Latest Publications

HyperSnail HRM, now in Beta

Posted in September 28, 2012 ¬ 3:10 PMh.KevinComments Off

Friends, neighbors, family, and associates,
Almost exactly a year ago, I became the lead programmer for an African missions project started by Computer Science students the previous spring.

A Hyper SnailDuring spring break of this past year, I traveled as part of a team of Business majors to Nairobi, Kenya to meet with Bible Translation and Literacy (BTL) Kenya, the missions group we were developing the system for. When the rest of my team graduated, I carried the project on by myself, spending more than 800 hours of my free time over this past year coding, testing, and responding to feedback and bug reports. With Revision #324, I have now completed the initial alpha testing, and I need your help with the beta test.

What can you do to help? I need people to give feedback on every aspect of the system.

  • First, go to the development site and log in with the cheap viagra username “administrator” and the password of “administrator”.
  • Next, test whatever aspect of the system that you find interesting. I particularly encourage you to create a user account for yourself, and see what giving or revoking permissions does.
  • Finally, if anything goes wrong, or you see something that doesn’t look quite right, click the “Submit Feedback or Report a Bug” button, fill out the necessary information, and click “Submit Feedback”.
  • If for some reason this does not work, you can also email “feedback@hypersnail.com”

With your help, and the feedback you give, I will be able to deliver a piece of high quality software to the African mission field, one which will enable missionaries to communicate with each other better, and will ultimately enable God’s work to be done.

If you would like to support the HyperSnail project in other ways, please visit the Support page on the website for more info. The project is in need of programmers and prayer support, and all monetary contributions will be directly applied to keeping the HyperSnail project up

and going.

Thank you for your support,

~Kevin Straw, Bible Translation and Literacy Kenya, and the HyperSnail Project

General Updates

The future of the system

Posted in August 2, 2012 ¬ 10:47 AMh.KevinComments Off

The HHRMS has not had a lot of development over the past two months, but there’s a reason for that.

First, I was in the hospital. It was a minor thing, but I lost about a week, and just couldn’t seem to catch up because of all the planning and work involved in…

My wedding. This was the big one. The wedding was on the east coast of the United States, and I live on the west coast. Planning a online viagra wedding over a distance of 2000+

miles is not the easiest thing in the world. And then once I got back, I was working like crazy to find employment, as my contract with Salem Health ended just previous to my leaving for my wedding.

Now, on to the fun part. I’ve finished designing the permissions system, and have an optimized version of it implemented on several of the pages. As always, the most updated version of the HHRMS can accessed via the links to the right. Once the permissions system is implemented on all the pages, I need to optimize the leave request process, and then it’s ready for beta testing.

Future stuff: Based on the resource loading times, I need to make some changes to the way the CSS files are fetched.

General Updates

Open House/Auction Event!

Posted in April 18, 2012 ¬ 3:19 PMh.JordanComments Off

You are cordially invited to join us Friday, April 27th from 5PM-7PM at best price cialis Corban University for an open house and auction fundraiser to support the Kenya missions trip!

This trip enabled students to assist Bible Translation & Literacy Kenya (BTL) with their Human Resources Management system, allowing them to communicate more effectively and spend more time translating the Bible in Kenya.

The event is a hybrid open house and auction with items brought back from Kenya by the students. Some items will be available on a donation basis throughout the evening with others saved for the auction at 6PM. Baked goods and refreshments will be available for free.

Some items which will be at the event are hand-carved ebony and rosewood animals, handmade banana leaf pictures of African scenes, miscellaneous jewelry, and more! Since we couldn’t bring Kenya back with us, we wanted to bring a small piece of Kenya home for you.

Please help us support this trip and hear about the amazing experiences we’ve been blessed to be a part of! This is not a private event so feel free to bring guests.

