Last year, we decided that we would start doing local ministry in the form of what we call “Computer Tune-up Clinics” for churches in and around Salem, Oregon. There are three particular focuses for these clinics:
- Use the gifts God has given us to minister within the local body of believers
- Develop unity within our group, becoming familiar with each others’ strengths
- Maintain a knowledge of the common technical challenges to improve our efficiency during our limited time overseas
We saw the impact of these computer clinics last year as we prepared for GEM’s Annual Conference 2009 in Liberec, Czech Republic. We were able to fix more laptops in less time, and we pointed to improvements made after multiple clinics in the states as a pivotal part of the development of our processes.
We recently had a computer clinic at New Hope Foursquare Church in Salem. How exciting it was to be able to join with other geeks in ministry together! We learned more about each other, and we fixed tough technical issues working together as a team by utilizing each others’ strengths. This is how the body of Christ works to bring glory to God! We were able to resolve a number of problems and provide advice toward a resolution of others. Afterward, we identified a few ways to improve our process for both local clinics and work abroad. While we missed Eric Straw and Ben Funkhouser, two Mark 5 Ministries volunteers, it was definitely a Saturday well-spent!
We are currently preparing for the Greater Europe Missions Annual Conference 2010 in Poland, and our next clinic will be at Grace Baptist Church in June!
As we begin planning and preparing for our trip this summer to help fix computers for the GEM missionaries, I wonder if all the hard work, effort expended, time spent, money spent, technical and practical planning sessions, etc. are really worth the outcome.
Then I think back to the last couple summers, working with these missionaries on our past trips:
I think of the thanks they gave us for coming,
… of the thanks they urged us give our supporters for making it possible for us to come,
… of hearing their stories of sacrifice to share the gospel where they live,
… of how they rely on their computers for communication and outreach,
… of their struggles to make the computers do what they need,
… of the computer challenges they have had to endure with no technical support,
… and of the impact for God’s Kingdom that we can make by offering our services to these missionaries.
Yes! I am reassured that all the hard work we spend in preparation for this trip is indeed worth the effort! We are not called to sit back in comfort, ease, and leisure, but to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice to impact this world for Christ. We are privileged to share in the joy of offering our talents and watching God get the glory! What a joy to do our little part of sharing in the ministry of spreading the “fragrance of Christ” to this hurting world (2 Cor. 2:15).
Please pray for us in the following ways during the next few months:
- Pray for wisdom as we work to finalize new technical solutions to meet missionaries’ needs.
- Pray for finances for plane flights, other travel, and lodging in Poland.
- Pray for our strength and time management as we take time out of busy schedules for necessary planning.
Please see the “GEM AC2010” “Project” on this website to follow us on this journey.
Thank you so much for your support and interest in this ministry! Grace to you, Corey.
We are excited to announce our projects for 2010.
The blogs for these projects can be accessed by going to our Projects via the menu at the top right of this page.
The Africa 2010 project encompasses many different opportunities. It is an exploratory trip — what are the specific computing technology needs and challenges of missionaries in rural Africa? It is a service trip — fixing laptops at a regional conference for AIM. It is a documenting trip — produce a “how-to” video for setting up and using a single house solar power system. And, much more. There is a team of two going on the Africa 2010 project. They will leave for Africa on May 4th. One will return on June 7, and the other, Eric, will head from Africa up to GEM AC2010 at the end of July.
Greater Europe Missions has invited us back for a third year. This year’s annual conference is in Wisla, Poland. We anticipate taking a team of six technicians to the conference. We will leave the U.S. on July 27 and return on August 6. Last year Eric and his daughter Rebekah just barely made it into Poland as they traveled a road from the Czech Republic to Germany to visit Herrnhut. This year the team will be firmly planted in Poland. We will fly in to Krakow and spend a day touring before we head south to the conference in Wisla. For some, the touring day will be spent at Auschwitz, which is about a one hour drive from Krakow. At the end of the conference we will spend a debriefing day back in Krakow. Our debriefing day is a very important opportunity for all of our team members to reflect on the results of the trip. We explore aspects of ministry, team relationships, and spiritual growth. Our debriefing form, A Time to Reflect, is a compilation of other such forms we have seen. Feel free to use it or adapt it to your ministry needs.
We recently changed our domain from markfive.org to mark5ministries.org. We believe that adding “ministries” to our name will help define the arena in which we function. While our domain has changed, the work we do has not. We are still a community of Christians dedicated to solving computing technology problems for missionaries.
The domain change has occurred without many problems. Both the technical and administrative challenges were tolerable. Our hosting company (SurpassHosting) did an excellent job of handling the move for a nominal fee of $10. We chose to drop our old emails (@markfive.org) and just use the new ones (@mark5ministries.org). Hopefully we have done a good job of notifying all of our contacts about the change in email addresses. I hate the thought of someone trying to contact us at a markfive.org email and simply having their message bounce back. However, it did not seem cost effective to maintain both the old domain email addresses and the new domain email address. We will retain the markfive.org domain and have added markfiveministries.org as well. Both redirect to mark5ministries.org.
We use WordPress blogging software with the Vigilance theme (free version) for our website. The domain name change gave us the opportunity to adjust some of the organization and structure of our website. We now use the MyVigilance child theme to facilitate some customization in the css stylesheets. We have also modded about five of the php files from the main Vigilance theme. While this makes upgrading the Vigilance theme a bit more work, in the long run the customization is worth the hassle. Our customizations include the following:
- Moving the search box to the upper right corner
- Adding a Notes section to the sidebar
- Adding a slide show to the sidebar
- Changing the display of the blog header
- Adding in a drop down menu system
We use the WP-Hive plugin to facilitate the subdomain blogs (i.e. africa2010.mark5ministries.org, gemac2010.mark5ministries.org, etc.). All subdomain blogs are accessible via the Projects menu at the top. We also use the WordPress Gallery Slideshow plugin to facilitate our slide show on the sidebar.
