The Italian Gringo

[Vince53]

Greetings, Gringos! We hope that your weather is as cool and pleasant as ours.

It was a bad day last Saturday, when my car broke down while I was picking up kids. We only had 11 in the Neighborhood Bible Study, but we hope to do better this week.

But we've had a good week at La Ola Orphanage! I was there every weekday last week, and the kids were very well-behaved most of the time. Bob Plinka is still in the US, staying with family members, while the doctors figure out how to deal with his heart problems. His wife Becky is the director of La Ola, and she's back for a month while Bob's family takes care of him. Meanwhile, we're short-handed, so I'll be there every weekday for the next four weeks, starting this Monday. And Folks, I'm impressed. All of the La Ola workers worked well together while the boss was gone. There were no plots, rebellions, conspiracies, whatever, and things went smoothly under stress. Four-year-old Millie is turning out to be a computer genius, and twelve year old AnaKaren has got my laptop doing all kinds of potos with artistically-designed frames.

I can't say the same good things about the Bible college I graduated from. I'm writing on one of their forums, and the bitterness and lying are amazing. My college taught that soul-winning was the most important thing, when the Scriptures say that love is the most important thing. The most surprising part is that people are bitter at me for forgiving the college vice-president for all the many wrongs he did. God tells us that when a root of bitterness springs up, it troubles you, and then many are defiled.

A major mistake is to listen to bitter Christians as leaders. We have this problem in Mexico, I've seen it in various churches, and I see it in various forums.

On the other hand, Acer Computers has promoted me from their lowest bottom-level geek to the next-to-the-lowest level. I'm learning a lot about laptops while helping others, and it has opened a new area of service. "Service" is right--they don't pay me.

See you next week,
Vicente

 

[Vince53]

Greetings, Gringos! We're getting a break from the rain, which makes it possible for me to get to La Ola earlier every day. We have a team of Canadian Baptists here for a few days, and they're doing a great job with the kids. We're still short-handed, and I enjoy being here five days a week instead of two. I am using educational programs on my laptop to tutor the kids. However, their favorite educational game is "Zombie Killer." Despite this, we are making visible progress.

The Bible tells us "In the multitude of counselors, make your war," and "In the multitude of counselors, there is safety." When confronted with scandals they cannot hide, many Christian organizations close ranks, vigilantly shielding their members from the advice of Christians who are doing well. They do this for fear of losing members, when losing members might be God's plan. Don't be afraid to learn something from someone who is outside your group. The more troubled a group is, the more determined they are to prevent outside advice.

Last Saturday, God blessed us with twenty kids in our Neighborhood Bible Study. Aunt Elvia's Home has started taking in children for daycare, in addition to their orphans, and that helps with the bills. I can't be there too much while La Ola is so short-handed, but they're doing all right.

I have a series going on "Cheap Laptops" that can help you , especially since I'm not selling anything. Feel free to drop in at Cheap Laptops for some good, free advice. I enjoy being a technical writer for Acer Computers, and I'm learning a lot. But Acer is turning away from Windows 8 in favor of other operating systems. It's hard to find figures, but the number of computers using Windows 8 only rose .3% in July. Me? I think it's great, and the kids at La Ola love using it.

See you next week,

Vicente

 

[Vince53]

Greetings, Gringos! We've had another good week and we hope that you have to. God blessed us with 35 kids and two neighborhood adults at last week's Neighborhood Bible Study, and that's the highest we've ever had. And we've had some blessings at La Ola Orphanage, as some of our kids have started school (Yeaaaa!!!!) and all of the rest return next week. One girl scored highest in her class in a test, one teen-ager is attending school for the first time (We've done a lot of tutoring and home schooling), and most of our kids are now enrolled in private schools. We have a lot to praise the Lord for.


I'm at La Ola five days a week now, as we are short-handed, but things should improve next week. And by the way, I like being here.


We had to drive to Guadalajara to pick up some supplies, and we made it there and back without getting lost. We had lunch at a nice restauarnt with paid parking, and then they wouldn't let us out of the parking lot. After driving around for a while, I started yelling for the police, and then they let us out. No, I don't know what was going on, but I got us out.


More trouble with missionaries. A former missionary who quit started getting on my Facebook wall and I had to unfriend her. Folks, most mission boards make their missionaries return after two years, and I'm seeing why. If you're failing in a ministry, you need to find someone who is succeeding and ask that person for advice. Down here, unsuccessful missionaries find people who is being blessed by God and attack them.