What: Open house/Auction to support the Kenya missions trip
Where: Corban University’s
The Emitte Center in Schimmel Hall
5000 Deer Park

Dr. SE
Salem, OR 97317
When: April 27, 2012 from 5PM-7PM. The auction will start at 6PM.
Who: Ben Funkhouser, Jordan Keck, and Kevin Straw
Why: To support the Kenya missions trip which assists translation work in Africa, get some cool handmade Kenya items, and free baked goods!

Sincerely,

Ben Funkhouser
Jordan Keck
Kevin Straw

 

Here is a sneak peak of several items which will be at the auction.

Banana Leaf: Elephants

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hand-Carved Ebony: Lion

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Banana Leaf: Zebras

 

General Updates

Live test in progress

Posted in March 9, 2012 ¬ 12:30 AMh.KevinComments Off

It’s been a bit crazy since the team got back to the states, but here is a bit of what we’ve been doing

From Ben Funkhouser:
Although he stepped off the plane almost two weeks ago, time has continued to fly by for Ben.  Since returning to Oregon his time has been spent completing the assignments he missed and getting back to speed with his classes.  He submitted his first job application of the year yesterday, and he is praying for God’s leadership in that area.  God’s strength has been truly evident in carrying him through this difficult stretch of time.  As development of the BTL project becomes intensive again, he is praying for God to bless the group’s efforts.

From Jordan Keck:
Since getting back home in the States, Jordan has caught and fought off a cold, caught up on his homework load and his internship assignments, and planned for his wedding this summer. He's also been working on his resume and applying to jobs for after graduation in May. Now that he's caught up his

next project is continuing to communicate about the Bible Translation and Literacy project to cover the financial burden of the trip through donations.

And finally, from Kevin Straw:
After getting back to Oregon, Kevin immediately hopped on a plane to Wisconsin to meet with a school in Appleton. The meeting went well, and after flying back Kevin has been buried in catch-up from almost a month away from work, school, and wedding planning. After starting his new job for the Salem Hospital on the 5th of March, Kevin has been dividing his evenings between fiancee and programming. Kevin provided an update to the website, and has launched a live test of the beta software accessible at http://btlhrm.onkoistudios.com

General Updates

Safely Home!

Posted in February 12, 2012 ¬ 8:36 PMh.JordanComments Off

…And just like that, it’s over.

That’s right, we are back home in the states and couldn’t be happier to see home again after being gone! We’ll continue to update on pictures and finalizing the funding for the mission on this blog (we’re not fully funded yet, but close).

God is working in incredible, mysterious, creative, and marvelous ways throughout the world, this much is certain. Each of us on the team has witnessed Him working in different ways personally, but we are unified in our awe of His awesome plan being carried out a piece at a time through individuals and organizations.

Due to the

Internet service in the Netherlands (or lack thereof) we have not updated much on the ICCM conference, but we’ll have info up soon. I wanted to make sure you knew we were back safely though.

More than anything, I want to continually thank you for your prayers and support of this trip. You really have made this trip possible for us, and we truly thank you for allowing us to take part in serving God in this way. Asanti sana (“thank you very much” in Swahili).

In His service,

Ben, Jordan, and

Kevin

General Updates

Final Meeting/Giraffe Center/Carnivore

Posted in February 4, 2012 ¬ 11:34 AMh.Jordan1 Comment »

On Thursday, February 2, we had our final

meeting with BTL for the trip, and it went very well! We

generic viagra online accomplished all of our objectives and got to know the staff at BTL much better, giving us a better direction for the future of the project. After the meeting we expected and planned on walking back to the Mayfield guesthouse, about a 2 mile walk, but on our way out we were offered a ride by the staff! We were more than happy to accept the offer and not walk in our formal attire in the hot Kenyan summer sun.So far we have been met with great generosity and hospitality in Kenya.

Friday was a day of rest and visiting the Zebra Dukas again, but today, Saturday, was a very fun and full day. The first item on the agenda was the giraffe center. There is a platform which lets you stand on the level of the giraffes to feed them, there’s information about the giraffes, and a gift shop. The giraffes were so cool! It was amazing to see them so close. We were able to stand on ground level and feed the giraffes while they towered over us, leaning down to reach our outstretched hands. We even got to see a baby giraffe which was only 3 months old, but even the baby stood over 10′ feet tall. We were told that baby giraffes can run within several minutes of being born! Good thing human babies can’t do that… Pictures will be posted soon!

