celebrate when I achieve successes. You really should take the time to celebrate successes, in the form of worship and thanks to God.

THANKS GOD, we solved that ONE!!!!

Trials develop character, and successes revitalize.

Harry Harry

act now, while supplies last. We went into a store that I hadn't been until since 2004, and right there, in the middle was the same sewing machine I had seen 4 years ago, it hadn't sold yet, and it hadn't come down in price. It seems that often the "last" of something is not marked down to sell, also, I've seen that they do not price to sell items, if it doesn't sell, they don't seem to mind too much.

Mud Men

while we were on our 24 hour holiday, we sat and had dinner. Soon the "mud men" came creeping into the restaurant slowly and earily, almost like moving statues. It was interesting to watch but I didn't know why they were there.

Until at the end, a man came in selling little mud men figurines. I'm sure there is more of a cultural story here, but I haven't desired to delve into it yet.

Time for New Glasses

last night Sydney woke up around 11:30pm.
"daddy, my pillow keeps making a clicking noise and I can't sleep"
"Sydney, your pillow is clicking?"
"yeah"

she is prone to waking up, sleep talking, and then going back to bed.

"Well, can you figure out what the problem is? Go back to bed sweetie."

She leaves, I figure that's the end, but then a few minutes later I see two eyes poking around the doorway.

So I get up, shuffle in there
"don't turn on the light daddy it'll hurt my eyes."

I pick up the pillow to listen to it, hear no clicking but she says,
"daddy there is something under it"

I look down in the dark and see 8 legs. The biggest spider I've ever seen, right under her pillow!! A big hair tarantula, which is odd because we don't see tarantulas up here.

I turn on the light, ready to catch the spider...
wait.. it's no spider, it's her toy plastic jumbo jacks. 8 legs, nope, 2 plastic jack pieces.. funny how they click when they touch.

My daughter looks at me and says "oh."

yeah.. OH.. daddy needs night vision or new glasses.

Changes...for the better

Inherently there is resistance to change. Changing things requires work.

Recently, our department has become somewhat unpopular to some because we've asked people to make changes to their email settings. Nobody likes it when email doesn't work. Things should simply work.

Months ago, I had a vision. I had a plan and I sold people on it. The plan was for email to simply work. Wherever you go, it worked. It worked securely, it worked quickly and it didn't require any changes or forms.

People here are on the go, they go on trips, they go to villages, they go around the country and out of the country and until today, when they would go, it would be a small mountain of paper work accompanied by the hassle of changing email settings, and possibly losing email.

Today, after months of work, puzzle solving, trying to figure out how to get around different requirements, I was able to announce that as a team, we have made email... WORK from Anywhere.

The announcement has been out for ten minutes, and already the praises are flooding in. People going to Australia to have babies are happy, people going to the village are happy, people going on medivac's who don't have time to fill out the forms are happy.

It's a happy day. And I'm glad we were able to make lives easier, even if it meant, for the last month, people have been upset about the changes... now that they see why I think they will glad they did.


ALSO,..
today we did a short computer orientation for the new arrivals here. This is something that wasn't previously done, but was an idea me and another guy had to reduce the amount of confusion that people have when they come here, and thus reduce the amount of unnecessary work our dept. sees.

It felt good to see the fruit of some of the labor. The last few months have been tough because a lot of things have been not working right, breaking, etc. Hey, that's why I'm here!

Still, it's really nice to have a success that everyone can enjoy from time to time.

The short version: - After a lot of work, trials and failures, I was able to make things better.

Hosed

Today we made massive changes to billing. I edited multiple perl scripts, and access databases. Also we cut over a new email solution here to make things easier. It was a big day for change.

Change is something that folks do not like much, unless they are clear on the benefits. These benefits were clear and people were more than happy to make the changes, but with changes comes complication.

It hurts my heart when a translator is having email issues. It really does, I'm here to alleviate that, although since I'm the one invoking the changes, very rarely I can be looked at as "the big mean guy who is making us change things."

I've come to learn this past year, that helping people does not always mean they will be happy you helped them. Case in point, give a child a booster shot and they will not smile and thank you. They will cry for a very long while. (-;

But that's not what I wanted to blog about today.

