I’m going to be starting something new - In an effort to keep everyone informed on what I’m doing and the projects I’m working on, I will be posting weekly updates every Wednesday. Due to the nature of some of the projects, some details may be left out for security purposes.

• I have finished re-checking the video and audio in the Story of Today renders. I’ve been watching through each 15-minute program, finding errors and fixing them, and today I finished the last of the 16 programs. Story of Today is an Arabic television program that was shot here in the studio earlier this year. I have been doing some of the editing work, and am now waiting for final approval from the director before the programs can be copied to tape and sent out to be broadcast.
• Tomorrow I will have a meeting with Sam, to discuss a new project that I will be working on: authoring a DVD of an evangelistic video with three or four different audio translations, in Arabic and several of the Berber languages of North Africa.

I was reminded this morning of a wonderful testimony I need to share.

Last week, one of my co-workers (who is from North Africa) heard some great news from his father - ten new (in-country) believers have just been baptized! [For security purposes, I cannot give too many details.]

This is amazing! The in-country churches are growing - already there have been three new house-churches form in the past few months, and now ten believers have made a profession of their faith through baptism.

God is touching hearts in these countries where it is illegal to convert to a faith other than Islam…it’s amazing to watch it happen.

Exactly a week until Tim gets here!! (Can you tell I’m excited?)

Also: Beth leaves tomorrow to fly back to the States and pick up her visa. Praise God that it finally came! Now if only mine would come sometime…ever…

I do have to say that I’m somewhat proud of myself for avoiding bites like these for almost five months! The last time I was here - albeit only for a month - in June of 2003, I was practically one big puffy mosquito bite because of the 20 or so new ones I’d find every morning after waking up. (Maybe that’s an exaggeration. But it was a LOT.)

And these little suckers arent even from mosquitos! Apparently there is a blood-hungry gnat/fly/thing that inflicts bites even worse than the mosquito, and I know I didn’t start feeling anything until after I saw a similar-looking gnat/fly/thing circling my ankle where the bites later appeared.

Even if I’ve had amazing luck with mosquitos so far, I guess I have a new enemy to watch out for…

It seems almost silly to try to describe in detail our trip to Switzerland, seeing how both Beth and Jamie have done pretty good jobs on that already. (I think it’s funny how we’ll all do something together and then each write our own post about it.)

So instead, I have decided to give a summary of some of the highlights and/or random facts:

• I woke up at 6:30 the day we left, even though our flight didn’t even leave until after 1:00. I slept on the plane.
• The ~2 hr. drive from Zurich to Beatenburg was a bit of an adventure to say the least…Beth hadn’t driven stick in a very long time and I have to say that I felt a little bit like the mother in the passenger seat trying to slam on the brakes out of instinct when her child is learning to drive. Except that I was in the back seat because Jamie called shotgun first.

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