Tag Archives: Personal

Public Service Announcement

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Back up your data. Multiple times, multiple places.

That’s a lesson that I should have learned multiple times, but keep failing to absorb. Maybe if I tell it to other people, I’ll hear it myself.

I’ve been trying to recover as much as possible of what was on the laptop that was stolen two weeks ago. A lot of things are just gone. Some were things that I created, so in theory I can create them again. Other things weren’t, and I have no way of recovering them.

So for now, I’m doing redundant backups to an external hard drive, one with a “cloning” program, one with a backup program. I want to get additional backups going to our server at work, just for safety’s sake.

Knowing me, I’ll be diligent about this for a while, then slowly slack off. Until I lose data again.

Or maybe, just maybe, I’ve learned my lesson this time.

How about you? Are you protecting your data? Any particular scheme for that that might be of use to the rest of us?

Ministers Support Network Retreat

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Carolina and I got to go the Summers Mill Retreat Center for a weekend retreat with the Ministers Support Network. It’s hard to describe the time we shared this past Thursday through Sunday. Resource people Eddie and Annette Sharp, David and Jeanne Wray, Charles and Judy Siburt, and Dean and Jeanine Bryce went to great lengths to listen, counsel, encourage and inspire the 7 couples that attended the retreat.

It was amazingly therapeutic for us, allowing us to discuss and deal with scars that date back to our time in Argentina.

There is an anonymous benefactor who makes all of this possible. He spends thousands every year to sponsor three of these retreats. Over two hundred ministers and ministers’ wives have been blessed by this ministry. Carolina and I are privileged to be able to count ourselves among the blessed.

Tagged by Nick Gill

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I resisted Nick’s tag a bit, partly because I didn’t want to fall into the stereotypical blog and partly because everyone else’s lists look so erudite compared with mine. But hey, I’ll play the game:

One book that changed your life? {I’ll assume on all of these that the Bible doesn’t count.} He Loves Forever by Tom Olbricht, though it’s more because of the impact that Dr. Olbricht had on my approach to Scripture. The ideas are in the book, but I learned them from him.

One book that you’ve read more than once? Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster

One book that you’d want on a desert island? An Anthology of English Literature

One book that made you laugh? At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon

One book that made you cry? Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

One book you wish had been written? Everything Jesus Said by Simon Peter, et al

One book you wish had never been written? While some misleading religious books come to mind, I have problems with the idea of needing to silence any expression of ideas. I don’t have anything for this list.

One book you’re currently reading? Juan Antonio Monroy gave me a book he’s written about Frank Pais, an evangelical who was a hero in Castro’s revolution in Cuba. The title is Frank País, Un líder evangélico en la Revolución Cubana

One book you’ve been meaning to read? Jack Reese’s The Body Broken

I’m supposed to tag 5 other bloggers, but I’m doing an intraoffice tag instead. Vince, Steve, Debi, Kay, Lauren, Nic, Courtney, Justin, Skye… you’re it.