Each year, as is the custom here, the parents of the juniors and senior high schoolers invite their children to their banquet. Each year they do it in a special/secret way.

This year they started a fire. A fire in the field, threw the alarm, and the kids all evacuated to the field, saw the fire. Then the dads came in on the fire truck, siren blaring and instead of putting out the fire, sprayed the water into the air, misting the crowd to get their attention. It was a fun hullabaloo.

I really enjoy how the parents and the community are engaged with the youth.

More on the village

"In peace I will both lay down and sleep for you alone, O Lord, make me
to dwell in safety."

A week and a half ago, I had told you how a clan had joined
with another and [more] people against S and his clan. They
intended to wipe them out and take their land.

Two of the translators are here and they report that S's
hamlet is completely destroyed. The clan, a village surrounded S's clan and burned down all their
houses and destroyed the gardens. S prevailed on his men to shoot
only warning shots, but in the end there was one man who was
killed. S's people were all miraculously delivered. In the middle
of the night, as they were surrounded and fearing for their lives,
S prayed. "Lord your purpose is still pending, please serve us that
we may be able to escape" When he finished praying, he saw a gap in the
enemies' lines surrounding them, and he led his people through that gap
and to safety. The enemies pursued them, but were unable to harm them.

Now, S's clan is staying on land belonging to the neighboring
village.

S is still determined to continue in the way of peace, and to
continue with the translation work.

We are as a community conducting efforts to help S's people start over.

Ephesians 6

Two days ago I shared some conversations I had with my kids.
I dunno about you, but occasionally I have a moment where I have a scary thought and then I remember quickly to give it to God in prayer.

Well, this story might be interesting because today I got a special blessing and answer to prayer. I was asking God for assurances that our children were growing closer in Him.

Today for some unknown reasons, Sydney got it in her head to start reading her Bible.
She was almost late to school for it.
Then today after school she ran back into her room.

She handed me a paper, on which she had written front to back all of Ephesians 6.

She made it a point to show me, not mommy, me.

She came and said "daddy, I wrote out the Bible here. And I'd like to point out something to you.... this part 'Fathers don't make your children angry.'

I smiled and said "what do you think that means?"
she paused.... and then I said , "it means that while children have a job, they're to obey and be good, parents also have a job, and they're not supposed to frustrate their children in wrong ways. Sometimes daddy's and mommy's can do wrong things too and the Bible tells us not to."

then she says,
"well it is interesting that the very FIRST verse is 'Children obey your parents as believers in the Lord."

She was happy with that and waltzed away as is her fashion.


That was a very meaningful moment, and I'm thankful to God for answered prayer.

ushers

One of the traditions around here is the "fellowship family".

When a new person(s) arrive here, they don't know how to find their way around. So a family gets assigned to them to help them adjust.

We were were spoiled, we had an excellent fellowship family who not only showed us around and got us setup, prepared our house before we came here but also showed us around some of the towns and stores.

Today was our turn to pay it forward. A new couple arrived that we knew briefly a few years ago. We have spent the last week preparing their home, cleaning it, putting flowers and welcome sign in place, turning the gas on, the electric, etc.

Today we picked them up from aviation, and gave them the tour, and got them set up. They are so excited to be here, the last 2 years of their lives have been moving around and not having a place of their own.

We were glad to talk to them, share some ice cold lemonaide, move their luggage, and help them get settled.

It is jsut being neighborly, there are so many opportunities to be neighborly here, we love it.

The Net Gag

Last week I scheduled with one department to upgrade their network from a 100mb fibre link to a 1000mb fibre link.

I asked them to alert the department as to the time we had agreed on.
I was sick today, but because of the scheduled upgrade, I decided to go in for the upgrade.

I went in, and began the upgrade, and the head of the department came up to me and said,
"Chad, our network is down, it's a good thing you're here."
I didn't recognize he was joking until another came and said,
"chad, good to see you, the network jsut went down... can you fix it."
I'm starting to catch on
then another
"Oh hi, Chad, hey, since you're here, the network jsut went down, can you look at it."


I was playing along the whole time, not sure if they were joking or not. But then later they told me "yes we knew." They decided to have a little fun with me.

