I thought this was interesting in the news today: Comcast to Limit Customer’s Bandwidth. Residential customers will be allowed 250 GB of traffic a month. That’s not too bad and it will probably help cut down on users who have bit torrents setup in their house. It doesn’t help to develop online video services though.

See this newspage: LINK

Invaluable: having incalculable monetary, intellectual, or spiritual worth (Princeton Univ.)

Every week Meghan and I sent our support packets to people who then receive our phone calls (many times numerous phone calls) and come to a conclusion that they aren’t able to support us financially for our mission in Peru. It is absolutely and perfectly acceptable for someone to not be able to (or not be interested in) supporting us. However, monetary support is what it seems most people think we really want. No one would say, “You’re still in the States because you haven’t raised enough prayer warriors.” But is that true?

Four weeks ago, in our June/July newsletter (get it here), Meghan and I asked our supporters to pray with us for 3% of [financial] support a week for 9 weeks. And then, BAM! We felt the prayers being answered. In early July we were at 72%… now we’re at 81%! Is that because of some great genius and ’salesmanship’ by us? Heck no… it’s because we pleaded with almost hundred people to pray for us and many of them did.

So, while we look for the financial support figures to rise and we’re waiting only on the ‘money’, let’s remember that it’s the prayer support that is affecting it all. Money has value… Prayer does not. You can’t even say it has great value… because it has more than that. It really is invaluable.

Tonight was “support raising night.” They seem sometimes to be dreadful evenings of what seems like unending phone calling to millions of people. I could never be a telemarketer.

Someone (probably many someones) has said to me, “You’re not a telemarketer. Telemarketers sell things even they don’t want or believe in. You’re inviting people to join a mission.” And while that someone is right and I agree… it’s still a difficult thing to call people and know that they feel devastatingly uncomfortable on the other end. With that said, I love talking to people about Peru and about our pending term there. I really love it– I usually end up catching myself talking too much. The phone calls are a painful way of communicating… but the message and conversation is really quite enjoyable.

A more interesting and positive note, is that I find it absolutely amazing and encouraging that the Lord tends to use the non-expected to bring about more than the anticipated. If I sit down and call ten people that I’ve known for the past 15 years of my life, I might end up leaving about 14 messages and catching up with that left over one person. However, if I call two people that I’ve never even met, they will not only partner with us, but encourage us by their own enthusiasm.

Why is that? I think it’s because the people who know us, don’t like us really and don’t want to support us. Or maybe they think we’re too flighty or something. Just kidding, I don’t really think those things, but maybe that’s true for some people. Sometimes people who have known you the longest tend to be the most critical and even cynical. It’s hard to forget people’s mistakes from the past, isn’t it?

I guess I’m just looking for love in all the wrong places.

God is proving Himself faithful through every step of this support raising process. And that’s not some crappy line of ‘yea things are really ok’ like you might hear on cheese-ball Christian radio. I don’t suspect any of our supporters or even future supporters might even ever read this post– so I’m not trying to sound mightily spiritual or ‘good enough’ for someone’s money. I really mean it… God is showing us that no matter what the case may be, He is faithful. I can tell you that I am not… I let entertainment, work, friends, and sleep get in the way of things. But He is still faithful– and if you question that… then I’d love to hear your explanation as to how we’re at 77% support raised. If left up to me alone, we’d have 1%… at best.

So I will just keeping praying that He will remind us when we’re discouraged that it is His timing and His purposes behind every step. It’s like a child begging and wanting Christmas morning to be on November 1st… just gotta wait until the right time… and then BAM, a Red Ryder BB Gun sitting under the tree. Or maybe three tickets to Lima, Peru… that’ll do.

I can’t believe it… google web search is down… what is the world coming to? We’re all going to die! Is this the second coming?

Today is my birthday and it’s Sunday. Both reasons why I should be resting and not sitting here thinking about all the things I have to accomplish this week, this month, and in the next few months. Goodness, I’m trying to move out of the country and I don’t even feel like it. Not one bit.

Can I be candid? I hate the mere state of being busy. I know I look like someone who enjoys filling up the schedule and letting the plate overflow with stuff to do, but the reality is that I don’t really enjoy being this busy. What’s more is that my selfish ambitions get so far in the way that all the really important things that have to get done get shafted… with some lame excuse like, “Well, I have to take a break at some point.”

We arrived home yesterday from a week long vacation in the Outer Banks. I should be pumped… rested… excited… energized… and of all things willing, to get right back on the horse. I’m none of those things.

I finished writing our June-July newsletter… yea, that’s right. We were so ‘busy’ that we didn’t have time to put together a newsletter for June and July. And that’s totally not true. I wish it were.

