The Peck Family

This is the web site of JR and Ingrid Peck. We would love to hear from you, we can always be reached at jr.peck@ccci.org.

Here is a short video to go with the photo in the post below, of the young girl dancing at the street market in Chiang Mai. You can see the back of the second girl, sitting on the ground and playing a Khim.

Well, this is a bit over due. We’ve been back for a couple weeks now and have a ton to report. Our newsletter about the trip to Thailand should go out in the mail today. (I really need to get out of this habit of sending them out on the last day of the month.) But we have much more to share than would fit into one of our letters.

So we’ll have lot of material here to supplement what went out. We have lots to report, pictures to show and some videos as well. I think I’ll kick it off with a few words about Thailand itself and some photos. In the coming days I’ll put up more about the conference itself and the people that were there.

Thailand is a beautiful country. There are very good reasons that it is a top tourist destination for people from all over the world. Chiang Mai is a great example of this. When we were in the hotel or out in the city, most of the Thai people we would see were working. Most everyone else was a tourist. Every ride in the elevator up to our room was an opportunity to hear a different language and meet someone from a different place. Ingrid got to use her German on more than one occasion.

Matched up with the natural beauty is that things are much more inexpensive than in the states. At night we usually ate at a food court near the hotel for roughly three dollars a person. That’s dinner, a drink and some sticky rice with mango for desert. Along with the visa situation I mentioned in the previous post, these all add up to make Thailand a great place for us to hold a conference.

You can read up on Thailand in quite a few places. I recommend wikipedia and the CIA World Factbook. They both have tons of good information, maps and pictures.

Getting there and back, from Orlando, takes almost exactly 30 hours. That includes the time in airports. Actual flight times vary as coming back is somewhat faster due to the jet stream.

While were there on this visit it was very warm and humid. This wasn’t too much of a problem as the vast bulk of our time was spent in a conference room anyway. When we were out, even at night it was pretty hot. And right now is the time of year around Chiang Mai that they use fires to burn clear land for farming. So there was a constant haze in the air. I’d guess visibility wasn’t more than 2 or 3 miles at most.

The people of Thailand are exceptionally friendly and polite. They are soft spoken and show great deference and hospitality to guests. It really is a wonderful place to visit. Getting their from the U.S. is a little bit expensive but I’d wager that the savings once their make it very worthwhile even if one was on a purely recreational visit.

So there’s a very brief summary of where we were. Next post I’ll share more about some of the people at the conference and what kind of work we were doing. Below are some photos. Click on them to see more about it, and clicking again will get you the full sized image.

Ingrid and I have been in Thailand for a few days now. I would liked to have blogged about this earlier on but things were just too busy getting ready for the trip and then we were underway. I’d like to explain why we are here and what we are doing.

Why we are here is a two fold question. The primary reason is to have meetings. We are involved in 6 days of meetings that cover 3 different things. The first two days were focused on our Global Technology Leaders (GTL). This is a group of men that provide leadership all over the world in how CCCI can use technology to reach the world for Christ. We have participants from all over. We discussed wide ranging topics on what is happening in our areas and what we would like to see happen. Ingrid led a session where she presented data she had analyzed on some of our on-line communities and tools. After that we did a day off.

The next 2 days of meetings, the first of which was today, are for our Global Measurements Application (GMA) partnership. It is mostly the same people that make up the GTL. GMA allows us to track what God is doing through our various ministries and then plan and lead from that information. It’s an important part of ministry and a high priority of our global leadership. We meet regularly with the people who manage and implement GMA for each area of the world. Supporting GMA is a very large part of my work and I’m very much enjoying this time with my counterparts that I work alongside virtually every day. A key part of these meetings is just reinforcing those relationships that take place via email, skype and such tools.

Our last 2 days are software training. A couple of my co-workers (one from Singapore and one from a closed country) and I will be teaching the other attendees to use software called Drupal. Drupal is a powerful tool for building many different types of web sites. GMA is built on top of Drupal and we are leveraging that platform for many other uses.