After our time at the giraffe center, we headed towards the Carnivore restaurant which we’ve heard so much about. Apparently they cannot serve much of the exotic meat they used to, but we were still able to try some crocodile and ostrich, along with some classic chicken. The ostrich came in meatballs which tasted like a mixture of beef and chicken, and weren’t that bad. We all agreed they were the least favorite of the three meats though. Crocodile came in second place with a very succulent, yellow tinted meat. It was slightly chewy and had a hint of fish taste to it, but we all enjoyed it. Although not exotic at all, the chicken was excellent-perfectly cooked for flavor and juiciness.

All the major agenda items have now been completed and tomorrow will mostly be a day of rest, as a Sunday should be, before we head out early Monday morning to fly to the Netherlands for a week for the International Conference on Computing & Mission (ICCM) Europe conference. It will definitely be a drastic weather change as we’re in Kenyan summer now with an average of 82* and 15% humidity! Amsterdam is supposed to be 26* on Tuesday. Brrrrr! We were just getting used to this heat…

We’re all having a great time but we miss home. Having a wife, two fiancees, and a girlfriend waiting on us to come back is constantly on our minds, but they’ve all been fantastic in supporting this opportunity we have to serve God and explore the world. As much as we love getting to meet the people coming through here and the stories they have, we are also longing the familiar faces of home so we can tell the stories of our adventures in Africa. While our adventure in Africa is almost over, our adventure in the Netherlands is just about to begin. :)

Thanks for your continued support for us on this trip! We couldn’t do it without you and we hope the stories and pictures we share will help satisfy that desire to be here yourself and give you an idea of what we’re up to on the other side of the world. One advantage is I get to communicate from the future! Approximately 11 hours ahead of Pacific time anyway.

With love,

 

Ben, Jordan, and Kevin

General Updates

Zebra Dukas

Posted in February 1, 2012 ¬ 7:07 AMh.JordanComments Off

Today has been a fun, exciting, and insightful day.

Since the team didn’t have a meeting with BTL today and we didn’t have much work to do before our next meeting tomorrow, Eric Straw showed us a little bit of downtown Nairobi. He took us to a place he said lifelong Kenyan missionaries have never gone to simply because they don’t know about it, only adding to the excitement about going.

The place we were heading to is known as Zebra Dukas, or Zebra shops. It consists of a series of small, shack sized stores lined together with small alleys in between them. One way to think of it was a highly condensed shopping mall. There is a zebra pattern outside of the shops, giving it its name.

From the outside, Zebra Dukas is very sketchy looking and somewhere you wouldn’t want to go in alone. The shops form a maze which can be difficult and frustrating to get out of if you don’t know what your doing. All the buying at Zebra Dukas was bargaining based, and they will take all of your money for the smallest item if you let them. With a little instruction and

some suggestions, however, Zebra Dukas becomes a very safe and exciting adventure.

After being equipped with some bargaining skills and tips from Eric, we entered the maze of shacks with standing room only, all shopkeepers trying to get our attention with “Jambo!” (hello), “Karibu!” (welcome), or “Excuse me!”. While these shops have some great, fascinating products, they know every trick in the book to get you to pay as much as possible, and you must keep your wits about you. It’s not uncommon for an item to be quoted at over $60 and be sold for less than $5. Our team had a great time interacting with the shopkeepers (all very nice, but very firm and pushy about getting you to look at and buy their goods) and getting some cool item while practicing our bargaining skills.