This morning, I got another unpaid promotion from Acer Computer, and I am now officially on the third level from the bottom on their forum. Do I recommend Acer Computers? No, I recommend that you find a computer you want, write down its entire model number, and then go research it on the internet.



My beloved Windows 8 is not doing well in the ratings, but the kids at La Ola like it better than XP. Incidentally, WIndows XP is a great operating system for older computers, and I was always happy with it. But today's more powerful computers need a more advanced system.


See you next week,


Vicente

 

[Vince53]

Greetings, Gringos! I'm trapped at La Ola with a pouring rain and for kids, while the other twelve are in school. The ids are doing well, and we are looking forward to the return of one of our best missionaries later today. I'm working five days a week at the orphanage and I love it! I'm surprised that God opened a new ministry for me as a computer technical writer. My church thinks I'm a genius, and the information I'm gaining is very helpful as we rely increasingly on computers.

Five year old Chuy was very upset because he was being punished for five straight weeks for bad behavior. I got him a reprieve, took him to the park a few times, tired him out, and so far he has been good all week. Physial exercise does not cure bad behavior, but it lessens it.

During the 1960's, a Lutheran pastor built a gigantic, beautiful church building in California. With the most beautiful church building in the world, the heavily debt-laden congregation succumbed to internal fighting, the church collapsed, and the lenders were stuck with a gigantic financial loss and a building that nobody wanted. Desperate for a buyer, the lenders approached a successful Baptist church that did not want, and could not afford, the building. With no other option, the lenders lowered the price to cut their loss, and the Baptists paid a ridiculously low price for the structure.

At the bank to sign some papers, the Baptist pastor was surprised to meet the Lutheran minister who had built the place. Bitter at what had happened, the Lutheran criticized Baptists, the Bible, his Lutheran congregation, and a few other groups. At no point did the Lutheran minister admit fault in saddling his people with a heavy debt on a building that was too big for them. He had not learned from his mistakes, and he was not willing to correct them.

And, perhaps to get himself another paying position, and perhaps because he needed money, the minister was writing a book on how to build a large church.

We can laugh at the thought of that minister being a teacher, and yet the internet has allowed many failed Christians to write Bible studies, blogs, etc., without changing the problems that destroyed their ministries. Be careful who you listen to, because "Evil communications corrupt good manners."

See you next week, Vicente

 

[Vince53]

Greetings, Gringos! The rainy season is drenching Mexico with much-needed water, and I hope I haven't caught something from standing in the rain at the bus stop. I boarded the bus in a heavy downpour, and arrived at a bright, sunny La Ola Orphanage soaking wet, which everybody thought was funny.

Our newest activity is taking the kids for a walk down a new muddy road after dinner. The little kids are burning up energy running through mud puddles, and their behavior has improved a lot as a result. Most of the kids are doing well in school, the food is good, and the place is kept clean. But we're short-handed with four of our valuable people missing. Even with the kids in school, I'm putting in a 35-hour week (and enjoying it). We're also being helped by Toni, a nursing student from Tennessee who is doing a great job with the little angels. But she goes back to school on Saturday, so more volunteers are needed.

Speaking of Saturday, we didn't reach our goal of forty kids at the Neighborhood Bible Study, but the 33 we did have is our second-highest attendance. We had extra help, so the lesson went better than usual. It's good to be working in two places where God is doing something. And what is He doing? He's working in people to do His will. Philippians 2:13 tells us "for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure."

One of the volunteers at La Ola has had a kidney stone for three months (I thought I was something when I had one for eight days). After prayer, he SEEMS to have recovered. It's good to be in a place where God literally does answer prayer.

See you next week,
Vicente

 

[Vince53]

Greetings, Gringos! It's a miserable rainy day here in Mexico, and we just finished having a well-attended pool party for the kids. I'll probably be sick tomorrow, but that's life. The large group of children were very well-behaved, which is fortunate, because I was the one who would have had to throw them out.

We had a bad Saturday, with only twenty kids at the Neighborhood Bible Study, so we ho...pe that you'll pray for us to do better this week However, the class itself went very well.

You have to be patient when things go wrong if you want to serve God. The Bible tells us "Be not weary in well-doing." One of our little angels broke the inside rear-view mirror on the new van, while fighting over the radio. But he is doing wel in school, and it´s just something you have to put up with. Some people look down on children's work, but I don't see them succeeding in any other Christian work.

