Author Archive
Wednesday, November 9th, 2011
in recovery room now…
[7:30] Cathy is awake but groggy. But she is coherent enough to be elated that the surgery’s outcome is what we were hoping for.
3 Comments » - Posted in Cathy by Jerry
Wednesday, November 9th, 2011
Success!
[4:30] After an eight hour surgery the doctor said she got all the cancer. It wasn’t easy, though, as the previous radiation treatments caused other damage that was hard to work around.
Cathy is now in recovery.
We are grateful to God for this outcome and for everyone’s prayers.
6 Comments » - Posted in Cathy by Jerry
Wednesday, November 9th, 2011
still waiting…
[3:45 pm] It is approaching the 8 hour mark, the duration Cathy’s surgeon expected. No new updates since noon.
No Comments » - Posted in General by Jerry
Wednesday, November 9th, 2011
mid-surgery update – going well
[12:10] I got a call around noon that things are going well. Should be done in a few more hours.
2 Comments » - Posted in Cathy by Jerry
Wednesday, November 9th, 2011
In surgery now…..
[7:30 am] I got to see Cathy briefly before they rolled her to surgery. She was wearing new blue pajamas and had tubes plugged in to both hands. She was ready to get things started and wasn’t anxious at all.
Sometime after noon today when she gets out of surgery, or if anything interesting happens in the mean time, I’ll post another update.
Pray they would be able to remove all the cancer without removing any other parts she’ll want to keep.
1 Comment » - Posted in Cathy by Jerry
Wednesday, November 9th, 2011
waiting to start
It is 5:15 am, and Cathy and I are waiting for her to be called back to begin pre-op. We’re both tired because of the hour, but she is fine otherwise. Pray that this day would be a good one for her surgeon and for Cathy.
2 Comments » - Posted in Cathy by Jerry
Monday, November 7th, 2011
Will you pray for Cathy Wednesday?
On Wednesday morning (November 9) Cathy will have her cancer surgery. Her surgeon estimated it would be an 8 hour procedure followed by 5 – 10 days in the hospital. We would value your prayers during this time!
I’ll post progress updates here as they happen.
1 Comment » - Posted in Cathy by Jerry
Wednesday, October 12th, 2011
Cathy is doing well
It has been over a month since the end of Cathy’s chemo/radiation treatments, and she is feeling better and getting back up to speed. The next few weeks will be a little bit of a break for her before surgery. November 9 is the date set for surgery, so we look ahead to that and trust God with it. We continue to be blessed by your prayers and well wishes…thank you so much!
1 Comment » - Posted in Cathy by Jerry
Tuesday, September 20th, 2011
Yes, the fonts got bigger
I read an article saying font size makes a difference to readers. Then I took a look at this site and realized that the font was pretty small. If this bugs you, leave a comment and let me know.
1 Comment » - Posted in General by Jerry
Saturday, September 3rd, 2011
Audrey jumped!
Audrey’s Skydive
Audrey has wanted to skydive for her birthday for a while, so when she turned 18 she did it! She amazes me. She was not scared and never hesitated.
Here’s the video. It’s big download, so it may take a minute or so before playback starts.
Cathy’s sister, brother in law, and niece came for a visit and also jumped out of the plane with Audrey. My original plan was to drive them all there and watch, but when I got there I realized it was one of those moments in life that only happen once. So I joined them and jumped, too. What a rush!
We All Jumped
The only bummer was that Cathy could not join us, but she says, “I have no sadness at all. I am absolutely thrilled that they got to go.”
We jumped with SkyDive City, and I would highly recommend them for a skydiving adventure. Great customer service, friendly staff, and a first-class, safe operation.
4 Comments » - Posted in General by Jerry
Monday, August 22nd, 2011
Our last First Day of School
Audrey’s last First Day of School
Today was Audrey’s last first day of school. Cathy got up and saw her off, and I was happy to have someone else in the house awake with me that early. Overall, I think we’re all glad this is the last year of high school.
Audrey’s First Day of School 1999
No Comments » - Posted in General by Jerry
Tuesday, July 26th, 2011
Saw Two Cancer Doctors Yesterday
pic by jonnyabbas8 on Flickr.com
We met the remaining two cancer doctors yesterday, an oncologist and a radiation oncologist. Neither of them changed the prognosis or overall treatment plan, but both of them gave us new details of what the next 9 months might look like. The details are a bit sobering.