My first purchase was for a gift item, and the price started at $35. The shopkeeper and I went back and forth for a few minutes before I told him my best price was $10 (which, in hindsight, was probably still too high). The keeper seemed unwilling to budge lower than $20, so I thanked him and walked away. He followed me for another 15 shops or so as I walked, trying to get me to raise my price, before he walked away. Another couple minutes and he came back, head down with packed item in hand, saying only, “You win”, signifying he would accept my price. The experience was definitely worth the extra I paid for the item!

Ben and Kevin had some fun experiences as well, getting trapped in a shop by the keeper standing in the exit, paying too much for an item, getting great deals by trading items from home, or having offers for the shoes on their feet. You’ll have to hear them all when we get back:) We all learned some tips from each others experiences and we’ll be back again on Saturday to try our hand at this game again.

Thanks to everyone for continually praying and supporting us while we’re gone, we are so grateful for it! We should be continually adding pictures so stay tuned for new ones.

With Love,

Ben, Jordan, and Kevin

General Updates

We Have Arrived!

Posted in January 30, 2012 ¬ 2:55 AMh.JordanComments Off

We have arrived!

Wow, are we glad to have our feet on the ground! After over 20 hours of traveling in air on land, we have arrived safely to the AIM Mayfield guesthouse, where we’re staying for our time in Kenya. We’re all pretty excited about the opportunity we’ve been given and look forward to the experiences we’ll have along the next two weeks.

Ben, Eric, Kevin and I (Jordan) all left together from Corban at about 9:30 AM on Saturday.

We arrived at the guesthouse at 10:30PM on Sunday. It took us 26 hours of travel

time and we gained 11 hours during the flight. Yes, we were all very relieved to finally be here and were also very glad to get in at night so we could sleep right away.

We’ve already met some cool people here at the guesthouse. Some have been missionaries for over 30 years in different parts of Kenya, some of 3rd generation missionaries, some are IT guys like us. We met a girl who was genetically Chinese but born and raised in Australia, complete with accent. She was working as a medical intern in Kenya for 6 weeks and was flying back home moments after we chatted with her.

We’ll keep you updated as much as much as we can. We do have wireless at the guesthouse, but it’s slow and spotty so we’re not making any promises.

Thank you again so much for supporting and praying for us, it really is a blessing to us. We’re praying for you back home as well :-)

We have posted some pictures of our trip so far in the “Pictures” tab of this site, and we will continue to post more there throughout the trip.

With love,

Ben, Jordan, and Kevin

General Updates

Final push

Posted in January 17, 2012 ¬ 1:57 AMh.KevinComments Off

It’s

less than two weeks until we board the plane for Kenya, and the project is coming along well. Two of the five modules are receiving their final tweaking, and one module is completed. Ben and I have been logging a lot of hours over the past weeks, our combined total is around 150 hours spent designing, coding, optimizing, and

revising. The next week and a half will be even more intense, but both of us are optimistic.

Fundraising is going well, we have right at half of the support we need. If you haven’t already, please consider supporting us, more details on the How you can help page.

The BTL team presented at Scio Baptist Church last sunday, and have been blessed with the outpouring of prayer and support from them.

General Updates

Fundraising Update

Posted in December 18, 2011 ¬ 7:53 PMh.JordanComments Off

Sending out support letters and receiving a response from them has lead me to realize more fully the generosity, love, and support I am surrounded by. So many people have been overwhelmingly joyful at the opportunity to support this missions trip! While in total we have a very large sum of money to raise in a very short amount of time, I believe God supports this mission

and I have faith He will provide through his church (the people, not a building). I don’t know how or when, but God’s got a plan.

It’s not too late

to support this missions trip! We need your help more than ever now as it’s exactly one month until we’re boarding a plane for Nairobi, Kenya, and we’ve got a lot of money left to raise. If you feel the Lord leading you to give to support us we would be enormously grateful! It may not seem like much, but $20 or $50, whatever you can give, makes a HUGE difference. Please check out the “How YOU Can Help” page for info on how to donate.

Thank you again for your generous support and concern for this mission and for the team.

God Bless!