We had two of the orphans at our house last Sunday.l They ate a good meal, followed by five scoops of ice cream, and then all day on Facebook. Now everybody wants to go to my house. I keep telling them that we are taking the cooks next week.

I've gotten two e-mail letters of commendation from Acer Computers for the job I'm doing on their website. If you have any questions about laptops, send me an e-mail and I'll try to help.

See you next week,
Vicente

 

[Vince53]

Greetings, Gringos! We hope that all of you are doing well. Nancy will probably be needing surgery in a few weeks, so we hope that you'll pray for her.

Five year old Chuy was not even talking when we got him at La Ola two years ago. Today he was booming along on some educational games on a computer. It's good to see progress. The kids don't want to be unable to learn, so they do pretty well with educational games. One of the most surprising things is that some of the kids who don't do well in school are picking up English pretty fast.

The La Ola kids are generally doing well. They love the staff, including the cooks, and the biggest problem we have with most of them is not doing their chores. It worries me that I never see any of them reading the Bible, but they do well in church and in various Bible studies. Last week, one of the girls invited ten boys to come over and do homework with her. This made her very popular, as La Ola is a nice place. The parents like it because it is well-supervised, and the kids are well-behaved. It's too bad she didn't get permission first. Of course she got in trouble, but she's a good girl, and my own response was to laugh and tell her not to do it again.

I'm enjoying being a tech writer for Acer Computers, and if you have any laptop questions, feel free to e-mail me for free advice that is well worth the price. However, most of our laptop questions come down to the same six problems:


1) No, you cannot upgrade the operating system on a laptop. If you do, you lose all your drivers, and your machine is not designed to operate with a different operating system. Desktops, yes; laptops, no.

2) If the splash screen (the opening screen, which usually has an advertisement) comes on, but then your screen goes blank, you have a hard drive problem. There is a 1/3 chance that it is a software problem, and a 2/3 chance that your hard drive has failed.

3) You can't get a good Wi-Fi signal because your antenna is poor quality, or you have accidentally logged onto your neighbor's Wi-Fi instead of your own.

4) You can't turn on your computer at all? No blinking lights, nothing? The biggest single cause is that you have not turned on the power. Check all your plugs and power cords.

5) Your computer is running slow because you have accidentally installed programs that are hogging your memory. Download the free Win Patrol program and it will show you all your Start-up programs. Disable the ones you don't want, and after a week, if everything is okay, go back and Delete them. Do not Disable ANYTHING from Microsoft.

6) Your computer keeps shutting down because it is overheating. Carefully blow it out with a can of compressed air. Merely elevating the top corners of your laptop with lower the temperature 10F.

See you next week,
Vicente

 

[Vince53]

Greetings, Gringos! We spent much of last week in the middle of two hurricanes, with a lot of much-needed rain being dumped on us. But on Saturday, the Lord gave us thirty kids for Neighborhood Bible Study, and the lessons went well.
Jesús taught that the greatest Christians were the humble ones. Why? One reason is that they will listen. Over 1/3 of a century ago, my Bible college was teaching that the students with big bus routes were spiritual giants. In tracking down some of them, I'm finding broken marriages, inability to hold jobs, Atheism, lying, immorality, loneliness, and bitterness. All of these problems could have been prevented or cured simply by attending a good church, where a good pastor could have given them good advice. But "spiritual giants" who have brought in hundreds of kids on a bus route can't take advice from a pastor of a small or médium-sized church. And besides, "spiritual giants" don't need help.
These people are attracted (when they do attend) to churches with strict man-made rules. Those churches teach that they are better than other Christians because of those rules, when the Bible plainly states that obeying man-made rules will not improve you but will only build your pride. The King James Only churches are especially attractive to people like that.
When you admit that you have a problem, you can get help. The problem is, you might find yourself near the bottom rung of your new church. But a successful Christian can grow faster than a failed Christian who only pretends to be all right.
See you next week, Vicente
PS. My Bible college still teaches the same baloney. And they don't tell the students about their former "spiritual giants" who have gone shipwreck.

 

[ace4]

bless you guys

 

[Vince53]

on a giant scorpion at the school, we had 17 kids in the Neighborhood Bible Study, and things are going well. How are you folks doing?