Cathy gets oriented to the radiation process and machines tomorrow and then on Monday begins the radiation and chemo treatments. The chemo will be in pill form and shouldn’t make her lose her hair, but the radiation won’t be so benign. Over the next five or six weeks Cathy will have a gradually building fatigue, radiation burns, and discomfort – if things go normally. If things go abnormally it will either be a walk in the park for six weeks or an immediate disaster requiring a change in treatments.
If Cathy is deficient in an enzyme called DPD, the chemo treatment will create an immediate disaster. She said she would appreciate all your specific prayers that she would not have this deficiency.
Each new batch of information we get takes a day or so to sink in, and then we move ahead with God’s peace. At no point have we been afraid or angry so far, something that is obviously God’s grace in our lives. Cathy would normally react to something like this with anger, and I would react with fear. Instead we have both had God’s peace, and we have no doubts it is because of people praying for us.
But at this point the next six weeks look challenging. We value your prayers!
9 Comments » - Posted in Cathy by Jerry
Sunday, July 24th, 2011
Home Today, Doctor Tomorrow
We arrived home early in Orlando, as planned, from our CCCI/Cru Conference in Colorado for appointments with cancer doctors tomorrow. God’s peace has been with us the last two weeks along with an abundance of encouragement and prayers from friends and family. We are so grateful. It is an amazing thing to be showered with God’s blessings like this.
Cathy feels better now than at any other time in the last few weeks. The tumor causes no pain, she is eating as healthy as ever (nearly vegetarian, and as cancer-friendly as possible), and she has had nothing but encouragement and love from everyone.
The next few weeks are really unknown to us. We think we will find out more information tomorrow from the doctors about what to expect, but in the mean time we are keeping our plans very tentative.
Thank you for praying for Cathy!
No Comments » - Posted in Cathy by Jerry
Tuesday, July 19th, 2011
Campus Crusade for Christ gets a new name: Cru
Research has shown that 20% of the people in the U.S. willing to have a conversation about Jesus are less interested when they hear the name Campus Crusade for Christ. This, among other reasons prompted a name change. You can read more about it here. Don’t miss the menu at the top of the page with links to more information.
We like the new name.
No Comments » - Posted in Ministry by Jerry
Monday, July 11th, 2011
Treatment Plan
Dearest family and friends,
For those of you who want to be updated on my ‘new situation’ we finally have some news. It only involves the next few steps, but that’s just fine with us…too many big steps at one time is overwhelming!
This morning I had an ultrasound to determine at what stage the cancer is. Turns out it has gone past the colon wall (well, rectum wall … but the word colon sounds so much better!). It hasn’t spread to ANY lymph nodes so is considered Stage 2. This was great news!
In order to have a smaller mass to surgically remove later, I will go through some chemo and radiation to shrink it. They’ve said 5 weeks of this…Monday through Friday! Yikes, that’s a lot! But they can do both at the same time. Not sure if this is good or bad yet…sounds exhausting to me. We’ll meet with the oncologist and the radiation doctor on the 25th and will have more details then. Our surgeon was very optimistic about things. She said after the chemo/radiation she should be able to get it all during surgery, no permanent colostomy and I’ll enjoy living for the next 50 years : ) Now… that does have me living until 97…hmmmm.
The reason we’re waiting until the 25th is because we got the all clear to travel to Colorado! This was wonderful news as well! We won’t stay for the entire conference, but we will get to attend most of it. We felt it was wise to come home early and get this treatment show on the road.
We want to thank you so much for your prayers and all the encouraging notes and emails we’ve received. I recently told a friend that if you want to feel super loved, just get cancer! We have truly felt loved and blessed beyond measure. Thank you all so very much.
We will keep you posted as we go along, as we covet your prayers. To make things a bit easier for us, we’ll post updates here on the blog. This way, you can also read entertaining news of our neurotic dog, Annie.
