I’ve witnessed a close lighting strike and I’ve heard rolling thunder, but I’ve never quite experienced what I did today. During what seemed to be a normal lighting storm around the base today I was jolted out of my chair by a piercingly load pop echoing throughout my office. After my heart stopped racing and I caught my breath I realized lighting must had struck really close by and that the pop was most likely office equipment that is now as useful as a paper weight. I bent down and looked over all the equipment and surprisingly everything still seemed to be working. It didn’t make much sense, something had to make that noise.

I then left my office and headed over to another office to check on them to try and figure out what happened. As it turns out they heard the same thing to and they thought the noise came from their office. Unfortunately, a laptop in that office was the first fatality. It got fried by the lighting.

It was at this time that I started hearing from others around the base that they no longer had internet. Not a good sign. I headed down to a different office about 50 feet away where I found one of the routers had also been fried by lighting. If you’re keeping count that’s two pieces of equipment down. I couldn’t believe it, it seemed that the lighting surge had traveled to different buildings to just about every outlet. I’ve never seen anything like that.

I later found out that another wireless router down at one of the houses (100 yards away) got fried as well and needed to be replaced. God bless South Africa and their lighting storms.

Since the holiday break is over and I had to go back to the office for the first time in over a month it was time to give my face a little trim. Yes, my face. Over the long break I didn’t shave once in over a month, so as you can image I was a bit scruffy. Some might say I looked quite nasty, while I would say I just looked like a true mountain man. Well, with work starting back up it was time to look like a normal person again. Don’t worry if you missed it, here are a few picks of my transition back. Enjoy the show…

Mountain Man - Enjoying the full beard

I pity the fool! - Just the go-tee

Hello Ladies - How did the mustache ever go out of style?

We’re currently in the process of shipping a container here from the States. This will be the second container we’ve shipped here and so far it’s still just as confusing as the first one. The import/export laws are pretty impossible to figure out, so I never really know if I’m doing things right until I get a call telling me a form needs to be filled out or the container won’t ship. I’m currently running into an unforeseen issue with one items so place pray for favor with the US Customs Office. Update: All issues have been resolved. Praise God!

The main cargo in the container are 30,000 curriculums that we had printed for our AIDS prevention classes. It’s been a long time coming that we’ve wanted to be able to hand out full color magazine style books to kids in these schools. We’re also bringing over 2 wave runners. Now before you get to thinking I’m going to out on the lake every weekend the main reason we’re bringing them over is really for financial reasons. As most things are, wave runners cost double here than they do in the states. The idea is buy used ones in America and sell them over here for a hefty profit. On this shipment there are two that we bought for about 3,000 each and we’re hoping to sell them for around $6,000 each bringing in around $12,000 for the ministry.

On a personal note, my dad bought me a grill that we put on the container, so in about a month it will be barbeque time for me. Why not just buy a grill here? They cost twice as much!

Even though is was a busy year the last few weeks I have welcomed the sound of silence around here. Something that isn’t too common around here. With the ministry being closed for the holidays and almost every staff member going back to the states to visit home I’ve been all alone around here. Most days consist of me just trying to relax, which you would think be easy, but pretty much every day I fight opening up the laptop and getting some work done.

With one week left to go until the ministry opens it’s doors back up and the big machine starts rolling I’m trying my best to do what I can to not think about work. I guess it’s time to catch up on all my Tivo’d shows and watch all the DVDs I can get my hands on around here. Only time will tell.

It all happened so fast I’m not even sure where the last few months went. There were so many projects to finish up before the end of the year that everything seemed to run together and before I knew it the year was over. By far, the two biggest and toughest projects were the 2 AIDS Prevention curriculums I designed. One was a magazine style which came out to be about 50 pages and another was more of a journal with around 125 pages. To pile on the pressure a bit more we’re printing 15,000 of each curriculum, so I prayed I just didn’t blow it. I’ll know in about a month when all 30,000 arrive on a container shipped from the America.

A few of the other projects that rounded out the year was our annual Christmas card, our year-end newsletter called Story Tellers, and finally rolling out the new website. Apart from finally launching the new website I think the Stories Tellers “coffee table” book was the highlight of the year for me. Everything seemed to come together and it turned out pretty much just how I envisioned it. Which isn’t always the way things go. If anyone wants a copy of it let me know and I’ll try and mail you one.