"Idealism" is the doctrine that my beliefs are so important that I can lie, slander, censor, deceive, or anything else to spread my beliefs. Naziism, Communism, Islamism, and various other evil organizations practice idealism. And Ruckmanism, while non-violent, practices idealism.

Founded in the 1950's, Ruckmanism teaches that the King James Version IS the Word of God, and they practice deceit and censorship in order to keep their membership. This week, a noted Ruckmanite evangelist explained that in the Bible, "liberty" refers to the freedom to do what Christ wants you to do. Therefor, by censoring the many sexual scandals of their leaders, lying about the quality of their small, unaccredited colleges; hiding the many mistakes and wrong calls by their leaders, Ruckmanites have the right to issue man-made rules that their disciples must follow.

But whenever the Bible talks about liberty, it talks about being free from the Old Testament Law and from man-made rules. Liberty means the exact opposite of what the Ruckmanites teach. Jesus said that "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Censoring the truth (such as the Ruckmanites have replaced the Catholics as the #1 source of perverted clergy in the United States) does not give you liberty.

ANY religious organization that censors truth in order to "protect" its members cannot be trusted. If you realize that you have been misled, you need to get out. While most of you realize that right and wrong are not determined by majority vote, many people do not realize than majority vote is determined by geography. In a nation ruled by fear and terrorism, the majority will support the terrorists in Kenya who attacked a shopping mall.

When the Word of God is your authority, you have the freedom to say that s certain group is wrong, or evil, or just plain crazy. And then, while they issue all kinds of curses and condemnations of you, you have the liberty to get out.

Adios, Vicente

 

[Vince53]

Greetings, Gringos! It was a warm day today, but we are hoping that the rainy season is over.

I taught a small Bible study today that went well, and I'm stressing more Bible at La Ola Orphanage. I'll be there five days this week and was there six days last week. We're all praying for Bob Plinke to get better and get back from the US.

Between my writing for Acer forums and taking an online computer course, I'm gaining a lot of simple knowledge about problem´-solving. Today I received another promotion from Acer. I am now an ACE, their third from the top level unpaid writer. Between writing, studying, and working at La Ola, I'm pretty busy and very happy.

Most of the La Ola kids are doing well in school. Five year old Chuy wasn't speaking two years ago, and now he has a part in a Columbus Day play. He will be King Ferdinand ("Rey Fernando") and we have been going over his line (he only has one) with him.

And the votes are in! The kids at La Ola like Windows 8 better than any other operating system.

Adios, Vicente

 

[Vince53]

Greetings, Gringos! The birds are chirping, the lizards are leaping, and we're having pleasant weather here in the Gringo Zone.

We took the La Ola kids to a carnival last Friday. When we got into the haunted house, they pushed me up front for protection. I even rode the rides without throwing up. Incredibly, no one got lost, sick, or upset. Screaming in terror, yes, but none of the other things.

We could use some prayer. I've contacted a potential donor for a set of new computers for La Ola, and he contacted me back . It probably won't go through, so if it does, it will be an answer to prayer.

It surprises a lot of Christians to learn that the phrase "sovereignty of God" does not appear anywhere in Scripture. Suppose you hire someone to do a job, and then you pay him a fair price. Later, you give money to a poor person who does not work for you. Did you do wrong? Of course not, and that is how the Bible teaches the sovereignty of God. God shows mercy on whom He wills, but He never wrongs anyone. Spiritual gifts and leadership positions in the church are given by the Holy Spirit as He thinks fit, not according to what we deserve. We're grateful to the Lord for giving us the children at La Ola, but none of them earned their way in--it was God's mercy.

I was able to teach the mid-week Bible Study at our church yesterday, and I was able to show that we are not to fight over leadership positions, but rather to accept the gifts and callings that God gives each one of us.

And we had 24 folks at the Neighborhood Bible Study last Saturday! We meet in a small park, and the teachers are doing a wonderful job.

See you next week, Vicente

 

[Vince53]

Greetings, Gringos! I'm a day early, but I'm going to be swamped tomorrow, so here goes.

On Friday evening, the internet and telephones went down at La Ola Orphanage, and they have been out of contact with everybody since.

On Saturday evening, Chuy, a six year old from La Ola Orphanage had to be driven to a hospital in Guadalajara for an appendectomy. His appendix burst while he was in the hospital, and although the surgery was a success, he has infections all around his body as a result. Becky, the orphanage director, has stayed with him 24 hours a day since Saturday evening.