General Updates
 

Latest Publications

HyperSnail HRM, now in Beta

Posted in September 28, 2012 ¬ 3:10 PMh.KevinComments Off

Friends, neighbors, family, and associates,
Almost exactly a year ago, I became the lead programmer for an African missions project started by Computer Science students the previous spring.

A Hyper SnailDuring spring break of this past year, I traveled as part of a team of Business majors to Nairobi, Kenya to meet with Bible Translation and Literacy (BTL) Kenya, the missions group we were developing the system for. When the rest of my team graduated, I carried the project on by myself, spending more than 800 hours of my free time over this past year coding, testing, and responding to feedback and bug reports. With Revision #324, I have now completed the initial alpha testing, and I need your help with the beta test.

What can you do to help? I need people to give feedback on every aspect of the system.

  • First, go to the development site and log in with the cheap viagra username “administrator” and the password of “administrator”.
  • Next, test whatever aspect of the system that you find interesting. I particularly encourage you to create a user account for yourself, and see what giving or revoking permissions does.
  • Finally, if anything goes wrong, or you see something that doesn’t look quite right, click the “Submit Feedback or Report a Bug” button, fill out the necessary information, and click “Submit Feedback”.
  • If for some reason this does not work, you can also email “feedback@hypersnail.com”

With your help, and the feedback you give, I will be able to deliver a piece of high quality software to the African mission field, one which will enable missionaries to communicate with each other better, and will ultimately enable God’s work to be done.

If you would like to support the HyperSnail project in other ways, please visit the Support page on the website for more info. The project is in need of programmers and prayer support, and all monetary contributions will be directly applied to keeping the HyperSnail project up

buy cialis online

and going.

Thank you for your support,

~Kevin Straw, Bible Translation and Literacy Kenya, and the HyperSnail Project

General Updates

The future of the system

Posted in August 2, 2012 ¬ 10:47 AMh.KevinComments Off

The HHRMS has not had a lot of development over the past two months, but there’s a reason for that.

First, I was in the hospital. It was a minor thing, but I lost about a week, and just couldn’t seem to catch up because of all the planning and work involved in…

My wedding. This was the big one. The wedding was on the east coast of the United States, and I live on the west coast. Planning a online viagra wedding over a distance of 2000+

cheapest viagra on line

miles is not the easiest thing in the world. And then once I got back, I was working like crazy to find employment, as my contract with Salem Health ended just previous to my leaving for my wedding.

Now, on to the fun part. I’ve finished designing the permissions system, and have an optimized version of it implemented on several of the pages. As always, the most updated version of the HHRMS can accessed via the links to the right. Once the permissions system is implemented on all the pages, I need to optimize the leave request process, and then it’s ready for beta testing.

Future stuff: Based on the resource loading times, I need to make some changes to the way the CSS files are fetched.

General Updates

Open House/Auction Event!

Posted in April 18, 2012 ¬ 3:19 PMh.JordanComments Off

You are cordially invited to join us Friday, April 27th from 5PM-7PM at best price cialis Corban University for an open house and auction fundraiser to support the Kenya missions trip!

This trip enabled students to assist Bible Translation & Literacy Kenya (BTL) with their Human Resources Management system, allowing them to communicate more effectively and spend more time translating the Bible in Kenya.

The event is a hybrid open house and auction with items brought back from Kenya by the students. Some items will be available on a donation basis throughout the evening with others saved for the auction at 6PM. Baked goods and refreshments will be available for free.

Some items which will be at the event are hand-carved ebony and rosewood animals, handmade banana leaf pictures of African scenes, miscellaneous jewelry, and more! Since we couldn’t bring Kenya back with us, we wanted to bring a small piece of Kenya home for you.

Please help us support this trip and hear about the amazing experiences we’ve been blessed to be a part of! This is not a private event so feel free to bring guests.

