August 31, 2013:

Dear Friends and Prayer Partners,

It has been eight weeks since our last monthly email update at the start of July.  Now here it is the end of August, and I have been very busy working on the project I made reference to in our July update.  In this message I’ll fill you in on that project and share family updates from Krista, as well as highlight some prayer requests and praises.  We appreciate your partnership in this ministry!

Sometimes people wonder, “What is the most critical computer software in Wycliffe, and the other organizations involved in the global Bible translation movement?”  Is it the software that missionaries use for Bible translation?  Is it the financial software used by Wycliffe to process donations and transfer the funds to the missionaries’ bank accounts monthly?  Is it the software that is used to catalog and track the progress of translation for all the languages of the world?  While these are all critical pieces of the puzzle for Bible translation and language development, I believe that our email systems are the most critical software (or service) for missionaries in our family of organizations!

Email is literally the one computer service every missionary uses, at least in Wycliffe and in our partner organizations.  We don’t really need to know the phone numbers of our missionaries, but we DO need to know each person’s email address, and there are over 13,000 addresses!  Every Wycliffe missionary must have a valid email address.  For many missionaries email is their primary mode of communication with the outside world, fellow missionaries, and their supporters.  For the last 20 years email has been the “normal” way that Wycliffe missionaries communicate with one another, since they are spread all over the world.

When Krista and I returned from our trip to Africa at the start of June, we made the decision that we would not move to Africa right now, and instead continue serving here in the USA, with a global focus to support the fields.  I then began to get involved as the technical lead for a new project called Google Apps, which was taking shape to replace our email systems with Google hosted email services.  We have a great team of leaders on the project, handling other aspects such as communication with the missionaries, training, managing the project itself, and setting policies.  I don’t solve all the technical problems, but I leverage other IT experts to tackle specific issues, and I am the “go-to guy” when a new problem is identified.

Since other people were initially busy on other projects, I also took on the role of the system administrator for Google Apps, which is the all encompassing suite of Google services, about 70 other applications in addition to email.  One of my God-given strengths is figuring out how to do new stuff, and then developing a process to make it repeatable, and I have been doing a LOT of that over the last two months.  In fact I've been putting in long hours, often working nights and weekends to keep up with the pace, and I’m loving it!  I always marvel at how the Lord gifts certain people with specific skills and talents to carry out His work – even in technology, and it’s a blessing to be part of a team of gifted people working on this joint project, which involves both major partners: Wycliffe USA and SIL International.

If you have followed our ministry for the last few years, you will remember that I also worked on the last major email change, moving about 2,000 people off of Lotus Notes to a different email system.  That was just a few years ago, so why are we switching even more people to a different email system again?  The reasons are many, and my boss, Steve, recorded a one minute video which you can watch here that tells why we are making this change.  Communicating the reasons behind WHY we are doing something is important to the thousands of missionaries who will be affected.

The primary driver of this change is to enable better collaboration between people and the various organizations involved in Bible translation and language development.  As technology has advanced in recent years, there are a number of side benefits, such as a lot of storage space online for email and documents, greater flexibility in how to access data, mobile device options, and lower costs to the organization: it’s now a free service for non-profit organizations of any size.

I am still serving in the role of Director of Global IT Development for SIL International, and working at the JAARS center in North Carolina.  Now I am also very much enjoying getting my hands “dirty” with this technical work, in addition to my leadership responsibilities for the IT software development and engineering teams.  It is our belief, hope, and prayer that the new capabilities offered by Google Apps will enable missionaries to more efficiently use technology as a tool in their work to bring God’s Word to the millions of people who are waiting for it!

I will still be involved with ongoing projects to improve Internet and power in African countries, and help with the training of African IT coworkers.  In fact right now one of my teams is helping provide equipment for cellular and satellite Internet in Mali.  Another team is in discussions with the SIL office in Nigeria to help research and consult for an upgrade of their solar power system, along with new, energy efficient computer equipment.  My boss, Steve, is actually on a trip to Africa right now, meeting with key missionary leaders there to better identify their needs.  So I and those I work with are continuing to be engaged with helping improve connectivity in Africa, and other parts of the world that need it.

In His Service,

Hank & Krista Scott

Wycliffe Bible Translators