Much love to you all,
Cathy
3 Comments » - Posted in Cathy by Jerry
Thursday, June 30th, 2011
New Situation
We’ll start this with the end of the story: Cathy will have treatment and surgery soon that should resolve this completely.
The beginning of the story was recently when Cathy had a colonoscopy and found a tumor in her digestive tract. The biopsy indicated it is malignant. The good news is that further blood work and a CT scan indicate the cancer has not spread anywhere else, and the colonoscopy showed only this one tumor. The indications are good that this is contained and isolated.
Surgery, radiation, and chemo seem like the treatment that should take care of this, but we won’t know details until the surgeon can do an ultrasound on it in the next couple weeks. It also seems most likely that the surgery should completely remove the malignant tumor and leave Cathy cancer-free.
We would appreciate your prayers as we walk through this!
Emotionally we’re doing well, actually. Cathy was a little troubled for a few days, but the good news about the cancer not spreading relieved most of that. Neither of us are fearful or terribly unsettled. It hasn’t seemed as horrifying as we always thought news like this could be. It might change our summer plans regarding our staff conference in Colorado, but we don’t know yet.
We will let you know how things go. It is probably going to be a six month process, but that is just our early guess.
No Comments » - Posted in Cathy by Jerry
Friday, June 24th, 2011
Pastor Philip
Pastor Philip
I don’t usually post our prayer letters here. At one point I’m sure I had a reason why, but now that they get posted to Twitter and Facebook, I don’t see why not here, too.
No Comments » - Posted in GTO,Ministry,mLearning Project by Jerry
Saturday, May 28th, 2011
Mombasa Class 2 Completion
Jerry Interviews a Mombasa Pastor
Actually none of the pastors we interviewed today were from Mombasa, but that was where we met them all. They took the final exam for the Institute of Christian Leadership course and told us about how their ministries changed as a result of the class and how they had grown spiritually through it.
Philip said he was so grateful for the class because he could not afford to pay for training at a seminary and couldn’t leave his ministry and family. He is a perfect example of why we developed this type of training.
Pastor Philip
And this is where we landed for the night; Mombasa Beach. No complaints. Back to Nairobi tomorrow.
Mombasa Beach
No Comments » - Posted in GTO,Ministry,mLearning Project by Jerry
Thursday, May 26th, 2011
mLearning Project in Nairobi Business Daily
A man walked into the NIST (Nairobi International School of Theology a.k.a. International Leadership University Kenya) office here in Nairobi today wanting to talk to the person organizing the mobile phone pastor training. He had read the article in today’s paper. Sure enough, there it was.
http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/-/539444/1169182/-/1232lbaz/-/index.html
No Comments » - Posted in GTO,Ministry,mLearning Project by Jerry
Wednesday, May 18th, 2011
Mombasa Singing
My favorite music is African, and hearing it sung live is the best. I recorded this at a church gathering of pastors in Mombasa using my video camera, so the audio quality is terrible and the men are only visible halfway through the video. But the music is pure enjoyment.
No Comments » - Posted in Ministry,mLearning Project by Jerry
Tuesday, April 5th, 2011
mLearning Project Video
An overview of what it’s all about.
2 Comments » - Posted in GTO,Ministry,mLearning Project by Jerry
Tuesday, March 8th, 2011
Mobile Learning in Mombasa
Zarc Teaches a Group of Pastors
Class #2 of our mobile phone pastor training included a group from Mombasa, Kenya. While Mombasa is not exactly a remote location, having another cohort of pastors there allows us to learn how to run multiple classes in parallel.
Mombasa is like Orlando in the summer without air conditioning; warm and muggy. The culture was closer to Orlando, too; casual and relaxed. I didn’t have to wear my suit. The church in which we met had a dirt floor and a corrugated steel roof that was open to the sky in some parts. Fortunately there was an electrical outlet that kept our batteries charged long enough to register the new students.
Not only does the student learning application run on a mobile phone, but parts of the computerized learning system run on mobile phones as does the student administration program. Registering new students only requires access to the Internet on a smart phone.
Jerry with some of the pastors
As with the other groups that have started using this mobile phone training, this group learned how to use their new phones in a short time. Most of them had never used a touch screen device before, so they all had to learn new concepts. Eventually they all learned how to run the training application on their phones before we left.