What: Open house/Auction to support the Kenya missions trip
Where: Corban University’s
The Emitte Center in Schimmel Hall
5000 Deer Park

buy levitra online no prescription

Dr. SE
Salem, OR 97317
When: April 27, 2012 from 5PM-7PM. The auction will start at 6PM.
Who: Ben Funkhouser, Jordan Keck, and Kevin Straw
Why: To support the Kenya missions trip which assists translation work in Africa, get some cool handmade Kenya items, and free baked goods!

Sincerely,

Ben Funkhouser
Jordan Keck
Kevin Straw

 

Here is a sneak peak of several items which will be at the auction.

Banana Leaf: Elephants

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hand-Carved Ebony: Lion

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Banana Leaf: Zebras

 

General Updates

Live test in progress

Posted in March 9, 2012 ¬ 12:30 AMh.KevinComments Off

It’s been a bit crazy since the team got back to the states, but here is a bit of what we’ve been doing

From Ben Funkhouser:
Although he stepped off the plane almost two weeks ago, time has continued to fly by for Ben.  Since returning to Oregon his time has been spent completing the assignments he missed and getting back to speed with his classes.  He submitted his first job application of the year yesterday, and he is praying for God’s leadership in that area.  God’s strength has been truly evident in carrying him through this difficult stretch of time.  As development of the BTL project becomes intensive again, he is praying for God to bless the group’s efforts.

From Jordan Keck:
Since getting back home in the States, Jordan has caught and fought off a cold, caught up on his homework load and his internship assignments, and planned for his wedding this summer. He's also been working on his resume and applying to jobs for after graduation in May. Now that he's caught up his

commande cialis rapide

next project is continuing to communicate about the Bible Translation and Literacy project to cover the financial burden of the trip through donations.

And finally, from Kevin Straw:
After getting back to Oregon, Kevin immediately hopped on a plane to Wisconsin to meet with a school in Appleton. The meeting went well, and after flying back Kevin has been buried in catch-up from almost a month away from work, school, and wedding planning. After starting his new job for the Salem Hospital on the 5th of March, Kevin has been dividing his evenings between fiancee and programming. Kevin provided an update to the website, and has launched a live test of the beta software accessible at http://btlhrm.onkoistudios.com

General Updates

Safely Home!

Posted in February 12, 2012 ¬ 8:36 PMh.JordanComments Off

…And just like that, it’s over.

That’s right, we are back home in the states and couldn’t be happier to see home again after being gone! We’ll continue to update on pictures and finalizing the funding for the mission on this blog (we’re not fully funded yet, but close).

God is working in incredible, mysterious, creative, and marvelous ways throughout the world, this much is certain. Each of us on the team has witnessed Him working in different ways personally, but we are unified in our awe of His awesome plan being carried out a piece at a time through individuals and organizations.

Due to the

generic viagra online

Internet service in the Netherlands (or lack thereof) we have not updated much on the ICCM conference, but we’ll have info up soon. I wanted to make sure you knew we were back safely though.

More than anything, I want to continually thank you for your prayers and support of this trip. You really have made this trip possible for us, and we truly thank you for allowing us to take part in serving God in this way. Asanti sana (“thank you very much” in Swahili).

In His service,

Ben, Jordan, and

order cialis

Kevin

General Updates

Final Meeting/Giraffe Center/Carnivore

Posted in February 4, 2012 ¬ 11:34 AMh.Jordan1 Comment »

On Thursday, February 2, we had our final

viagra 100 mg

meeting with BTL for the trip, and it went very well! We

generic viagra online accomplished all of our objectives and got to know the staff at BTL much better, giving us a better direction for the future of the project. After the meeting we expected and planned on walking back to the Mayfield guesthouse, about a 2 mile walk, but on our way out we were offered a ride by the staff! We were more than happy to accept the offer and not walk in our formal attire in the hot Kenyan summer sun.So far we have been met with great generosity and hospitality in Kenya.

