Postscript

For two weeks, Jeff was in Musoma, Tanzania, a town on the eastern side of Lake Victoria. Nine translations, the Mara Cluster, are being done in this location.  The construction of the building was completed about six months ago, but they hadn’t moved in yet because the computer network wasn’t set up.  They asked Jeff to come up to do the installation.

The projects he did in July in Germany and the Netherlands were great training for setting up the network in this office. The first few days a team of Tanzanians helped him put the cables through conduit in the walls. Then he installed the plug ports and set up the rack mount to connect the whole network together.

A funny fact–the spool of orange cables he used in this project in Musoma, he actually packed on a truck while he was in Germany for shipment to Tanzania.

The whole staff were able to move in the next business day after Jeff left.  The photo above shows one of the first meetings in the new building. A consultant is checking over some newly translated scriptures.

* Thanks to Michael Nicholls for providing several of these photos.

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Jeff and Martijn drove up to Wycliffe Netherlands for the day to help with another IT project.  It was just a just hour drive from where the office is in Germany to the office in the Netherlands.

The old rack mount.

The office needed a new rack mount for their server switch installed. A network switch routes traffic between computers and is the central point between all the computers in an office. The network at the office had expanded, and the old rack mount wasn’t big enough to fit everything anymore.  A new rack mount would give them the increased capacity they needed for their bigger network.

Out with the old, and in with the new.

This project involved unwiring the network switch, removing the old rack mount, installing the new rack mount and rewiring the network switch.

The new rack mount.

Between the two of them, they finished the whole project in a day, and they were back in Germany by the evening.

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Jeff has been working with his supervisor, Martijn, on a cabling project at one of our offices in Germany.

They’ve had to install conduit along all the office walls and in the attic. Then, they’ve been working on running internet and electrical cables through the conduit.  The last part of the job was installing the electrical outlets and internet ports. Jeff enjoyed this project because it combined some of his IT knowledge with his construction skills.

(Click on the images to see them at full size.)

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Photo by Søren Kjeldgaard

Before we left Romania, we spent a day with the Wycliffe Romania administrative staff.  They have a small, but growing team.  This team does publicity, church relations, events, processing new staff, and more.

Administrators play an important role that is often overlooked because these kinds of roles are not considered font-line jobs.  However, without good administrators serving in a variety of functions, Bible translation and related work would be hindered.  I guess it’s sort of like trying to drive a good looking car without an engine. Even though you can’t see the engine from the outside, without it, now matter how good a car looks, it won’t drive.

After we had finished some interviews and photographs with the staff, Jeff met with Jeroen to assess the IT needs of Wycliffe Romania and consult with them about what kinds of IT systems they need to run their office more efficiently.  His report will go to the Wycliffe Europe Area IT services director.

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It was time for the annual Europe Area meetings, again.  This year we met in Germany, and both of us were invited to attend.

The Remote IT Support program that serves both Europe and Africa and for which Jeff is part is led by his supervisor in the Europe Area…which makes Jeff part of Europe Area…and why we get to come to this meeting annually.

In these meetings we usually get an update on what is happening in Wycliffe around the world, and what’s happening in Europe Area.  Since the Europe Area team is quite distributed, with staff in several countries on three continents, we also get personal updates from our colleagues.

We’ve been invited to spend some extra time in Europe after the meetings are done.  Jeff will be helping his supervisor set up an office in Germany with wired-internet ports and extra electrical outlets, and may also help with some other special projects.

Jeff will also travel with me and a small team to Denmark and Romania where we will be gathering some information for a few publicity articles for Wycliffe. We’ll be working on a profile about a woman in Denmark who is preparing for service with Wycliffe, and we’ll also be gathering a story about a small church in Romania that sent a family from their church to Ethiopia to serve in translation.

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