That is the big part of why we are here. The smaller point of why we are in Thailand specifically is due to the fact that many of those in the meetings come from places where getting a travel visa can be difficult. Many parts of the world are closed to them. For example our co-workers from Africa can have some difficulty traveling to a number of places. Thailand though, is easy for them. On top of that we already have staff here who can set up the conference and things here are not as expensive as many other places. All that adds up to make Thailand an ideal place for this kind of meeting.

Next Sunday, after everything is done, Ingrid and I will fly back to Bangkok. We will take a couple days to visit the city and then we head home. Later I’ll put up a post just on the travel aspect and what it is like getting from Orlando to here and back.

They are setting up downstairs to pack meals for Haiti. Our office consists of 2 main buildings that are each 2 stories tall. (There is a middle part that goes up another two floors but it’s small.) And there is an open section between the floors, so I have a pretty good view of where they’ve brought in the pallets of food and boxes, etc. I tried to get some pics with my phone. They aren’t that great but I’ll put them up here anyway.

There is rice and other ingredients to go into the meal packs. They have tables spread out all over (my picture is just of a few) where the meals will be packed. Then there are boxes for the meal packs.

We are doing this with Kids Against Hunger. If I remember correctly Kids Against Hunger are one of our partner organizations through GAiN, our relief arm. From 11 – 1 today anybody from the office can go down and help pack up meals. Like most of the stuff we do around here families are invited, so soon I’m sure it’s going to be pleasantly noisy as hundreds of people start packing meals.

Remember the bad magician guy from the Frosty the Snowman cartoon? He liked to repeat things three times and one is “Busy!, Busy!, Busy!”. Stuff like that sticks in my head. I have trouble remembering my own phone number but I have Frosty the Snowman dialog I’ll never forget. But that’s not the point, the point is we are busy.

Who isn’t you ask? Yeah, I know, it seems to be a condition impacting us all. But as much of our business is ministry related, I thought I’d share.

In a couple of weeks Ingrid and I head to Thailand. We’ll be taking part in a set of meetings that involve our Global Technology Leaders. These are guys from all over the world that take leadership in planning and implementing technology use for their area. We meet in Thailand because some are coming from countries where it is difficult to get a visa into other places. Thailand is very liberal in this respect and so everyone can come. As a bonus one of our members lives in Thailand and can easily make all the required arrangements to host the meetings. We will be in the city of Chiang Mai.

The last two days, I’ll be working with a couple other men (I’d say who but they are coming from a closed country and I can’t.) to train another 20 in using some software that we’ve found to be very useful, called Drupal. It is free software that makes building powerful web sites relatively easy. (Not easy, but relatively so.) Getting ready for that has kept me pretty occupied. I’ve been collecting training materials, donated by three different U.S. companies. I’ve also been putting together a collection of our own resources to distribute to those that attend.

During all the meetings we’ll be using some chat software to help facilitate interaction. We’ve found this is helpful, especially for the folks that don’t speak English as their first language. We also run an on-site web server for the training in case internet access gets too slow. I have the computers we’ll use as the servers in our cube and I’m making sure they are working well as well as the networking equipment that connects them. It has to be set up so that everyone can properly connect to the servers as well as the outside world.

Ingrid will be doing a presentation that involves some number crunching and statistical work. Thank goodness she’s so gifted in that area and has such a strong math background. She’ll be helping leaders understand some trends going on within our organization as relates to some current tools we’ve had in place for a while now.

At the same time, on the home front, we are getting things ready for my mom and dad to come visit. They will be watching the kids while we are gone for 13 days. Any of you with kids know how crazy it can be, the driving to and from different events, homework, getting to and from school, etc. So we are trying to make sure we’ve got everything organized and ready so they can know where and when to do what they need to do. And we’ve been moving around some furniture and doing stuff to make sure they have room.

And of course all that stuff they will be doing continues for us as well. And our regular work. Ingrid and I will both be in a meeting today for what I think is a rather exciting young ministry that works to reach lawyers all over the world. They want a web site built and we’ll be helping them navigate how to make it happen. It’s great to be busy because all of it is valuable work that we are excited to see happen.