I sat down to try to figure out which of our supporters want to receive the email and mailed version of this wonderfully written newsletter. It saves us a stamp, some paper, and some printer ink for the emailed version… but does it, really? The headache in figuring out who receives what takes up hours of my time… resulting in time I could’ve spent working on someone’s website or something.

Now I’m rambling. Stop reading, it’s not worth it– I guarantee it.

Some day most of this work will be completely replaced with something more radical and more challenging, like language school or full-time missions work. I can’t say I’ll be any more satisfied then than I am now. If you know me, you know I’m a complainer and that means that if it’s not how I want it, everyone will know. (just like you reading this post).

Happy birthday to me… now go get something done.

I can’t believe it. Rachel turned one yesterday and in honor of her first birthday, we made a little video of some highlights from her first year:

I think it was a very wise man who once said, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his household.” Yea, a very wise man… the wisest. (Jesus in Mark 6:4). I think the same is true of web developers. I’m no one special and my skills are quite limited to my experiences– meaning I’m always getting better and always realizing that ‘yesterday’ I wrote really bad code. However, you would think that with some experience in this arena and among the other many years I have had in building computers, repairing them (hardware and software), that at least my family would turn to me for assistance.

Nope.

My mom bought a Dell laptop… what a shame.

My sister bought a Dell laptop… what a shame.

My dad was paying someone to run his website for him… a slight shame. Maybe not nearly as bad as buying a Dell computer (and mind you, Dell business computers are good… but the $499 deal is not). Web design and programming is not a ‘pick it up’ kind of hobby. The gentleman who assisted my dad in his website and email newsletter did a good job and did it for the last eight years. However, I think he was being slightly overpaid and my dad should’ve been the recipient of a well designed CMS or at least a good newsletter application.

So, hence the title, my latest project has been http://www.autonewswire.net. This photo shows what the site used to look like. Grant it, the main function of this News Wire is to deliver a daily (M-F) news feed via email. However, we all know… email newsletters don’t make money! Goodness, even things like the Circuit City crap that gets sent via email gets thrown away– even though I shop there frequently. Websites and frequent visitors generates advertising traffic… which is what brings in the dough. So, now as we move forward with the new site, we’ll progress in ways to invite the clients to the website.

Now free from the burden of paying a web guy every month, my dad can log into his own site and post new articles much like a Wordpress blog… though all of the code is like a good apple pie, made from scratch.

So I blogged… ha ha… blogged about my phone. My cell phone…

I’m losing patience with it. It runs on Symbian… a well trusted Linux-like platform… c’mon… why does it act like it’s running Windows 98!? Every two-three days I have to turn it off and restart it. I’m frustrated that there’s no built in task manager to start/stop/restart programs and services. Very weak. It means that after a few days of use, the soft button on the device for email doesn’t even work– I have to go through the menu.

Maybe this will go back on eBay and I’ll search again.

Yet to be published in video is Rachel taking her first few steps. Chances are, as it nears her first birthday, I’ll just create a video for that and it will include the little one walking around.

It’s hard to believe she’ll be a whole year old already. And yet, I’m looking foward as she begins to talk and express herself much more. Tonight, as we got out of the car in a grocery store parking lot, there was a dog stuck in a car with the windows cracked. I think Rachel has seen a real dog maybe two or three times… and possibly on Noggin. But without hesitation she looked at the dog and went, “woof!” Meghan and I were so impressed.

Children are a blessing from the Lord.

It’s really amazing how fast kids grow. I know that isn’t anything new, but no, seriously, it’s amazing how fast kids grow. I remember just little under a year ago bringing Rachel home from the hospital, feeling like a chauffeur because Meghan wanted to sit in the back with the new baby. I remember laying her in the bassinet in our bedroom under the little blue bili-blanket lights… she was so small. Now she’ll be one year old on July 3rd… amazing of fast kids grow.

Children catch on fast too. She knows what a cell phone is. She holds random objects to her ear and talks like she’s having a normal conversation. Tonight, I said to her, “Can I talk to them?” and without hesitation she handing me the “phone”, which happened to be a long block of wood (building blocks). She knew what I meant, even though she barely knows that I alone am “Da Da.” I’m so impressed.

In a few weeks, we take a family vacation with Meghan’s extended family to the Outer Banks. I’m looking forward to spending time with Rachel on the beach and hanging out. I might even splurge and buy a used set of the Xbox 360 game, Rock Band. But I guess that’s more for me.

Finally, we uploaded a video to youtube.com recently. I think I might try to keep that account active with new videos of Rachel and future children. That would be especially nice for when we finally make our way to Peru. You can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcvQWLWvT98