Missionary Blog Watch

Of course, missionaries are always talking about culture.  How to adapt to the culture, what they find different in the culture, weaknesses and strengths in the culture.  Usually, it's not bad - it's just different, as we always used to tell mission teams that we trained.  But we always wrestle with it and try to see it as Jesus does.  For your reading pleasure, here is an assortment of some recent culture-related posts:

About Band Aids and diversity - ASOY Assortment

Taboos - do we take them too far?  Kalinjin Culture

Drinking in Ireland

An illustration of working together - Each Stone has its Place

The mystery of the tub (that some of you could probably solve) - Sickness, missionary ingenuity and why tubs are scarce in Costa Rica

The thrill of buying baking soda - The Fun Of It All

Reactions to the Da Vinci Code in Pakistan - Fascinating

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Missionaries on the 2006 World Cup
June 12, 2006 10:56

Every once in a while there are a whole bunch of bloggers around the world blogging about the same thing.  You know, a major natural disaster.  Christmas, or Easter.  But all those things are nothing, next to the deluge of posts on the 2006 FIFA World Cup.  Called Soccer in some countries, football in most, this sporting event is the most popular in th world.  Over a billion people will be watching!  Here's a sampling of the missionary posts in honour of the occasion:

A formerly deprived American on Becoming a Soccer Fan

Mexico's team seeks a spiritual edge

Keep track of the scores with these World Cup Spreadsheets

Info on the World Cup and World Cup Tracts in Spanish

More soccer excitement in Mexico

Experiencing the World Cup around the world - World Traveler and the World Cup.

Jason Gardner, missionary to Brazil, not only writes about the growing excitement, but has come up with a very handy 2006 World Cup Prayer Guide - what a great idea!

How about this interesting controversy about a banned World Vision ad that was supposed to be shown during the World Cup...

Out of Brazil, a funny World Cup ad

Do the different teams have different personalities?  Torben Riis Jensen thinks so - here are his thoughts on just a few of the teams in Football, football, football...!!

For more on the World Cup, try the official FIFA World Cup site, or the BBC World Cup section.

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Improvements at Missionary-Blogs.com!
June 19, 2006 19:50

Things should be working a lot better now.  Some of you who are subscribed to the missionary blog aggregator feed (found on the main Missionary-Blogs.com page) may have noticed that it seemed rather "stalled out" for a while.  It just didn't seem like new posts were showing up very often.

Well, I made a few changes, and so far it seems to be working much smoother.  For those of you that don't know, the news feed on our main page is a collection of about 250 different missionary feeds.  In a perfect world, it would show the most recent posts from all those feeds.  However, the world is not yet perfect, and so it's a little arbitrary.  It may not show a particular feed if there's a problem with that feed's coding.  It may take a while to update certain feeds.  There are a number of issues that change what may or may not show.

Anyway, as the technology improves, so does the aggregator.  I'm doing my best to at least make sure it shows fresh posts from a variety of missionary blogs.  After all, that's what this site is all about!  You can also see similarly new post summaries on the main page.

Just a reminder - that feed doesn't include the feed for this blog - Missionary Blog Watch.  You can find this feed right at the top of the main Missionary Blog Watch page.

By the way, did you know that this site is now in the top 4% of most visited websites on the internet?  It's true.  So let's see it get up to the top 3.  If you've appreciated this site, why not link to it from your website, or tell a friend, so that others can enjoy it too?  Now go check out the latest missionary posts!

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Specialty Blogs
June 27, 2006 08:27

There really is no such thing as a "typical" missionary blog.  Oh, sure, you've got prayer request, cultural observations, stories about people meeting the Lord.  But missionaries don't come from the missionary factory where they all pop out exactly the same.  Missionaries are actually salesmen, architects, theologians, musicians, hobbyists, parents, doctors, labourers, shop keepers.  God calls people from all walks of life to serve Him.

Many missionaries have unique things to say in their blogs about their various areas of expertise.  Some missionaries have also started extra blogs with specialty topics - let's check a few out:

Because we're still in the early days of blogging, a lot of the early missionary bloggers are interested in technology.  Check out, for example, Missionary Geek and Missionary Tech

Another natural fit is Bible and theology.  Among those who have set aside a blog for this purpose are Missionary Bible Blog and RTBM - Returning To Biblical Missions.

How about a missionary who likes model trains?

That's just a taste - keep your eyes open, I'm sure we'll see lots of specialty blogs in the future!

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