E-Publicity for Mission Radicale

Wednesday is currently Nicole's "Torrents of Hope" class at our church. This is the 4th of 8 sessions. Torrents de Vie helps people better understand their identity in Christ. It is the shorter version of Torrents de Vie (literally, "Torrents of Hope"), although the original name in English is "Living Waters." It is a program that Pastor Werner and Charlotte Loertscher have done an excellent job developing. Their ministry with it is now nationwide in France and also reaches in Switzerland and Belgium. Nicole has a heart for those who hurt, so we both felt that she should do this course. She possibly may become a leader in it in the future. She's still there right now, or perhaps on her way back home now.

So I had a bigger part in putting the kids to bed than usual, as she needed to go. Joel actually fell asleep fairly quickly. It was Emma who couldn't sleep and was crying, possibly due to her incisors pushing through (as her cheeks looked quite pink). So we had some father/daughter time in the living room. Her personality continues to shine through, as she seems to be able to discern what people like and dislike. She has figured out how to quietly egg her brother on, such as by taking his favorite stuffed dog or bear and sprinting off with them. It's funny to see her little feet and legs move once she gets them. She's finally asleep now, but not before urinating on the living room floor while I had changed a partially wet diaper and was looking for another in the dark children's room.

Today my main project was laying out a piece of e-publicity that we're sending regarding the upcoming April 16 youth rally with Loren Cunningham, founder of YWAM. He'll be doing an 7 day, 6 city New Wave Tour in France and Switzerland April 13-19. I layed out a piece using MS Word, then made this into a PDF document. The final draft is here.

When I was young, I remember my father doing the newsletter for the church where he served. This was in the pre-computer and pre-Xerox copier days. He would use an electric typewriter on a purple stencil. This would get run through the mimeograph machine, which I think they had to handcrank through.

The technology of communications sure has changed. I received the text through an e-mail as an attached document. I can cut and pasted the text into a new Word document, formatted it using basically 2 different font styles. I changed the colors and size of the text using my keyboard of my notebook computer and looking at everything on a color monitor.

I telephoned Francis Dognon on his cell phone, as he was in Normandy for the day. I e-mailed my document to Bill & Jan Gordon's e-mail address in Normandy and Francis was able to upload and print my document and check it. He then telephoned and said that it looked good.

Just before supper I started e-mailing it. I can only send 50 e-mails at a time, so I'm still in the process of sending a small group each time. When I will have finished, a couple of thousand of people will have received it.

During our church staff meeting yesterday, I was reminded again that capacity to gather information and communicate it is power. It is important therefore to wisely manage communications today. The Internet and e-mail is a double edged sword. With it we can quickly bless and encourage someone, as well as slander someone.