Friday was a day of rest and visiting the Zebra Dukas again, but today, Saturday, was a very fun and full day. The first item on the agenda was the giraffe center. There is a platform which lets you stand on the level of the giraffes to feed them, there’s information about the giraffes, and a gift shop. The giraffes were so cool! It was amazing to see them so close. We were able to stand on ground level and feed the giraffes while they towered over us, leaning down to reach our outstretched hands. We even got to see a baby giraffe which was only 3 months old, but even the baby stood over 10′ feet tall. We were told that baby giraffes can run within several minutes of being born! Good thing human babies can’t do that… Pictures will be posted soon!

After our time at the giraffe center, we headed towards the Carnivore restaurant which we’ve heard so much about. Apparently they cannot serve much of the exotic meat they used to, but we were still able to try some crocodile and ostrich, along with some classic chicken. The ostrich came in meatballs which tasted like a mixture of beef and chicken, and weren’t that bad. We all agreed they were the least favorite of the three meats though. Crocodile came in second place with a very succulent, yellow tinted meat. It was slightly chewy and had a hint of fish taste to it, but we all enjoyed it. Although not exotic at all, the chicken was excellent-perfectly cooked for flavor and juiciness.

All the major agenda items have now been completed and tomorrow will mostly be a day of rest, as a Sunday should be, before we head out early Monday morning to fly to the Netherlands for a week for the International Conference on Computing & Mission (ICCM) Europe conference. It will definitely be a drastic weather change as we’re in Kenyan summer now with an average of 82* and 15% humidity! Amsterdam is supposed to be 26* on Tuesday. Brrrrr! We were just getting used to this heat…

We’re all having a great time but we miss home. Having a wife, two fiancees, and a girlfriend waiting on us to come back is constantly on our minds, but they’ve all been fantastic in supporting this opportunity we have to serve God and explore the world. As much as we love getting to meet the people coming through here and the stories they have, we are also longing the familiar faces of home so we can tell the stories of our adventures in Africa. While our adventure in Africa is almost over, our adventure in the Netherlands is just about to begin. :)

Thanks for your continued support for us on this trip! We couldn’t do it without you and we hope the stories and pictures we share will help satisfy that desire to be here yourself and give you an idea of what we’re up to on the other side of the world. One advantage is I get to communicate from the future! Approximately 11 hours ahead of Pacific time anyway.

With love,

 

Ben, Jordan, and Kevin

General Updates

Zebra Dukas

Posted in February 1, 2012 ¬ 7:07 AMh.JordanComments Off

Today has been a fun, exciting, and insightful day.

Since the team didn’t have a meeting with BTL today and we didn’t have much work to do before our next meeting tomorrow, Eric Straw showed us a little bit of downtown Nairobi. He took us to a place he said lifelong Kenyan missionaries have never gone to simply because they don’t know about it, only adding to the excitement about going.

The place we were heading to is known as Zebra Dukas, or Zebra shops. It consists of a series of small, shack sized stores lined together with small alleys in between them. One way to think of it was a highly condensed shopping mall. There is a zebra pattern outside of the shops, giving it its name.

From the outside, Zebra Dukas is very sketchy looking and somewhere you wouldn’t want to go in alone. The shops form a maze which can be difficult and frustrating to get out of if you don’t know what your doing. All the buying at Zebra Dukas was bargaining based, and they will take all of your money for the smallest item if you let them. With a little instruction and

some suggestions, however, Zebra Dukas becomes a very safe and exciting adventure.

After being equipped with some bargaining skills and tips from Eric, we entered the maze of shacks with standing room only, all shopkeepers trying to get our attention with “Jambo!” (hello), “Karibu!” (welcome), or “Excuse me!”. While these shops have some great, fascinating products, they know every trick in the book to get you to pay as much as possible, and you must keep your wits about you. It’s not uncommon for an item to be quoted at over $60 and be sold for less than $5. Our team had a great time interacting with the shopkeepers (all very nice, but very firm and pushy about getting you to look at and buy their goods) and getting some cool item while practicing our bargaining skills.