Flying To Mombasa
We flew into Mombasa from Nairobi early in the morning, and we flew back to Nairobi in the afternoon. So I never got to see the coast of Kenya. What I saw of Mombasa looked the same as what I have seen of Nairobi. Maybe next trip to Kenya I’ll be able to spend some time in Mombasa on the coast, something every Kenyan tells me I should do.
No Comments » - Posted in GTO,Ministry,mLearning Project by Jerry
Monday, March 7th, 2011
Review of mLearning Class 2 Launch
[We did this analysis a couple weeks after the launch of mLearning Class 2, but I dated this post earlier, so it wouldn't show at the top of the page.]
Post Launch Review
(a very internal look at how we did)
What Did We Set Out To Accomplish?
- Affordable course payments
- Course locking
- Communication module working
- Effective educational materials
- Achieve cost efficiency
- Bookmarking
- Note taking feature
- Working quiz system
What Actually Happened
- The software enabled affordable partial payments by the students
- The course locking as designed didn’t work, but as implemented worked.
- Communication module works but with some questions.
- Possibly non-Safaricom quiz and communication not working
- SMS Gateway communication became unreliable during student registration
- SMS Gateway software needed frequent restarts to keep functioning
- SMS Gateway software ran on a regular Android mLearning phone.
- Note taking, bookmarking worked, media played
- It cost 2000 KSH to register 10 students in Nairobi (students #10 – #20)
- 1000 KSH in account went away Thursday night March 3
- Safaricom account was blocked after money ran out for SMS Gateway Thursday night March 3
- Troubleshooting remotely using Email, Skype, and phone communication was sufficient.
- We encountered situations/conditions that had not been tested; e.g. registering lots of students in a short time.
- Quiz system worked.
- There is some question about whether different network are causing problems.
- Backend worked very well
What Went Right
- Backend – Allogy Admin
- Student registration
- Student payments
- Quiz tracking
- Facilitated a side-install
- Quiz creation/course building
- Lightweight enough for easy mobile phone use
- Facilitated a testing environment
- Bookmarking – passive mode was good
- Progress bar is good
- Note taking – worked as advertised
- SMS-based communication
- Eliminated the need for student data plan for all necessary communication
- Quiz results easy to view
- Client worked
- Updates on Client, SMS Gateway, and backend were timely and addressed the problems
- Rooted SMS Gateway phone worked as intended (able to bypass 100 SMS/hr limit)
- Zarc teaching new students how to use their new phones and Allogy
- Test sites worked well. Easy to test and throw away.
What Could We Have Done Better
- Testing
- test real situations
- needed more testing time
- Process for pushing updates that involves local and remote testing.
- Client stability
- Changing orientation
- File decryption
- Correct home screen display
- Support different screen sizes and resolutions
- Additional visual indicators of progress through list of lessons
- Remove initial client authentication layer (“Verify” step)
- Cost – arranged data service with Safaricom immediately upon turning new SIM on Android.
- Eliminate noisy SMS updates
- Using SMS technology better
No Comments » - Posted in GTO,Ministry,mLearning Project by Jerry
Wednesday, November 24th, 2010
mLearning Trial Class Ended Well
The first mLearning class is complete, and it was a success!
33 students registered for the Institute of Christian Leadership class, and 32 of them completed the class on their mobile phones. All 32 returned to Nairobi for the final exam with a class average of A- on the same exam that the ‘reference’ group of in-class students took. We are excited and amazed.
Pastor Robert, from Rongai, returned with two of his lay church leaders and told us about the changes he experienced in his own life and the changes he observed in his two lay leaders. I smiled when he referred to the class material as ‘this gadget.’ Clearly it made a difference in his life.
No Comments » - Posted in GTO,Ministry,mLearning Project by Jerry
Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010
What They Said
mLearning Students
Here are some of the things we heard when we interviewed these present and future church leaders after they completed the first mobile phone training class, the Institute of Christian Leadership.
I love Jesus more and have a deeper desire to share the love of Christ to others.
I have been personally helped to grow in the Word. I am adequately equipped to bring about changes in church.
I have grown in reflecting on the word of God, and knowing how to prepare and preach and study the Word.
