I used to say, “Some day all phones will be smartphones.” If you are a Sony Ericsson customer, that some day is just months away. More people have accessed the web via the phone than other methods for years now. So even someone as dense as I am could put this together.

The practical ramification is that it is now possible to reach more people than ever before with the Gospel. But if we want to take full advantage of the internet we need to do it by making sure our content works well on mobile devices. If we do that, we can get Christ’s redemptive message in front of people world wide, 24-7.

When I was a kid Sunday School teachers used to ask, “Who was the fastest runner ever?” The right answer was Philip, based on the account of him meeting up with the Ethiopian eunuch. The world’s fastest runner bit was fun when I was a kid, but I don’t think that’s what the text actually says. But right now, we can be virtually alongside a person riding high speed rail in china, a young person with no hope or framework for hope on a ferry in Scandavia, or any number of other people the world over.

This is an unparalleled time because as quickly as the powers of the world move to close the doors of communication and control the message, new doors open. And right now, just like it was two thousand years ago the harvest is ready and we just need to step out into the fields. If you’re on our team, thanks for stepping out with us. If you aren’t – I’d encourage you to join in. It’s exciting what God is doing.

Unfortunately due to heavy work loads the immigration department is running behind and we are outside the maximum window. This wouldn’t be the biggest deal but I need to go to some meetings in Bangkok at the end of the month. If my permit hasn’t come through before I’m scheduled to leave I may not be able to go. Leaving the country would be easy, but getting back in could be challenging.

So please pray that our residence permits come through soon. It would be a huge help in a few ways, my trip being the one that is the most urgent.

After we got here things stayed very busy. We’ve been trying to see family and friends to say good-bye while at the same time we had to complete raising the support we needed to go and live in Hungary. With a couple days to spare, we hit the point where we have been officially cleared to go. We are in a very celebratory mood this morning.

Of course, I’ve still got a lot to do before we take off. I have to make sure all our luggage will fit in the airlines weight limits and we need to get a newsletter out. We’ve got new fridge magnets for all the folks on our mailing list. If you aren’t on that list and want one, let me know and we’ll see what we can do.

Wednesday we’ll all be in a new country for the very first time. God has been so good to get us this far and we look forward to seeing what He will do going forward.

A lot of other people and organizations are working in this area. I’m pretty excited though that we are out there on the front end of it and already seeing meaningful results. I keep the software on my phone, just to show people I meet how cool it is. It’s fun to be a part of something that I think is going to radically change the world for the better.

Our team of ministry partners are the best!

We are always trying to think of ways to improve the communication between the members of that team. For a tech guy, it’s been a pretty low tech endeavor up to this point. Hopefully that is going to be changing. Here are some of the avenues that will be available to keep up with what God is doing with us and to let us know what is going on in your life.

You can always call us, write us, or email us. All the necessary contact info. can be found here at the blog. Those have been in place all along and wont go away. I’ll be working hard to use email more this year to give quicker updates than our monthly newsletters.

We’ll be doing more videos like those in the last few posts and those will be showing up here. You can also see them over at our youtube channel.

You can follow us as well as @jringrid at twitter.

Finally, if you are on Facebook, we would encourage you to be a part of the group In Mission with JR & Ingrid. This will be an easy place for anyone who uses Facebook to keep up with our blog and twitter feed. Both will automatically show up in the group. It isn’t necessary to be our “Facebook Friend” to be in the group, and we’ll try to invite anyone we know might be interested, but if we miss you just ask to be a member and we’ll get you in ASAP.

As Red Green says, we are all in this together. It’s my hope and prayer that these tools will help us all to have a closer sense of team and mission.

Ingrid was able to grab a few moments and allow Miheret to share a bit about himself and the things he is trusting God to do in the next year. There is a lot of background noise so I’ll put a transcript ( made by me so it’s close but not perfect) to help if you can’t hear him all that well. We filmed all these on a rather old little point and click camera.

Ingrid: Ok, this is Miheret and Miheret why don’t you tell us a little about yourself?

Miheret: Ok, thank you for this. My name is Miheret Tilahun and I work in Ethiopian Campus Crusade ministry. I grew up in Ethopia and I hold a degree in Computer Science. I have been doing Global Media Outreach internet in ministry concentrating on Ethiopia and Africa. Now I am planning to establish a communications center for the Southeast Africa Campus Crusade area office. Here in Thailand I am really happy meeting Ingrid.

Ingrid: Ok, why don’t you tell us what you are trusting God for this next year.

Miheret: Oh, this next year our communications center will be established, I hope. And I believe that we will train more on-line missionaries in Ethopia and in Southeast Africa. As well we will try to use technology in a more integrated way with our ongoing ministries.

Ingrid: Ok, thank you so much!

Miherete: You are welcome. Bye.

His vision is

“Building spiritual movements so that everyone who has a TV, radio, internet access or cellphone in AFRICAME knows someone who truly follows Christ.”

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Chris has put together an impressive amount of information about the penetration of various types of media across Africa and the Middle East. He also compares the way each media can fit into our strategic goals and plans. It’s pretty fascinating reading if you are interested in that kind of information on a nation by nation basis. Then Christ gets down to brass tacks. There is a lot of budgetary information next, which would probably be quite an eye opener for many. But I want to leave you with something that drives home my excitement about what cell and internet coverage world wide means.

Chris summarizes our field experience as this: In our Paris communications center 85% of the messages coming in are from internet based evangelism. TV and radio together generate the other 15%. Setting up a web site costs less than 1/10th as much as the studio and equipment required for TV and radio. Almost 600% higher response rate for 10% the cost.

Do we ditch radio and tv? No, we want to use every tool available. But we are working hard to be in the front end of what is happening with phones for the very simple reason that it is going to provide unparalleled access and impact to the people of the world. The internet and mobile phone tools we are developing will help us get going quickly, in a cost effective way so that we can build up movements that can benefit even more from radio and tv. I’ve got more to share on this, but we have a good start here.

Next month I’ll be in Singapore, talking about mobile phones among other things, with technology leaders from all over the world. There are some amazing things happening that are, I believe, truly game changing.

We are busy and blessed to have so much great work to do.

“God’s strategy for making the church bold: imprison her leaders. (Philippians 1:14)”

Philippians 1:14 reads, “And because of my imprisonment, most of the believers here have gained confidence and boldly speak God’s message without fear.” (NLT)

It’s completely counter-intuitive, yet it is true. What will come of the not only imprisonment but death of the three pastors in Nigeria? I don’t know. What I do know is that this life is not about the fulfillment of my wants and desires, in fact it seems to be about the exact opposite. At our national staff conference Rev. Keith Battle exhorted us to get out there and “run the play”, after likening the conference to a huddle. Nobody pays to watch the huddle and if it goes on too long the team gets a penalty. Everyone wants to see the play – and for the players that means effort and pain. I need to stop focusing on comfort and safe options and focus on running the play.