I’m capturing lots of video right now (for one of the Arabic TV series we just recorded last week) so I thought it might be a good time to write something, since I haven’t been very good at doing that lately.

It’s been getting colder in Malaga - “colder” is relative, I know, but if you consider 40’s and 50’s F (or 8 C) cold then you’ll understand why we’re getting the heater out at night. I’m enjoying having the chance to wear my colorful knee socks and scarves — although for the most part it hasn’t been cold enough for gloves. I’m sure by Christmas it will be.

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How often do we really stop to think of how utterly wretched and sinful is our flesh, how unspeakably awesome and holy is our God, and how it is only through Christ Jesus that we are even allowed to enter his presence as new creations, much less be raised to his right hand?

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2: 4-6

I am in Christ. I am spiritually alive. I am seated at the right hand of God with Christ. I am not confined by my dead, sinful flesh any longer.

Lord help me to live in your holiness.

• Tim arrived safely in California on Wednesday, and went to LA to pick up his visa on Thursday. Praise God that he now has it, and can apply for a residence card when he returns to Spain next week!
• Everything has been coming together well for the video shoot next week - today God provided a large window for the green screen set, at a reasonable price! The set for the other shoot is looking nice too, I’ll try to send some pictures out when we start shooting on Monday.
• I’ve been finishing up the music video I was working on, putting titles over the video so that people watching can read the words of the song (in Arabic, of course). I also put titles over another music video that had previously been made, and when both are completed they will be sent out to be broadcast!
• I also started working again on the multi-language DVD project I have been working on (on and off..) for the past year! I really do want to finish it…hopefully this time around it will be ready in time for the large ministry conference in 2008. Everything depends on how long it takes to get the translations I need for the text that will be used on the menus. Translating chapter titles from English into six different languages is NOT something I’m capable of on my own! Pray for this project, as I’m waiting to hear back about getting the translations from other people, and also for me, as I figure out what needs to be done to make the DVD work well.

Tim called me at 12:30 a.m. on Wednesday night to say he had just gotten to his mom’s house from the airport (it was 3:30 p.m. in California). His bags came through with everything in them, praise God, and he admitted that he had only gotten about 40 minutes of combined sleep throughout his 35 hours of travel! (A reason why TVs in the seat-backs with unlimited movies are not always a good thing.)

Thursday morning he drove to LA to the Spanish consulate where he turned in his passport, waited about 15 minutes, and received it back with the visa stamp in it. Now he has a month to return to Spain and apply for the residency card, which shouldn’t be a problem since we’ll probably do it a few days after he gets back.

I can’t wait for him to get back on Tuesday.. since I’m having a bit of a hard time entertaining a hyper kitten at home by myself! She sits around all day guarding the house, and has all her energy saved for when I get home.

Ok so where were we? If you want to know how the conference and other things turned out over the past few weeks, you should read the previous post where I give some information about that. Now, onto the details of work..

• The Communicate is still not quite finished… I’m waiting on that one last article before I can get the final approval and start working on getting it printed. The rest of it is finished and looking good! It’s really great to be able to work on a print project for once; I had forgotten how much I enjoy editing type!
• The new Arabic video project I mentioned last time is going well - I finished editing the first music video, and just have to put in the titles (text that gets overlaid onto the video) before it will be completely finished.
• The new server hardware arrived earlier this week, and Tim reports that it is well on its way to being ready for use! He also got a phone to test with the new phone system, and he says that it is practically ready as well. He gets very excited working on this sort of thing.. figuring out a new system and programming the hardware. There have been a few times that I’ve had to pull him away from his work and convince him to eat! It’s encouraging to see so many eminent changes and advances in the network and phone system.

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