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Old Routine

We're having snow flurries today. Taylor is hoping it will really snow. I took the boys to school this morning, and we have only three more days to do that. We are all so ready to live closer to the schools. It has been so worth it to do what we did, but it's taking it's toll.

This morning the three of us pile in the car at 7 AM (Ellyn stayed home in bed, sleeping a little longer because she's working two different jobs today) and headed off to school. Before we arrived at the middle school, Taylor had fallen asleep in the back seat. I dropped Dustin off and then drove over to the house to wait there for a while and read my book. After a while Taylor woke up, so we drove over to the grocery store just down the street to buy a few donuts. We drove over to his school's parking lot and ate those. I finally say goodbye to him at 8:40 AM and arrive back home around 9 AM.

That's been our morning routine for the past three months. And, we repeat that in the afternoon, picking up Dustin first and waiting an hour for Taylor. So that is four hours of time and almost 36 miles of driving daily that we won't have to do any more once we are in the new house. Bottom line is that the boys are getting to stay in the same school all year long, and we see that as a very good thing.

This ends up being a big week for us. We have an appointment with the title company on Wednesday to take care of financing. Ellyn flies out to her aunt's wedding in Portland on Thursday. So if we don't get all the signatures done on Wednesday, I'll be getting power of attorney to take care of whatever I need to on Friday. Friday will be the final walk through. I also anticipate the building getting the certificate of occupancy that day, which is key because the lender won't fund until we get that. If all that goes smoothly, I'll be moving over there on Saturday. We've been blessed because there are a couple families from church and also Ellyn's cousin who will be helping us move. Ellyn will arrive home on Sunday afternoon, and we'll spend next week settling in.

Dustin and Taylor are looking forward to living close to school. They both will be about a half mile from school. Taylor plans to ride his bike every day. We'll see what he thinks about that when it's freezing outside! At least he'll get to sleep in an hour later every morning. Dustin won't get to sleep much more than he does now, but at least he won't have to wait in the car for an hour in the afternoons.

Posted by David at 10:43 AM

Snowing!

We had snow tonight. Not a lot, maybe a little less than half an inch. But it certainly was enough to get the boys outside to throw a few snowballs and build a couple mini snowmen. This is their first snowfall in over five years, and they weren't going to waste any of it. For Taylor, this is like his first time to experience snow. His last winter was when he was four years old. He actually learned to ski that year, and did very well. He'll have to start over again at that, because I'm sure he doesn't remember too much of it. Actually, he wants to snowboard, not ski. He visited the Bogus Basin web site the other day, and was shocked to learn how expensive lift tickets are.

Posted by David at 12:33 AM

Getting Closer

We closed escrow on the sale of our California house on November 18. That puts us one step further towards the end of our long transition. The house in Boise should be ready by December 2, and I'm working on the loan for that right now. I think we'll be in the new house in a week and a half. We're so excited.

The bad news is that Ellyn won't be in town on the day we move, and I know the thought of that is killing her. But, her aunt, who she is very close to, is getting married in Portland on December 2, and she won't miss that wedding for the world. The wedding is bad timing for us, but on the positive side, at least Ellyn is close enough to be able to get to the wedding. If we were still in Ecuador, she wouldn't be going.

Posted by David at 10:42 PM

Cleaning Up The Mess

I've just finished upgrading to SuSE 10.0 tonight. I was using 9.3 for my router firewall, and decided to finally take the plunge. First I tried an upgrade, and that didn't work, in more than one way, I'm sure. But, the first thing I noticed was that all three of the network interfaces were scrambled, each with a different IP address than before the upgrade. Good grief. If that part was a mess, who knows what else I'd find wrong?

After that I went ahead and did a new install. That presented some more problems, as I also decided to upgrade to the latest versions of Shorewall, Dansguardian, and PPTP. I think I finally have it all figured out, with the exception of one nagging problem where Dansguadian won't start when the machine boots.

The IT department at the MAF Redlands office uses SuSE Linux, and they are upgrading to version 10.0, which gave me some incentive to try it out.

Posted by David at 10:51 AM

Future Planning

We're almost at 100% of our monthly support goal. I really believe we'll be done by December 12, and I'm planning to start working for the IT department again on that date. We've been blessed with a couple churches and around eighteen individual who have joined our ministry partnership team.

Earlier I had written that I might be able to go help with the communications centers in Pakistan once we were done with our fund raising. At this point I can tell you that won't happen. They have reached the point now where they need someone who can be there 4 to 6 months, managing both communications centers and doing the accounting. Each of the centers will be run by local PACTEC employees. Since I'm not free to be gone for that length of time, I'll not be able to go.

I'll focus my efforts on the relocation project, with a trip to Redlands right after the new year for some training and getting up to speed on that. In April the MAF IT infrastructure manager will be moving to Nampa, and at that point I'll be working with him.

The month of December will see us moving into our new house in Boise, and then I'll work on setting up a linux server at the temporary MAF office in Nampa.

Posted by David at 09:28 AM

Remote Communication

Here's a user comment from the PACTEC communication center in Pakistan:

"I wouldn't be able to function without it [the internet cafe]. Internet communication with my team in Canada and VOIP phones make comunication with my colleagues and family members seamless. You guys are amazing!! Who would have thought I could be sitting in the middle of Northern Pakistan, around a campfire, sleeping in tents, using latrines, cooking over a fire, and able to check wireless internet. It's mind-boggling."

Posted by David at 11:19 PM

Emergency Communication

Pakistan (MNN)--Mission Aviation Fellowship's humanitarian subsidiary, PACTEC, reports that the first emergency communication center is up and running from Pakistan's quake zone. The center is in a Muzaffarabad refugee camp. The PACTEC team is much appreciated because they've provided a way to get information out of the disaster zone as winter sets in. A second site in Balokot is on the way to becoming operational. Pray for the teams as they serve the needs in this region, that they will be able to share the hope of Christ.

Source: http://www.mnnonline.org/article/7958

Posted by David at 04:36 PM

Change and Snow

I was in the car with the boys today and we saw our first snow in five years that wasn't on a volcano. It snowed on the mountains north and south of Boise last night. Only a dusting, but enough to let us know winter is coming. The other day I found myself trying to explain to someone how it was being in Boise. I realized that I was going through a double change--moving back to the US after living in Ecuador for five years is a big change. What makes the change even greater is that we didn't move back to Oakhurst, or California, but to a state we'd never even been to before. Good thing we like it here!

This long period of waiting, of being in transition, is getting old for me. We've been back in the US for almost five months, and we're now very close to moving into a permanent home. This little apartment has been good to us, but it will be good to make a 'real' home here. The sale of the house in California is moving along, and I'm so thankful we have a buyer. It hardly seems possible that just three weeks ago I was getting very nervous that we wouldn't have an offer in time. Although I'm getting weary of the waiting time, lots of good things are happening.

The other large focus is our support raising, and we are now at 81% of our monthly amount. We have plateaued this past week, and we are praying to see more progress. Two more months, as we pray to be at 100% by the end of the year. I'm really looking forward to 2006 and getting to work on something other than support raising.

Posted by David at 09:21 PM