communication

“Sure wish I could talk to a real person…”  she muttered.  The recording ignored her and replayed the same options.  She listened a moment longer, but neither relevant choice nor tangible champion interceded.

“Forget it!” She snapped the phone shut and walked away.

Our world interconnects, but grows virtual, a caricature of genuine life.  True, a plethora of information astounds us.  And, the convenience certainly woos us.  But, most websites shout, “Shut up! We talk, you listen.”  We enjoy the web’s speed and reach, yet also crave the old fashioned market place.  There, we talked.  We listened.  Friends actually heard us.  We built community.

Fortunately, the Lord sends the Body of Christ to push back.  Regina’s Orality work draws people together.  And now, my work takes an Internet problem and makes it a feature.  We’re converting the MAF-Learning Technologies website from a one-way billboard to a two-way discussion known as a “blog.”  Our worldwide team – including you – will finally have a place to really converse about God’s work through Learning Technologies.  More details soon.

In 1945 God challenged a handful of ex-military airmen to overcome geographic barriers to the Gospel.  They answered the call with airplanes, forming a flight service known today as Mission Aviation Fellowship.  Suddenly, days on the trail changed to minutes in the air.  Missionary dreams of reaching people living in remote mountain valleys or impenetrable jungles gave way to the reality of doing it.  They rejoiced that the Lord finally enabled them to surmount such formidable obstacles.

But then He presented a new challenge.  By the end of WW II both military and airline operations routinely included 2-way radio communications.  So, our early pilots, fresh from those environments, automatically integrated radios into their flight service. When missionaries saw our base staff routinely speak with pilots a hundred miles into the bush, they quickly realized the potential for their own work.  “That’s amazing.  Is there any way we could do that too?” they asked.

“Sure.  Here’s how it works,” we answered and quickly found ourselves in communications ministry, installing radios in central offices and remote camps.  Runners bearing notes stained with many days sweat gave way to instant conversations with near telephone ease.  Today, setting up and maintaining a radio network comprises MAF’s entire ministry in some countries and an important part in others.

But, professional aviation’s demand for mastery of the growing body of information compelled us to adopt computers at the dawn of the digital era.  MAF began automating shop, reporting and flight planning tasks.  When missionaries saw the boon these strange machines provided to our record keeping, they asked, “That’s amazing.  Is there anyway we could do that too?”

Coordinating the efforts of a worldwide consulting team that spans multiple cultures poses daunting challenges.  Jetting about the globe for meetings breaks budgets when done too frequently.  And, jet-lag wastes the first few days while everyone figures out what planet they’re on.

Online technology seemed like the ideal solution, but just how to accomplish that eluded us for quite awhile.  After serious time and energy investments in a couple abortive attempts, we finally settled on a freeware wiki called, DekiWiki.

Now, links from the MAF Learning Technologies website point to our ProjectWiki (see button on the Projects tab).  On ProjectWiki, we display summaries of projects for several of our ministry clients in the same place that we actually work on them.  Any viewer may comment on a project and, involved partners can collaborate directly on project development from anyplace in the world via the Internet.