Postscript

Jeff’s in Nairobi, Kenya this week for an event called IT Connect.  Computer support staff who support Bible translation and administration teams for several African countries are participating.

This picture above shows the group listening to a presentation on maintaining the specialized translation and linguistic software used by staff in translation and literacy programs.  Some of the programs have been updated.

Sufficient IT staff remains one of the top three personnel needs of Wycliffe.  More IT staff are needed to serve Bible translation and administrative staff in Africa and around the world.   Learn more about current IT needs.

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Jeff continues to serve people in Europe and in Africa with IT support.  It’s amazing how using remote technology, Jeff can access and maintain computers in so many different countries.

In this picture he’s working on a colleague’s computer in Sweden.  That’s her computer you see on Jeff’s screen.  He’s accessed it remotely, and he’s using skype to talk to her.  She was having trouble accessing the internet because of a problem with her web browser.

He’s also still doing some local support.  This past week someone who is usually in Nigeria brought their computer to him for on-site maintenance.  It had 5500 viruses!

He heads to Kenya next week for an IT conference with IT staff from several African countries.  A few months after that he may be traveling to Uganda to provide some onsite IT support for some staff gathering there for a meeting.

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Wonder what Jeff’s remote IT  support looks like?  Here it is.

This was Jeff working on the email account of a colleague in Johannesburg.  She’s a 16 hour drive from us, but her computer is only a millisecond away using remote technology.  He remoted into her computer to see and work on the problem, and talked with her on my cell phone to ask questions about the problem.  This session resolved an issue she was having viewing her sent email.

When a user is not in South Africa, Jeff uses skype to communicate, but remoting into the person’s computer works just the same as it did with our colleague in Johannesburg.  Once he’s gotten permission to access their computer, he can see their screen just as if he’s sitting in front of their computer.

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In the midst of getting set up for our lives in South Africa, both of us have been busy assisting Wycliffe staff that live in this area.  I’ve been providing consulting help to Wycliffe South Africa on their branding strategy, while Jeff has been helping with computer repairs.

In the last week or so Jeff has worked on three computers in person and completed one remote repair.  Today, he is making a house call at two colleagues’ home office helping them sort out some issues with their email and another software program.  Next week he’ll be doing some long-over-due updates on another colleague’s computer.  The team here seems glad to be getting some assistance from Jeff.

Wycliffe staff based in South Africa serve in a variety of roles from raising awareness of Bible translation and opportunities for involvement, to administrating donated funds, to having direct involvement in Bible translation projects located in other southern African countries.  While Jeff will serve many different offices in Africa, he will be a main source of IT support for this team.

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We’re moving from Kenya to South Africa, soon.  You can read more about our move in our June newsletter. We’re excited about the new ministry opportunities that this move will open to us.  Utilizing the better internet available where we will live, Jeff will be serving Wycliffe staff all over Africa as a remote/roving IT tech.  I will be located closer to a couple of potential ministry partners, who may be able to help me better serve Africa with publicity media.

We’ve been busy with preparations for this move the last couple of months.  The big things–the sale of our vehicle and household items and obtaining our long-term visas–are now behind us. Our long-term visas for South Africa were approved last Tuesday, and since then, we’ve been busy packing.

Today, we reserved tickets for a Saturday departure to Johannesburg. We’ll spend a few weeks with Wycliffe colleagues orienting and getting some paperwork completed before moving to our final destination–Cape Town.

Please pray for us as we complete our last preparations for our Saturday departure.  We’ll be keeping you posted on our progress.

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