4 Novermber 2007 Update
Thu Feb 14, 08 10:28 pm
Things have not been that busy lately although I have had a lot to think about. This upcoming Saturday (10/11) will be my 2 year anniversary! I have been in England for one entire month without leaving the country. Having a more stable period with regards to where I am living has allowed me to bake a few pecan and pumpkin pies. I am also getting to know a few of the new people at church and on the team.
Last night was bonfire night for Guy Fawkes here in town. They had an absolutely brilliant fireworks show.
Last week I was invited to a proper Indian curry. We all sat on the ground and ate everything with our right hand. Very fun and hot to touch!
*Leon and OM*
I don't know what to say here. I mentioned briefly in my last email a proposal OM gave me for future ministry in the organization. I have spoken with my parents, brother, sister, and a few people here in Carlisle about the proposal. My quiet times have been spent quite a bit of late on praying and thinking about the proposal.
What is the proposal? A brief outline is that I would be splitting my time between OM internationally and OM Ships working on 1) an international email solution 2) Microsoft infrastructure deployments and best practices 3) a coordinated authentication strategy for various systems 4) IT recruiting during travels 5) a few other things that are hard to describe or are too technical to explain briefly. I would be committed for 2+ years and the position would call for 2.5 to 4 months of travel each year, but still be based in Carlisle. Nearly all of my current work would be left for others to sort out. There are great opportunities for me to grow and I would relish the opportunity to serve God with my abilities.
I am strongly leaning towards staying. I don't have a clear guidance either way. It will be a step of faith in God's providence for me to stay. I have to raise my financial support levels because the US dollar against the GB pound is so poor. I also will lean on him for all the other practical things that would need to be sorted for a longer term commitment. I have to have faith in God for his providence if I was to go back to the US, but not quite the same way.
*Ministry*
Three Saturday's past my church had their outreach. As you would know I organized the football time during the outreach. I was not certain how many would show, but we had enough for 5-a-side. My ankle was sore the next Sunday as it had been too much for my recovering sprained ankle.
The vicar leading the outreach I help with every Saturday morning was away last weekend so I was given leadership. It was a good opportunity for me to do the entire thing from start to finish including the Bible lesson. It went really well from my perspective.
Yesterday was a city wide 6-a-side football tournament amongst the churches. I reffed one game and played a 1.5 games. My ankle is not strong enough yet and gave me some problem during play for which I am paying today.
Each church was encouraged to use the opportunity to get non-Christians involved in a team. Some sides were entirely non-Christian, some where a mixture and a few were entirely Christian. All told there were 11 sides for the 3 pitches. My church did poorly in the tournament, but that was not the goal. I knew a fair number of the non-Christians from other matches I have played and was able to continue building relationships with them.
*Housemate*
Phil, my housemate for the last year, was to have back surgery on Saturday privately for a badly ruptured disk that has incapacitated him since mid-August. His insurance took their time getting back to him for coverage of the surgery. An hour prior to going in to hospital they rang and said they would not pay for it. His two options are now to fly back to New Zealand to have the surgery or to have the national health service (NHS) here in England perform the surgery. The earliest the NHS here could perform the surgery is January. It is likely the same time frame back in New Zealand as well. He is looking through his options now.
*Work*
I am researching a few things for OM, but in the main do not have much work currently. I hope this will change soon.
29/10/2007 was a red letter day for me. I was finally able to release my last major project, WPKG, out of beta. It was one of the projects I have been working on for the longest so I am very glad to have all the development and testing completed. Now it only requires maintenance.
WPKG is a solution for deploying and updating software to computers in an office. The goal is to reduce the workload for local system administrators to visit each computer to install/upgrade software and at the same time maintain some semblance of consistency or standardization across offices. It is a comprehensive solution of a subscription based central package repository, local office distribution servers, and agent based software deployment with centralized logging.
*Photos*
I was able to get all my sister's photos from when we were in Paris. They are uploaded and can now be viewed from: http://tinyurl.com/2gg2bq
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