If penguins are cool ... how come I'm so hot?

Potratz Mission Update Easter 2008

Happy Easter!

What a great time of year as we remember the resurrection of Christ.  As we remember that the tomb did not stay occupied, and that because of that we have a advocate in heaven.  A spotless high priest who intercedes on our behalf before an all powerful God!

I was toying with the idea of outlining what we do in Niger, to help you understand better the part we play in the larger ministry of SIM here in Niger, and to help you to pray more effectively for us.  I was not sure if that was to be my subject until we received an email from one of our supporting churches asking for exactly such a review in anticipation of an event they hold each year to raise funds for the missionaries they support as a church body.  If this is not a sign, it certainly kills two birds with one stone.   ;-)

When we are home visiting churches, giving updates and I tell you I am doing "computer tech support" people's eyes sometime glaze over and they nod (off   :-) ).  But what does that entail?  How am I helping anyone come to know the Lord Jesus Christ in Niger by playing with computers?

First it is not play!  It is a lot of work.  Nonetheless, it is work I enjoy, and the Lord has given us the opportunity to do something I enjoy, and at the same time serve Him in a place I have grown to really like.  My main responsibility is for close to 20 computers at the office that form the SIM Niger office network.  These computers are used every week, by missionary and national staff, many of whom are not computer savvy, in an environment that is not air conditioned, hot, dusty, has sporadic internet access, and suffers daily power surges and outages.  These are all conditions that are perfect for computer system failure! However, through the grace of God we have been able to build a system that is pretty robust, redundant at the server level, and is to some extent self restarting if there are long power outages.  All this from off-the-shelf, inexpensive hardware.  As other stations and ministries have needs, I offer assistance and support, sometimes by phone or email, other times by going to the site directly.  I also directly support individual missionaries as they have computer issues.

So what have I been doing for the last two and a half months since our return?  The following are beyond the everyday monitoring and tweaking of the system at the office. There are also Easter Eggs throughout the rest of the email with links to more information about people, people groups and places.  Have fun!  Ready?  Here we go!

• For translators working with the Fulani, I set up a couple of older machines as school work machines for their kids, did troubleshooting work on one of their national language helper's computers, and am currently trying to find parts to install a new monitor screen in one of their personal machines.
• For church planters also working with the Fulani, backed up and restored data from both of their identical machines when the machines both decided to die within one week of each other!  (Compaq laptops)
• For a missionary from Switzerland working to educate Christian teachers all over Niger (public and private), ran full antivirus and hardware diagnostic to speed up her sluggish computer.
• For a missionary from Romania working with Christian media in Niger, helped unblock Romanian websites that were being blocked by our filter.  Also introduced him to portable applications that will run from a USB key to help him work more effectively
• We have had continuing classes at the office for office staff dealing with efficient use of the system, excel, and we will go on to other subjects.
• At the office we have also moved data back to the server that had been moved to treasury during my absence due to a server glitch.
• For one of the missionaries helping to fill the treasurer position, find a way to get internet from her home here through a wireless phone that ended up taking five trips to various phone offices in Niamey!
  
• For an evangelist working with the Tamajeq, diagnose, research and finally repair a windows misconfiguration that was causing the computer access the hard disk very slowly, making the whole computer sluggish and almost unusable.
• For church planters working with the Gourmantche, backup as much data as possible and replace the hard drive in their laptop and optimize the system.
• For a Canadian family doing evangelism and church planting from another mission agency, recover their computer from an internet based attack and make sure it was working correctly.
• For a British missionary church planting and doing evangelism among the Hausa, sorting out email problems he has been having, and changing his mail address from an AOL address to a sim.org address.
• For the agricultural mission in Maradi, purchase a new computer, configure it and send it east to replace their ailing email computer.
• For the FEU, an evangelical ministry to students at the university here in Niamey, purchase and setup of 6 machines for their computer room which attracts many students to the center.
• Troubleshoot and get internet service restored for Galmi Hospital when they suddenly found they had no connection.
• For a SIMAIR pilot, troubleshooting cooling fan issues and determining whether or not they need a replacement sent from the US.
• For a missionary church planter from another organization, total disassembly of his laptop and a thorough internal cleaning to stop a chronic overheating problem.
• For Maza Tsaye the SIM agricultural mission center farm near Maradi, research and sharing information about possible internet connection options.

There are other instances through the last couple of months, but you get the idea.  Through the computer tech support ministry, we feel the Lord has given us an opportunity to be part of many ministries throughout Niger, and the list will continue to grow.  What we do directly impacts evangelism, church planting, and translation, relief and Christian education work throughout Niger. There are trips in the planning stages to Galmi Hospital for systems work, to Goure and Makalondi to set up youth club computers (computers are big draws to attract kids to evangelical programs since there are few computers in homes and fewer still in schools), and there will always be the unexpected issues that arise daily.

This email has grown quite large, but i wanted you to get a better idea of what we do here.  The next installment in a few dayswill focus on what is going on with Wanda and the boys.

Randy for all