As the dollar weakens, it becomes more expensive to live and work around the world, not just for us in Africa.

On the bright side, our missionaries from other countries are stronger financially because of the weak dollar. However, SIM’s financial system is in Dollars. When someone raises their money and moved to the ‘field’, their funds are held in dollars, and as the dollar weakens, their funds shrink just like ours.

At the end of the day, stability is the key. Whether the dollar goes up or down, we need stability so that our support is stable. No doubt God has provided well for us, via all of you, and He will continue to do so even in the hard times.

We thank you for your continued support!

The reason for the change has been spurred by the fact that GoDaddy blocks it’s servers from being accessed from a number of countries, one of which is Sudan. The rumor is that they do this because of US & UN Sanctions on Sudan, but everything I read says they don’t really have to be doing this. Either they are being very cautious legally, or have a financial incentive that makes blocking the countries a lucrative decision.

So, all of that to say I need a new hosting service. I have shopped this in the recent past to folks on twitter. Ideally I’m looking for a service that has servers in the US and Kenya (or Europe, Middle East, S. Asia).

To date, I have not found a single service that has servers in both of these locations. I need this so that access from the US is fast and access from E Africa is quick. It’s not to slow as is (only hosted in US) but would be nice to have mirrored servers closer to us.

If you know of any good options or advice on an easy way to migrate all my domains and hosting, please let me know! Make a comment on this post or shoot me an email.

The problem is that more often than not, even a small financial donation would have gone much further and been far more appropriate (the biggie). A ski bib, mask, or gloves from a group in Colorado is a kind donation, though will never find a use in Sudan.

As you’ll read from the story below, even the color of something can have very unintended side effects and not only be unusable, but be hurtful. I continue to learn little things like this in my local community.

‘when a bucket is not a bucket’ http://bit.ly/G7WeK

For further reading on giving without hurting, read When Helping Hurts: Alleviating Poverty Without Hurting the Poor. . .and Ourselves’ by Brian Fikkert & Steve Corbett. Or the cheap and more direct route, hook up with someone local (who lives there on the groud) and ask for their advice (preferably long-term missionaries). More often than not, they will have a lot of insight as to the best way to help a community and what not to do.

- Ethiopian food has replaced Mexican food

- Popcorn is a nice cheap treat

- I drink a lot of tea the British way (though my craving changes depending on time of day and country)

- Board games have replaced all other game play (mainly Settlers)

though we do use our Wii during SIM Sudan functions

- I still love Mac computers

- I’m shooting way more photography than video these days

- The occasional ‘western’ candy bar shows up in shops and we buy cases of them, if we don’t, the NGOs buy the ALL up (same goes for corn flakes)

- Ketchup goes with everything (yes, I didn’t know that already)

- Tony’s Cajun seasoning goes well on everything

it’s funny what you favor in traveling here with tight weight restrictions on flights

- who needs a tooth brush & paste when I could take a box of candy instead? (weight restrictions on flights make you make odd decisions)

- I swore I’d never drink powdered milk or eat SPAM, I do both daily almost

I drink gallons of real milk when in Nairobi on R&R

- I wish I knew how to make sausage, plenty of domestic pigs, but not eaten by anyone
I’m a sausage connoisseur, but I guess a connoisseur of anything would probably know how to make their item

- Birthday and well wishes come for 2 days (b/c of time zones)

From our home in Malakal we occasionally hear a faint call to prayer occasionally. Sometimes, usually in the morning, it is very loud. This morning was one of those exceptional days. So far I think I’ve heard Allāhu Akbar recited a few hundred times. We’ll have church in a few hours and it will be interesting to see if they continue this through the day and we listen to it during the entire church service.

The call to prayer we often hear is a constant reminder to pray for those in our community who are in bondage to Islam. Will you pray today for the Muslims in your community.

God truly is great!

This year Dallas churches have invited Muslim congregations to share in fast-breaking dinners called iftars. The moderate Muslim congregations, mostly Turkish, have a long-standing quality about them to unite with their communities.

Read more about the ‘breaking of bread’ they are doing together in the DallasNews.com article.

I invite you to do something a bit radical. It is common for Muslims to invite others into their home for iftar, but would you consider inviting a Muslim or his whole family into your home for the fast-breaking dinner.

It sounds scary, but I promise it just takes a bit of courage. As I mentioned, it’s normal for them to share this dinner with people outside of islam. If you meet a Muslim, just ask if he has ‘iftar’ plans or in America, if you just say dinner plans, he’ll know what you mean. Just be sure not to serve dinner until after sundown.

I look forward to doing this myself back in Malakal. No doubt our team has already considered this and may be doing it already.

On that same note, visit http://www.30-days.net/ to get prayer points for the 30 days of Ramadan.