I thank God that He has kept me safe during my travels, provided the finances required to continue in ministry, and used me in various ways to further the kingdom of God. I continually need to be reminded that I am a servant of God and not a slave of God. I do my best and He makes things work out for His glory. God has his sovereign will and His desire is that I serve God wherever I am at.
*Not Leaving OM*
This might come as a surprise for those that only receive a paper copy of my updates. God has intervened in my situation and I have committed for an additional 2 years of service with OM. All along, during my decision I kept saying that unless the situation is changed I would not stay in Carlisle. The situation has changed. There has been some reorganization and I have been offered a new role for which I am quite excited. In January, I will drop all system administration for the Carlisle team and for remote team members. I feel like a tremendous burden is being lifted from my shoulders. I will be able to focus entirely on an international Exchange solution and other international server based solutions.
This past summer, I had the opportunity to travel quite a bit, going on various outreaches and to several conferences. (They all went really well.) In the past 12 months I was in 11 countries! My new role with OM will add to my travels as I implement solutions or perform analyses. I am looking forward to being in even more countries over the next couple years.
*Carlisle Happenings*
My sister visited for just under a week. It was really great to be able to introduce her to my friends and the activities I am involved with here in Carlisle. I continue to heal from my other ankle that was sprained. I have had to give up all my sports ministry activities while my ankle fully heals. Hiking is still allowed for which I am thankful.
I continue to keep quite fairly busy at the office and am quite busy at home since my house mate is incapacitated. I am trying to make it so that he does not need do to much around the house. Getting my other house mate, Johannes, to assist in the responsibilities as well can sometimes be a challenge.
*Work*
At the office I am working on migrating everyone to using Exchange server for their email. The migration can take quite a bit of time per person because of the large amount of email people have. There is little standardization for email clients and download protocols among our team so it makes it more complicated. I have people using IMAP, POP3, Thunderbird, Outlook, and Pegasus in various combinations.
I am also working towards upgrading the primary office server to new hardware over the Christmas holidays. This upgrade will include a new consolidated backup solution for all the servers at the office which encompasses roughly 1.5 terabytes of data.
*Christmas in Moldova*
The dark days of December make Moldova look sad and hopeless but the OM Moldova team has been preparing to brighten up the lives of local people. One worker wrote, "We hope to visit all our day centres with a joyful Christmas programme. At this moment we have eight day centres where poor and neglected children are helped. After school they come to the centre and get a healthy hot meal and then they are helped with their homework. At the end of the day several activities are organized for the children.
"The day centres are a place for the children where they can feel safe and loved. It gives them some light and hope in their hard circumstances. Also with the Christmas programme we want to bring light into their lives. "What is Christmas all about" is the theme of this year. This year we are blessed by an organization which has provided us with 600 food parcels for the families of these children. For the coming three months all the families from the day centres and some elderly people in the villages will be helped every month with a food parcel.
"Let's pray that their lives will not just be a little bit better through this, but that they will experience the love of Christ and the Light that He gives us in our lives."
Source: OM Moldova Communications
*Prayer Requests*
1. Please pray for my one housemate, Phil, as he recovers from major back surgery and takes over my former role in OM. I continue to struggle relationally with my other housemate, Johannes, because he is rarely home and is so much younger than me.
2. Furlough will be very busy. I will spend time with my family, friends and supporters. I need to double my support from $800 to $1700 per month, due to attrition and the weakening of the dollar to pound exchange rate.
3. In my new role, which I have already started, I have quite a bit of work that will continue while I am in the U.S. Pray that I will have wisdom as I work on project plans, documentation, etc., while juggling the needs of furlough.
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