26 August 2009 - Letter from Leon [Number 13]
Tue Sep 01, 09 9:57 am
I have had a lovely summer and am quite enjoying being back in the UK. It has become my home and I also appreciate the stability of a routine. I have been doing some occasional gardening and cycle trips when the weather is good to get out in God's creation. The summer weather here in the UK is the best it has been in several years so that has made it conducive to do these outdoor activities.
***US Trip***
I was in the US for 5.5 weeks this summer. While there I spent 3 weeks with my family including my new nephew. I found it quite difficult emotionally because even though I was in the US my heart kept being pulled back to the UK. It did not help that I was working 6 hours each day remotely with people in Carlisle, which mentally kept taking me back there even though I was physically in the US. I was busy working every morning from 6 a.m.– noon (CDT) with the Carlisle office and then had the rest of the day with family.
My father's garden
It was a real joy for me to go with my nephew on his first swim in the pool. I really enjoyed being able to help my brother with some DiY (Do It Yourself) on his front porch and steps. I went camping with my sister and parents on one of my weekends at home. The canoe trip with my sister was a real highlight for me. It was so enjoyable to spend quality time with my family even though I was still quite busy with work. But it was really tough because it was the first time I really felt unsettled and uncomfortable in the culture I grew up in.
The steps my brother and I installed
My last Sunday with family
One of the goals during my trip was to pray and think through the past few years of my time in Carlisle and where God would have me in the future. I think I have some answers to that question now. I did discover that I could do my work for OM from the US but found it too hard to do on an ongoing basis. For all that people claim about telecommuting being the wave of the future I discovered how difficult it is to effectively work when working on a team spread across 7 time zones.
Celebrating my birthday (4 weeks early) with my family
***OM USA***
After my time with family I went to OM USA in Tyrone, GA which is just south of Atlanta. The trip went really well - even better than I had expected. My task there was to replace all their network equipment. That meant ripping out 10-15 year old switches, routers and hubs and replacing them with new equipment. (I really could not tell how old the equipment was.) It was a real nightmare trying to figure out how their network had evolved over the years. They have never really had anyone with real network design skills so their network had morphed over the years to meet the immediate need but with no real insight into the big picture or best practice when setting up a network.
On the technical side I was able to replace network equipment from the dark ages and give them a much more modern network which will be able to serve them for the next 5-10 years at least. One of my main goals was to increase the rapport between their IT team at their office and our team in Carlisle. The work on the network was quite foundational for many other projects that they will be looking at taking on in the coming years. In Carlisle we have experience with many of the technical issues that they shortly will be experiencing or already are and I hope that we can be of assistance in tackling some of their issues. By building trust and increasing our rapport, hopefully we will be able to help them solve their problems and try to maintain some consistency across our systems.
I had been worried after my time at OM USA last year. My time spent on the base last year was less than exciting and quite lonely. This trip was much more enjoyable than my trip last year as I strongly took the initiative to get out more and off the OM base. After several false starts I was able to get a bike and went cycling a few times in the evenings, I went to the cinemas with some people on the team, I invited myself to some of the church small groups, and even played Ultimate Frisbee twice.
Before I arrived this is what the server room rack looked like
After I finished my work the cabinet was much cleaner
Installing GBIC's into the new switches
Configuring the switches with my laptop
***Email Migration***
While in the US we attempted a major migration of 1,100 OM email mailboxes from the UK to the US. It all went horribly wrong and we eventually lost 4 hours of email and the migration did not actually occur. I had that burden hanging over my head the rest of my time in the US. Now that I am back in Carlisle we have begun a different and much slower method for the migration. Instead of moving all the mailboxes in one big job we are moving each mailbox across the internet one at a time. For the smaller mailboxes this only takes a couple of hours, but the really big mailboxes can take 15+ hours.
Now that the email migration project is coming to an end I have begun to investigate moving everyone in OM away from your.name@<field/country>.om.org to a flat your.name@om.org email address. I will also begin to investigating how OM's authentication strategy for all our systems will be designed and implemented.
***Travel***
I don't like staying in one place for too long even though I was quite glad to be back in the UK. This year I have been out of England at least once every month and slept in another country apart from England in all but one month. This month is no exception as I took a weekend holiday to Sweden to visit a friend and former colleague, Mona. Some of you might remember Mona from when she visited the US 4 summers ago. I then will be away to Belgium in October for 1.5 weeks to train our staff in OM's IT systems and beyond that have possible trips to the Doulos (one of OM's ships) or other fields as needed.
***Life in Carlisle***
This month has been pretty rough emotionally for the team as we buried the 18 year old son of a team member. Michael Knight died the night of July 31, with the coroner saying there was no earthly reason for him to pass away. It has affected everyone on the team in different ways. Michael was a fine Christian young man who had a real passion for Christian worship and planned to attend a worship college in the autumn.
I went away a few weekends back to an Ultimate Frisbee tournament up in Scotland. I have been playing now on an amateur (secular) team for the past 8 months and this will be my first tournament with them. We camped outside in the rain and played on a beach on the west coast of Scotland in Troon. They are a good group of people and I enjoy the opportunity to build relationships with these guys.
Team photo
In other news my New Zealand housemate, Phil, is recovering from chicken pox. My German housemate, Mathias, travels a lot to other countries for meetings and I therefore rarely see him.
Turkey - CHRISTIAN BAND APPEARS ON NATIONAL TV
Another exciting Christian music tour creatively proclaimed the Gospel as 18 internationals displayed the unity of Christ in a variety of countries, cultures, languages and denominations. The concert venues included an open-air amphitheater, an international church, a university festival, a rock club, a cultural center and Turkish national TV. Many great conversations happened along the way. Some of the performances were covered by local newspapers. Those interested in the Gospel were sent materials and a Bible Correspondence Course, and contact was made with local churches and sponsors for follow-up.
Photo from the concert
***Prayer Requests***
- Comfort and strength in God for the Knight family and friends. That people would make decisions for Christ through these circumstances
- I will be a strong witness with those in the Ultimate Frisbee crowd and not become injured
- The email migration project will finish well and that I will have wisdom as I tackle new projects
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