I went to La Ola Sunday afternoon to find two workers who had been up all night and were still doing a good job. Although I was unable to reconnect with the internet, I had brought some dynamite old Windows XP games to install on their old computers, and the kids love them. Even the educational games went well. The problem here is that we have five computers for sixteen kids, and they have to do homework on the internet every night.

I had bought an Acer laptop (one of the five computers we have) and it has been a big help. It uses Windows 8 and is far faster than the other four. The educational games are better, along with the regular games. So I have to deal with conflicts over who gets to use the computers and who gets to use the Acer, because the Acer is everybody's favorite. Also, as a volunteer forum writer for Acer, I have learned a lot that has helped me keep the four older computers going.

I stayed overnight and spent two hours the next day entertaining three year old Valeria while everybody else caught up with everything else. That afternoon, Jeff Plinke returned from the US, and we were very glad to see him. We put him to work right away, and he will be contacting Telmex about the internet problem.

Meanwhile, Bob Plinke (Jeff's father and the jusband of the director) has a successful pacemaker implant this week and hopes to return to us before November. Jeff says that the implant was so successful that Bob might actually have a lot more energy than he did before his heart attack.

Money is tight, and the medical situation hasn't helped any. One of the older girls needed root canal surgery and she took an unusually long time to recover, but she is doing well today. Most of the kids are behaving most of the time, though, and I believe that God will pull us through.

Please remember to pray for us,
Adios, Vicente

 

[Vince53]

Greetings, Gringos! It's sunny and pleasant at the end of October here in Mexico.

We're having a big week at La Ola Orphanage. Normally, I talk about the ten older kids, but this week was focused on the four younger ones. Yesterday, we had a surprise fifth birthday party for Millie, When she got out of the van, we all yelled "Surprise!" and she burst into tears. I had to carry her to a quiet area to calm her down, but she insisted (still crying) on taking all her presents with her.

Three year old Valeria loves her new potty chair, and she rounds up as many people as she can to watch her use it. We stand there and applaud and cheer, but it's getting pretty old. You should have heard the hysteria and screaming the one time that Millie used it (She wanted to try it out).

Five year old Chuy returned from the hospital, minus his appendix, and was happy to be back. The other little kids were happy to see him, especially when they saw the three bags of toys that he had. The doctor wants him walking, so I took him to a convenience store and bought him a popsicle. You should have heard all the complaints from the older kids because I didn't buy them one.

Most of the older kids are doing well in school, and we're giving extra help to the ones who are struggling. My Acer laptop is pretty popular, because I can download better educational programs with Windows 8 than our older computers can. Plus they like the regular games better. I am studying a manual on repairing laptop computers, and it has already helped with the orphanage and with the Acer site that I write on.

I'm getting some response to my posts against Bible colleges. They don't tell their students that most of them will not be able to get full-time jobs in a ministry, and if the college is unaccredited, they will not be able to transfer their credits into an accredited one. Nor do they tell them that a few years after graduating, most of them will not even be attending church. One serious group of problems is unaccredited Bible colleges run by a single church. The students are used to build up the attendance and baptisms, but they do not receive the college education they are paying for. When it is clear that the student needs to leave, they are kept for their tuition money. A Ruckmanite evangelist recently blamed the students if they can't get pastorates. He didn't mention that the first president of the Bible college he founded went to prison for sex with a child while he was serving as president.

Meanwhile, our pastor is back from his three week mission trip to Peru. I taught the weekly Bible Study at church while he was gone, and it went well. Plus, we had twenty kids in the Neighborhood Bible Study last Saturday.

See you next week,
Vicente

 

[Vince53]

Greetings, Gringos! The rainy season has returned unexpectedly, but we are having pleasant, cool weather.

We have a new child at La Ola, and she is doing well so far. She is on thirty days probation, but she is helping with three year old Valeria and obeying (most of the time).

Five year old Chuy returned to school as a hero after his appendectomy. Everyone is telling him how happy they are to have him back.

It was comical last evening when a grief-stricken teen-ager told us that she had been assigned a science project for getting bad grades. We had to help her build a battery circuit that would turn on a light bulb. Despite cutting my finger one time, we were able to get the light bulb to turn on, much to the amazement of the orphans. I tried explaining that I used to be a high school science teacher, but they were unconvinced until the bulb turned on. I feel like a regular Thomas Edison.