The department was LCORE. This is the language center of the universe here. It is where all the braniac translator geeks hang out.

I appreciated the fun, but sometimes, translator humor is a tad too subtle for me (-;

God's Word, and babies.

wierd conversation.


Today I had a few moments to myself to think. And what I thought was "aaahhh I'm getting older, the kids are getting older. Time is passing too quickly!"

So I thought "what are my major goals in life?"

And one answer was "I really want my kids to have a close relationship with Christ."

So at dinner today we talked about truth and lies, about reading the Word, and I taught them an important skill. I asked them if Potiphar was married.

I do not know why that question came up, buy my daughter ran to the concordance and knew it was the book to use, I was impressed.

Then I showed them how to use it. I also asked them to tell me Jesus' middle name. First one to answer gets a treat.

Well, they found the verse and answer and I gave them both a candy.

It was a fun exercise, for them, and I felt "good I did something today to help along the goal."

But then it dawned on me that the rest of that verse was "Potiphar's wife said to Joseph, make love to me..."

I closed the Bible quickly but then felt convicted... So here is the conversation we have over pixie sticks.

dad - "has anyone ever talked to you about babies?" (I asked hoping the answer to be no)
both - "nope"
pause.
calvin - "well grandma did."
now dad pauses...
dad - oh.? What did she say?
calvin - making a face, 'she said they have delicate heads and stuff.'
dad - oh... good.. yes they do don't they.
both - yup
dad - has anyone ever talked to you about where babies come from?
both - nope
dad - do you know where babies come from?
both - nope
pause
sydney - wait.. yes (dad gulps).. "they come from the mommy's stomach"
dad - yup.. that's right, well gnight.
sydney - "only... my baby won't come from mommy's stomach right?"

at this point I can see Kendal's shoulders moving in silent laughter as her back is to us.

dad - "no, your baby will probably come from your stomach"
sydney -"right, unless I decide to adopt. and then it'll come from some other mommy's stomach"


And they were completely satisfied with this conversation. I'm constantly astonished at the lack of curiosity and ease of acceptance of concepts my children exhibit at times when I expect them to be confused and ask a lot of questions. It's usually when I don't expect it that they ask me a question from far out of left field.

Today I asked them "how do you know if someone is lying to you."
and my son after thinking said "because you know the truth"
and I said, "how do you know the truth"

which is what sequed into reading the Word.... and the rest of the evening's conversation.

Speeding up the School

Today we spliced some fibre cable, and I, for the very first time, was able to connect and patch fibre with my co-workers.

I dunno why, but somehow cutting and crimping glass cable gives me a thrill.

On top of that, we were able to dramatically increase the speed of the primary school's network. No more waiting for minutes to load pages and send mail, now they will wait for seconds!

Any day where you get to drill holes in walls, bolt stuff in, use a metal grinder, and patch networking is a good day.

Learning New Things

one of the questions put to me by myself and others before I left was
"how are you going to stay technically up to date?"

Honestly I've never worried about that, I've always seen whatever I'm doing as what God is having me do right now, and He has a reason so it'll all work out. I've seen plenty of evidence that the things I have learned have been put to me by God to do something else with later.

Well besides the fact that there are a lot of very intelligent people here whom I can learn much from, I can also learn new technologies or "new to me" from those who are here.

In many areas of tech there is the old guru. The guy who understands an older technology that the company relies on, but no one new has bothered to learn. There are a lot of people around here I can learn from in THAT regard.

But today, I learned for the first time how to "splice" fibre cable.

We didn't use a fusing technique, instead we uses a light conducting gel with connector. Still it was very interesting to learn and do.

I learned this from a man who has been here for ten years. So I guess the real question is.. how did HE stay up to date? (-;

Running Sound

This Sunday was the most technically demanding time I've ever run sound for church. I had 3 vocalists, 6 instruments, a cd track, a wireless mic, a lectern mic and a computer sound input.

I'm not extremely experienced in sound, and yet I find myself juggling the knobs and faders, and feigning confidence.

I am the net, trying to keep everyone sounding good, mixed and equalized, and if nothing else, heard by the congregation without sending high pitched feedback into their ears.

