Master Life Prayer Guide

I’ve told everyone that I’ve started Master Life book 1 The Disciples Cross .  Well, today’s lesson talked about a prayer guide that is in the back of the book.  I’m not much for making copies and keeping them around so I decided to whip up an electronic copy.  I’ve put it up here just so everyone can get a copy if they want.

 
[Update 10-28-2008 21:24:45]  This sheet have been updated to a 4 per page style.  See this post for more information. 

Saturday Night Gaming

We had some friends over and played 2 games of Attika last night. I won the first game. The second game was won by another player. We didn’t connect any temples and had to play until someone got their pieces on the board.

Remember These Cars?

Remember this post about the 4×4 cars I didn’t know what they were?  Well, they are name brand Lada and are from the Soviet Union (now Russia).  Here are some links you might find interesting:

Wikipedia Article on Ladas
Lada Club Serbia

Here are some videos you may like:

{metacafe}407380/lada_niva_4x4_under_water{/metacafe} 

 {youtube}wMxwHhmQMzs{/youtube}

{youtube}4rJ14qlRl2I{/youtube} 

 {youtube}Qr3o8aEapSg{/youtube}

 {youtube}16GaCbN185E{/youtube}

 {youtube}TzdZVY8q6b0{/youtube}

Aaron…if you are out there, I think you need one of these.  It’s much better than mudding in your van  🙂

Joomla Podcasting Component Bug and Fix

I’m using the Joomla Podcasting Component by Joseph LeBlanc to generate my podcasts on this site. Today was the first real podcast I put up…I noticed that my podcatcher wasn’t downloading the mp3 file so I went looking. It turns out that my enclosure URLs were being generated incorrectly.

I normally enter the fully qualified URL instead of the path (long story). Everything was playing correctly; however, the podcast XML wasn’t being generated correctly. It had my <site URL> + <path> + <enclosure tag url> included. So, if I had entered something like “http://media.maxsons.org/MaxsonPodcast/2008/20080919_MaxsonMissionMissivePodcast.mp3” into my enclosure tag, the enclosure URL was getting generated like “http://www.maxsons.org/media_files/http://media.maxsons.org/MaxsonPodcast/2008/20080919_MaxsonMissionMissivePodcast.mp3” See the problem?

Well, the error was in the podcast.php file (line 345 to be exact). that line says

$paramarray[0] = $mosConfig_live_site . “/” . $params->def( ‘mediapath’, ‘images/stories’ ) . “/” . $paramarray[0];

Well, you only want to do that IF you haven’t included the full URL in the enclosure tag already. So, if you want to make the fix, just change that line to these two lines:

if(!strstr($paramarray[0], ‘http://’))

$paramarray[0] = $mosConfig_live_site . “/” . $params->def( ‘mediapath’, ‘images/stories’ ) . “/” . $paramarray[0];

Or, just download this zip file and overwrite your existing podcast.php file (it is in <your site’s install directory>/<components>/<com_podcast> directory).

Now, you’ll be good to go. This code is distributed under the GPL (choose your version).

July Through Now

01092008(007)

The summer has positively flown by and October is just around the corner. Our days have been a whirlwind of Lydia, language, and building relationships. We still have all the ordinary things on our to-do list that we would have back home: cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping, paying bills, etc… (which we have blogged about). But things take just a little bit longer. Not to mention the main reason we’re here, which is to meet people and tell them about Jesus!

 

DSC06377

Much of our first 4 months in Serbia have been spent learning the language and keeping up with Lydia. She is getting so big, and even though she is rapidly approaching the terrible 2’s, she’s such a sweet, happy little thing. Children are truly a blessing from the Lord! You can read more about Lydia by following this link.

As we slowly (painfully slowly) learn more language, we try to use everyday excursions to meet people and practice. We have a little routine and have made friends at the piaca and at some of our other stops around town. Lydia is certainly a big help with this 🙂 While we don’t yet have enough Serbian to really witness with words, we are thankful that we know enough to at least give glory to God for simple things. It is awesome to be able to thank God for His love and provision. And we had a few exciting language moments this month! We just ask that you please pray for us as we try to memorize scriptures in Serbian and as we seek opportunities to share the Truth.

 

DSC06446 DSC06353

It has been such a blessing to participate in Bible studies with local believers and seekers, most of whom speak at least a little bit (if not quite a lot) of English. Even though the studies are in Serbian, our friends graciously translate for us. We have rejoiced in opportunities to worship, certainly with our teammates, but especially with our Serbian friends. And we have also been blessed to have spiritual conversations in English during our short time here.

As we look to our post-language schedule, we are excited about different opportunities both to meet people and to build relationships. Teaching opportunities abound, as well sports activities…and people are always ready to hang out at a cafe. Please join us in praying for wisdom and discernment as we walk through each day and plan our activities, both individually and as a family!

River

One brief update from Matt: As you can tell, we haven’t been the best at doing large summary posts like this over the past few months. However, we have kept our blog up-to-date. If you want to see what is going on virtually as it is happening, check out our blog regularly. If you want, you can also subscribe to our RSS feeds. Either check over on the left-hand portion of the screen or use the links below:

Don’t know what RSS is? Need some help? Here are some excellent links that will let you know what you need and how to use them.

All About RSS
What is RSS?
HOWTO: Read RSS feeds

By the way, don’t ever pay for software to use as an RSS reader. If you can’t find one, just drop me an e-mail and I’ll help you out.

You can also check out our podcast. We are currently looking for ideas on things that we could talk about. Post a reply and let us know what you are interested in knowing.

Enjoy our Podcast Podcast
Full Feed

Just like with the RSS feeds, there is tons of free software out there that will let you subscribe to podcasts. Don’t pay for it. Oh, and stay away from ITunes. The software and service is loaded with DRM and it won’t let you use the stuff you have paid for in many ways allowed by law. Here are some links you could check out:

Video Tutorial on Podcatching
What software do I need?
Juice(the podcatcher I use)
Juice FAQ

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