We had 23 people at the Neighborhood Bible Study on Saturday, and behavior was pretty good. Some of our church teen-agers showed up to help, and they spent time picking lice out of children's hair. There's been an outbreak of lice all over the place. We get the La Ola kids cleaned up, and then one of them gets it at school, and then we have another outbreak. The cure? Scrub mayonnaise into their hair. No joke, it works. One of the advantages of being bald is that I do not get lice.

God promises us that all things work together for good for them that love Him. We sometimes have to deal with wrongs that occurred years or even decades ago, and we're tempted to be bitter. It helps to remember that nothing bad can happen to us unless God either causes it or permits it. We don't always know why God does this, but we can always know that it is for our good.

See you next week,
Vicente

 

[Vince53]

Greetings, Gringos! It's terrible outside! It's 59 degrees out during the day! How will we ever endure? Winter in Mexico is such a terrible thing! (You all need to retire and get down here, Folks).

My technological triumphs of the week include getting a ruined laptop running well with an aged but legal copy of Windows XP, and dissecting (destroying) another ruined laptop in order to practice disassembling a laptop. I have learned a lot in the last few months, and you can get that knowledge for free at http://www.christianforums.com/t7784191/ You do not have to register to read the posts.

The Lord blessed us with nineteen folks at the Neighborhood Bible Study last Saturday. And today I returned to Aunt Elvia's Home, taking six of the kids to a nearby park. They don't get out much because of the shortage of volunteers. I had been volunteering five or six days a week at La Ola while they were short-handed, and now that they have enough volunteers I am ready to cut my time there and do more at Aunt Elvia's Home. The kids had a real good time, running all over the place and using sliding boards, swings, and seesaws, and yet they were obedient. They are being well-taught, and I actually enjoyed taking them out.

If the leaders of a certain religion are constantly getting into legal trouble, does that prove that their doctrines are false? I'm not talking about persecution; I'm talking about sex crimes. Jesús said that wisdom is justified by her children. When the leaders are constantly bringing disgrace to the Name of Christ, they lack wisdom. If they lack wisdom, they chose the wrong religion. You shouldn't be in that religion.

See you next week,
Vicente

 

[Vince53]

Greetings, Gringos! We're going through terrible weather here, with night time temperatures dropping in to the fifties, and daytime temperatures don't reach the seventies until noon.

My wife and I Joined four guests for Thanksgiving dinner today at Subway Sándwiches, where Nancy and I had two 12 " long Turkey subs, two bags of chips, and two 7Ups for $14.48. And the fellowship was great.

Folks, we have a lot to be thankful for. I do some research and writing in Christian forums, and I keep having to deal with Christians who have been harmed by so-called Christians and so-called Christian institutions. The Apostles John and Paul both wrote about the hatred and opposition they faced from professing Christians, and it really is a problem.

I'm thankful for God's protection and blessings when my Bible college tried to destroy me for opposing violent gangs. I'm thankful for His protection when enraged parents would try to destroy me for making their children behave in school. I'm thankful for His protection when envious "Christians" would attack me in order to seize as successful ministry that God had given me.

I'm thankful that God has blessed me with three unexpected areas of service here in Mexico that are getting results. The Bible teaches us that faith gives us the ability to keep going when things get rough, so how do you get faith? "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." Steadily reading God's Word and attending churches that teach his Word give you the ability to stay in the race until it's over.

Acer Computers has contacted us again about donating some left-over computers to La Ola Orphanage. We recently got two aged laptops going again, and had two more fail on us. Please pray with us about this. All Mexican children have modern textbooks, because they are online. We have to pay only for workbooks that the children use for written homework. But you can see that with sixteen kids, we really need good computers.

And the Lord blessed us with 24 kids in the Neighborhood Bible Study last Saturday. We are praying for more new kids, and we hope that you'll pray with us. If you want to see some photos, go to https://www.facebook.com/vincent.massi.1

Adios, Vicente

 

[Vince53]

Greetings, Gringos! After one cold week, winter is over! Temperatures are still in the fifties in the mornings, but it is in the seventies within a few hours.

Folks, it had to happen. I write on various Christian and technical forums, and I'll have an occasional Calvinist stalk me. Every time I post, he'll respond immediately with an attack. I also had this happen on a forum for victims of church abuse. But on a technical forum?