My daughter was sitting to my left (we divided the kids so that mom didn't have to sit with 2 alone), and to my right was a high school boy running video.

In retrospect, I'd rather be running video, but God does a miracle in my heart each week and makes me a willing and joyful servant.

So in the midst of all this chaos, the video isn't showing and the high school boy turns to me and says "it isn't playing what do I do?"

I have no idea.
I'm a computer and a video guy, but my mind was SO into the sound at the moment that I completely blanked and looked at him, then at the equipment I've never touched before and shrugged.

It all went perfectly well, you don't stick around here if you can't overlook a few hitches in life from time to time.

At the end Sydney was very interested
"daddy I saw you turning a lot of knobs, is that what makes the video go?"
"no those are what makes the sound come through"
"what does this do?"

She was taking a genuine interest in what I was doing and we only ended the conversation because we had to leave. I was slightly surprised at her interest, she normally isn't that interested in what I do or how. I think we'll have to see if she wants to sit by me next week.

Directing Email

Saturday I got a call from the head honcho, the director.
He was leaving for Thailand and had a number of problems with his email.

Normally we aren't asked to work Saturdays, but my option was to work at 6am monday before he got on his flight, so I opted for the Saturday night.

After about 3 hours of work, absent mindedly missing dinner, and one network emergency, we got it up and running so he will be able to stay in communication while in Thailand.

While I felt foolish that it took a whole 3 hours, I realized that of all the people he called, the director did call me.

There are some days when you think "God what am I doing here, am I really being that effective?"

and then days like this come along when He says, "yes, yes you are, jsut keep plugging along, you'll make mistakes, but it's good you are there."

It is very affirming when He does this and I give Him all the credit for knowing the right times to give me a challenge.

Victory for I.T.

Today I got a desperate call. One of the surveyors had been editing a file and accidentally deleted pages of information. Days of work was lost. It was language data. Comparison data.

From what I understand, surveyors go out, find information, gather it, database it, and decisions are based on that data.

Well this particular person had lost days of data, and was looking at a very bad Monday.

I got the call, and within minutes the file was back in place.

We had been working on a new backup solution here that would allow us to restore data more quickly and back it up more reliably.

I was surprised because this was our first restore outside of testing, and it popped up VERY quickly.

I was glad to make the call "your files are back, please try it out."

Boy was she elated!! Her Monday went from possibly being very bad to being a decent Monday.

This is a very practical example of how our presence here has helped with Bible Translation. Had we not been able to restore those files, it would have set her work back a few days, and the work of those waiting on her data. It could have potentially pushed back some due dates on different projects.

I'm very pleased that the new solution worked well. And I'm thankful to God that it all came together when it did.

Calling on God

Some of us heard a dramatic story of a man here I'll call "S". He came to know the Lord in a very dramatic way through one of the programs we offer here to teach Papua New Guinean translators how to translate. He used to be the fight leader of his people group and led them very successfully in fights against old enemies. But now this man preaches the Gospel, forgiveness and peace.

He is now trying to lead his people down a different road. The Word of God changes lives but it can be hard.

A few weeks ago S and his family were held up and almost killed but they escaped. The friends of S sought revenge and went and found one of the enemies responsible. They were going to kill said enemy when S told them to release him. Peace was found and things were calm.

Another time S was wronged by another group and again his men sought revenge. S instead tried to make peace again.

Currently these enemies have surrounded S's entire people and seek to destroy the entire clan and take their land.

This is a man who has been changed by a relationship with Christ, and he is standing up for God trying to change his people from fighters to peace makers. There is opposition and right now, his people are truly threatened.

This is one of those conflicts you see in movies. The underdog, trying to stand up for what is right.

Only he's not an underdog, he has God. God is not a genie who will answer wishes, this is something I keep telling my kids.

In my mind, this is one of those chances for God to be glorified to two people groups! He can show up, save S, and his people and rapidly change lives.

But I'm human, I don't know God's mind. And so I pray.

Please join me. Please pray that God would protect S and his land and that none of it would be taken. That He would protect every man, woman and child.

This seems to be a theme as of late around here. Please pray that God move mightily and that He is glorified.

thank you.