James & Carolanne

I've been pondering lately about my ministry here at Campus Crusade and my love for working on all things computer related, and I've been wondering if there isn't something more that I could do to use the gifts that God has given to me to bring glory to Him. I apologize if this entry seems more of a personal musing, but if you read to the end, you may be able to help or give some suggestions.

Specifically I've been wondering how I can be a help to other missionaries. Having experienced some of the difficulties of being missionaries ourselves (ie. raising support for the last 7 years and only being at 50% of where we are supposed to be), I believe that the Lord has give both Carolanne and I a heart to help other missionaries that are struggling. One way that we could do this is to donate as much money as we possibly can to others who we know are struggling in their support. While we already do this as much as we are able, living on one missionary salary doesn't allow us to give half as much as we would like to.

The other option that I have is to use the gifts that the Lord has given to me to bless and help missionaries in other ways. One of these gifts is the ability to build websites, and in light of that I've been debating whether or not I should begin a support-type ministry for missionaries, providing free hosting and if desired, free setup of ministry websites similar to this one. The ministry websites would enable the missionaries to keep their supporters up-to-date both by posting to the website, and if desired, by email.

The work would be supported completely by donations which would be totally optional. If a missionary wanted to have a website similar to this one (which is really easy to update), they would simply have to let me know what they wanted and how they wanted it to look, and we would be able to set them up with something.

The only complication I can see at this point is domains. When you build a website, you usually need to purchase a domain that people can use to get to it. Domains typically cost around $14 / year and that cost would have to be covered by the missionary. On the other hand, if they wanted a subdomain of one of the domains I already run, those are free. (ie... something like [websitename].jamesandcarolanne.com).

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. It's something I've been considering and praying about lately. If you have any suggestions or thoughts on this, please feel free to post them in the comments area of this page. For those in email land, click the link to view this page on the website, and at the bottom you will have the ability to post comments about this.

Also, if you know of any missionaries for which a service like this would be helpful, feel free to let me know about them and I should be able to help.

Wishing you all the best,
James Warkentin