A preview trip to Germany

One of my favorite parts of going to a movie in the theater is watching the previews. Really. I enjoy those film snippets of films. They’re long enough to give you a sense of the plot, but they’re short enough to whet your appetite for more. Right now, I’m experiencing a “preview” of the work that I will be doing long-term in Germany with Wycliffe Europe.

Last month, my colleague Martijn de Vries (of The Netherlands) invited me to assist him in providing IT support for a conference being held in a town about one hour away from the office here in Holzhausen. The conference is for people working in languages that are spoken in places where it’s not so easy to distribute Christian materials. In those situations, people have devised broadcast and distribution methods that work around the difficulties in clever and ingenious ways. Most of these methods employ electronic media such as the Internet and mobile phone systems.

So I arrived yesterday (9/23) so that next week we can help the people gathering for this event with all of their computer and Internet needs. We don’t want technical barriers to exist in their meetings, which itself exists to remove barriers to distributing the Gospel. And, of course, the Gospel’s purpose is to remove the barrier between us and God.

It’s good to meet many of the people whose names I’ve heard but whom I had not yet met. And being in the place where we will be living and working strengthens my eagerness and motivation. There is much to do, but there are too few people to do it all. May God remove the barriers to our coming and take us from the “preview” to the “feature”!

Check-IT-Out: Arlington, TX

The Seed Company is hosting a joint special event with Wycliffe Bible Translators called “Check-IT-Out” for information technology (IT) and software development professionals May 15 – 16, 2009 at The Seed Company, in Arlington, TX.

Conference topics include Introduction to the World of Wycliffe; Business Application Software; Language and Translation Support Software; Challenging Language Scripts; Telecommunication Challenges; International Training; demonstrations of cutting edge programs like the FieldWorks Suite and Speech Analyzer and a brief tour of the IT department at The Seed Company.

The May 15 -16, 2009 Check-IT-Out conference runs 1:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Friday through Saturday 9:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. The $100 registration fee includes three meals, snacks, and conference materials. Registration and more information is available at www.checkitout.org.

The conference in Arlington is part of a series of Check-IT-Out conferences. Currently Wycliffe has openings for close to 205 IT professionals worldwide.

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