A Look at Our Team

As our project will begin next week, I thought it would be good to give a brief introduction to our team and what we will be doing over the next several weeks.

Left to right: Rod Howell (me), Morris Crisler, Nick Brown

I am a faculty member in the Department of Computing and Information Sciences at K-State. Morris is a Supervisor / Department Head for the Wamego Park Department. Nick is an IT Specialist at K-State.

Nick and I will leave for Varaždin, Croatia, next Monday, May 14. If travel goes according to plan, we will arrive sometime Tuesday afternoon. We should have some time Tuesday evening and during the day Wednesday for unpacking, exchanging money, stocking up on groceries, and getting acquainted with the town (I've been there several times, but this will be Nick's first visit). On Wednesday evening, we will attend the mid-week Bible study at Kristova Crkva (Church of Christ).

Following the Bible study, we will conduct our Information Meeting, where we will meet our readers for the first time. These people will be coming to us to practice their English conversation, one with one. The basis for much of our conversation will be texts taken from the Gospel of Luke. We will use the Information Meeting as an opportunity to meet each other, to give an introduction to what we will be doing together, and to schedule our first sessions.

We will conclude our first week by meeting with readers on Thursday and Friday before taking our first day off on Saturday. We will spend time on Sunday with the church, before starting our second week meeting with our readers. At this point, we will begin a regular schedule of meeting with readers Monday through Thursday, taking Friday and Saturday off, and spending all or part of Sunday with the church. We will continue attending the mid-week Bible studies on Wednesday nights, and on most Wednesday nights we will follow the Bible study with some type of social event for our readers and church members.

By now you might be wondering where Morris fits in. He plans to join me on June 4, at which point Nick will return home. Morris will then stay for three weeks before returning, and I will remain until July 9. I will then attend an academic conference in Italy before returning home.

I solicit your prayers for this work, including our final preparations before leaving. As I write this, I am administering a final exam, which I will need to have graded before leaving. In addition, I have the opportunity this weekend to help my nephew, Luke Ericson, celebrate his graduation from Junction City High School. Fortunately, I have almost everything else ready to go, but I am anticipating a busy weekend. My prayer is that I can give all of these tasks the attention they need, while allowing God to continue to prepare me for the work in Croatia. Most of all, I pray that He is glorified by our work.