My first purchase was for a gift item, and the price started at $35. The shopkeeper and I went back and forth for a few minutes before I told him my best price was $10 (which, in hindsight, was probably still too high). The keeper seemed unwilling to budge lower than $20, so I thanked him and walked away. He followed me for another 15 shops or so as I walked, trying to get me to raise my price, before he walked away. Another couple minutes and he came back, head down with packed item in hand, saying only, “You win”, signifying he would accept my price. The experience was definitely worth the extra I paid for the item!

Ben and Kevin had some fun experiences as well, getting trapped in a shop by the keeper standing in the exit, paying too much for an item, getting great deals by trading items from home, or having offers for the shoes on their feet. You’ll have to hear them all when we get back:) We all learned some tips from each others experiences and we’ll be back again on Saturday to try our hand at this game again.

Thanks to everyone for continually praying and supporting us while we’re gone, we are so grateful for it! We should be continually adding pictures so stay tuned for new ones.

With Love,

Ben, Jordan, and Kevin

General Updates

We Have Arrived!

Posted in January 30, 2012 ¬ 2:55 AMh.JordanComments Off

We have arrived!

Wow, are we glad to have our feet on the ground! After over 20 hours of traveling in air on land, we have arrived safely to the AIM Mayfield guesthouse, where we’re staying for our time in Kenya. We’re all pretty excited about the opportunity we’ve been given and look forward to the experiences we’ll have along the next two weeks.

Ben, Eric, Kevin and I (Jordan) all left together from Corban at about 9:30 AM on Saturday.

We arrived at the guesthouse at 10:30PM on Sunday. It took us 26 hours of travel

time and we gained 11 hours during the flight. Yes, we were all very relieved to finally be here and were also very glad to get in at night so we could sleep right away.

We’ve already met some cool people here at the guesthouse. Some have been missionaries for over 30 years in different parts of Kenya, some of 3rd generation missionaries, some are IT guys like us. We met a girl who was genetically Chinese but born and raised in Australia, complete with accent. She was working as a medical intern in Kenya for 6 weeks and was flying back home moments after we chatted with her.

We’ll keep you updated as much as much as we can. We do have wireless at the guesthouse, but it’s slow and spotty so we’re not making any promises.

Thank you again so much for supporting and praying for us, it really is a blessing to us. We’re praying for you back home as well :-)

We have posted some pictures of our trip so far in the “Pictures” tab of this site, and we will continue to post more there throughout the trip.

With love,

Ben, Jordan, and Kevin

General Updates

Final push

Posted in January 17, 2012 ¬ 1:57 AMh.KevinComments Off

It’s

less than two weeks until we board the plane for Kenya, and the project is coming along well. Two of the five modules are receiving their final tweaking, and one module is completed. Ben and I have been logging a lot of hours over the past weeks, our combined total is around 150 hours spent designing, coding, optimizing, and

revising. The next week and a half will be even more intense, but both of us are optimistic.

Fundraising is going well, we have right at half of the support we need. If you haven’t already, please consider supporting us, more details on the How you can help page.

The BTL team presented at Scio Baptist Church last sunday, and have been blessed with the outpouring of prayer and support from them.

General Updates

Fundraising Update

Posted in December 18, 2011 ¬ 7:53 PMh.JordanComments Off

Sending out support letters and receiving a response from them has lead me to realize more fully the generosity, love, and support I am surrounded by. So many people have been overwhelmingly joyful at the opportunity to support this missions trip! While in total we have a very large sum of money to raise in a very short amount of time, I believe God supports this mission

and I have faith He will provide through his church (the people, not a building). I don’t know how or when, but God’s got a plan.

It’s not too late

to support this missions trip! We need your help more than ever now as it’s exactly one month until we’re boarding a plane for Nairobi, Kenya, and we’ve got a lot of money left to raise. If you feel the Lord leading you to give to support us we would be enormously grateful! It may not seem like much, but $20 or $50, whatever you can give, makes a HUGE difference. Please check out the “How YOU Can Help” page for info on how to donate.

Thank you again for your generous support and concern for this mission and for the team.

God Bless!

General Updates