OK – I was a little confused, some of the information on what to do was confusing and there was just a lot of confusion. This page clears it all up. In a nutshell, to watch the broadcast one needs to sign up for it. It will be available starting Saturday evening, though I think they make a great suggestion – watching it during half time of the game. Though I’d want to double check and make sure it will fit in that time frame. Anyway, if you are interested in watching the breakfast, follow that link and all will be made clear.

Every year, before the Super Bowl, there is the Super Bowl Breakfast. At the breakfast the winner of the Bart Star Award. The Athletes in Action/Bart Starr Award is given annually to an NFL player who best exemplifies outstanding character and leadership in the home, on the field and in the community. This is a very cool event with a lot of the top names in NFL football attending. But why I am I telling you?

This year the breakfast will be edited (to shorten up the time frame a bit) and broadcast over the internet. It’s going to be available by 6 pm Saturday, the 6th of February. (Eastern Time I assume.) I’m not sure how long it will be up, but this is a great opportunity for any men’s group that wants an opportunity to get together and watch. The Gospel will be presented. Or if you have a friend or neighbour that you would like to see it you could do that too. There is no cost to watch it. I’m assuming the video itself will be available right here once it is ready. You can get more information about it at the Athletes In Action page about it. I’m sorry for the late notice, I just found out about the web broadcast today. The AIA page has some video from last year if you want to see what it is like. I’ll be checking it out, I hope you do too.

The situation in Haiti is all over the news right now. I’ve been reading, listening and praying about it. There are a number of ways to help and I hope that you are getting involved. CCCI has staff and teams in Haiti of course though to my knowledge we haven’t been able to get word from any of them yet. The national director for Crusade in Haiti was actually out of the country with his son when the earthquake hit. He has not been able to get in touch with his wife and other children. We are praying for him and it is my understanding he’ll be back in Haiti tomorrow.

As you know CCCI is made up of multiple ministries and a number of them are actively engaged in providing aid and relief in Haiti. You can check the main CCCI site to give any of our other groups that will be working their. Though I think in this kind of situation GAIN will be our primary means of offering immediate relief. Their site has more info, and a place where you can contribute to efforts that will be taking place in Haiti.

And finally, stupid as it is, I feel a bit of pride whenever I hear or read that the carrier being dispatched is my old ship, the USS Carl Vinson. Vis Per Mare.

My wife lived in Ghana for a year before we met. She has some great photos and had some pretty unique experiences living without most of the modern conveniences we take for granted. She did without things like electricity and running water.* She has a pendant she bought there that she wears on a necklace. It is cut in the shape of the Adinkra symbol Gye Nyame. It means “except God” and represents the supremacy of God.
We’ve been married for over 11 years now, and I’ve always imagined that this was a local symbol peculiar to the village or region where she was living. Then last week I was looking at African Tees and saw it on a shirt. I did some digging, found the links I’ve put above, and others. I just started googling and following the links and it was a great time.** There are a quite a few Adinkra symbols and they have some great meanings. One that I found to be especially interesting is Funtunfunefu-Denkyemfunefu, Siamese crocodiles.
Siamese crocodiles have two heads, as shown in the symbol, but one stomach. It is in their best interest to cooperate yet they fight over food. This symbol represents the importance of democracy and unity in diversity. What an incredible picture of a concept that so few really grasp. That it comes out of Africa speaks volumes, in my mind, to the fact that even when humans can clearly see the right path, we are incapable of walking it on our own.

And of course on a smaller scale it makes me think about the Church and Christians. We are a diverse group, spread all over the world, called to one purpose. Yet often our greatest levels of conflict are with one another. This in the face of the fact that we are commanded to do the opposite and have been given the Holy Spirit to assist us in that regard. It seems in times of conflict and strife with one another that this ought to be a key indicator that has us stop and search our hearts and motives. Are we walking in the Spirit or in the flesh?

Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father, who is over all and in all and living through all.
Ephesians 4:1-6(NLT)

Footnotes below the jump.
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