A guy whose avatar is a penguin wearing the whole armor of God is following me on a laptop forum, attacking me for not recommending Linux. Despite all the publicity, less than 1% of all computers use Linux. It does nothing that Windows cannot do. If you play high-end games on it (very few exist), Linus fouls up worse than Windows does. There are less viruses available because it is smaller, but free antivirus programs for Windows solve that problem.

When installing Linux on a Windows computer, you run into serious problems with hardware that won't work, and Linux blames it on the computer (which was never designed for Linux in the first place). Yes, Windows has problems, and there is a good reason why: as Windows and its computers get more advanced, developers produce software that is more advanced. So you're always getting modern programs on the cutting edge. Linux uses software that Windows had mastered twenty years ago--those simpler programs are easier for today's machines to run. But people who only use their Windows computers for simple tasks run more smoothly than Linux.

Now, there are two spiritual lessons here. It is possible to become so devoted to a cause that you can't see the other side. You can't see the forest because the trees are blocking your view. Anyone who disagrees with you is an enemy.

Another lesson is that we can blend our genuine Christianity with a worldview and not realize that our worldview is still not taught in the Bible. I meet Christians who insist on certain political, social, and economic beliefs (which may or may not be correct) and are convinced that they are Biblical. But true or not, these beliefs are not taught or commanded by God's Word. The United States, the Democrats, and the Republicans are not mentioned in Scripture. And for that matter, neither is Linux.

Well, time to sign off of my Windows 8 computer (which works great). See you next week.

Vicente

 

[Vince53]

Greetings, Gringos! The birds are singing, the flowers are blooming, and my neighborhood is a sea of green trees! Our winter weather is over, and we are planning our annual outdoor Christmas dinner with some friends.

We have a lot to be thankful for this week. On Friday, four brand-new desktop computers arrived at La Ola Orphanage. They were donated by Acer Computers, for whom I am a volunteer technical writer. Yesterday, three Acer laptop computers also arrived. These are all powerful machines, still in the boxes, and all of them are working well. We were also surprised at the high-quality monitors that came with them--one of them is 22". I want to express my appreciation to Acer Computers, as well as to "Acer Brad," who managed to get this project through.

We have been using four aged XP computers, all donated by retired Americans and Canadians. I had managed to get two more going, but two more had failed during the same time. When I purchased an Acer laptop, it was a big hit, enabling the children to do their homework, chat with friends, and play games. We regard this as an answer to prayer, as things were getting a little desperate for our sixteen kids.

Speaking of computers, the little angels at La Ola had installed Windows 8.1 on my computer without telling me. It is actually Microsoft's fault, because they make a button pop up in English, and one of the children clicked on it. I spent the next ten days having all kinds of problems before I figured out what they had done. Fortunately, I have my computer set to automatically install drivers and updates, and over time, my computer corrected itself. It runs well again, and now I am back on the cutting edge with Windows 8.1.

We took the kids from Aunt Elvia's Home to the Presbyterian church last week for a free Christmas lunch. The children were well-behaved, and the church gave them all second helpings. Living in close quarters in a small orphanage, when one of them gets sick, they all get sick, and we had to cancel today's trip to the park. That place really needs more volunteers and donors.

See you next week,
Vicente

 

[Vince53]

Greetings, Gringos! It's in the seventies right now, but don't worry. It will reach the eighties later today.

God blessed us with 21 people at the Neighborhood Bible Study last Saturday, but we're getting some opposition. Some neighbors are demanding that we put up a fence so they can lock kids out. It seems that some neighbors have paid to put up potted plants in the park, and local kids are damaging them when they play in the park. So they want our church to pay to lock the kids out of the park. Good grief, some people actually believe that this is persecution.

But Nancy and I had a good time at a Christmas hymn-sing and we're going to a Christmas party at our church this afternoon. Tomorrow, I'm helping to drive the La Ola kids to different nursing homes to sing carols.

Speaking of La Ola, we're all thrilled to have our seven new Acer computers. But my Acer is the only one with Windows 8, and it is still the most popular one. Win 8 has better games than Windows 7.

Meanwhile, The "Thick Head of the Decade Award" goes to Microsoft, which devasted computer sales by removing the Start Button from Windows 8. They've finally agreed to return the Start Button--in 2015.

Got to go. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Vicente