Missionary Blog Watch

Let's visit Niger today.  Did you know that it's estimated that 20% of Niger's children are under-nourished?  The literacy rate is under 15%?  That Niger is one of the world's poorest and least-developed countries?  That life expectancy is only about 44 years?

Check out these blogs for a closer look at Niger:

Life in Niger

Yaaye's Thawts

Sokoto Fulani of Eastern Niger

Hannatu's Happenings

Chats with Cindy

Partnering with Parents (studying in Canada, preparing to go to Niger)

Journey to Africa

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Culture and (wet) countryside
May 10, 2007 11:14

Photo courtesy of jubilatewest
It's time for some tidbits of culture and views of the countryside around the world.  Today's winner is Kenya!  First, some talk about waxing patterns onto fabric.  Next, the art of the bucket shower.  And finally, a couple of interesting posts about NOISY CHURCHES.  First, from Kenya (of course) and also some thoughts from Ghana.

Speaking of Ghana, here's another great post with a conversation about hair, politics and culture.  I just love conversations like this - they really give you a glimpse into culture.

With rainy season starting in many parts of the world, rain and floods are a hot topic.  For example, finally a little rain in Niger.  Next, some amazing photos of rain and flooding in Thailand - the joys of rainy season, and more flooding pictures.  Finally, some very serious flooding and evacuations in Uruguay - the backyard, flooding and more flooding.

Next, why not do a little travel in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and then we'll visit Cameroon for reptiles and baptisms.

Two more cultural notes.  Though many in Mexico may not want to admit it, this photo shoot is now a part of the country's history - more comments on the photo shoot here.  And finally, did you know about the Royal Ploughing Ceremony in Thailand?  Now you do.

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All in a feed - Missionary blog tip #9
May 15, 2007 09:22

Everyone needs to have a good, functioning RSS feed.  Of course, everyone doesn't.  But assuming you do, one question keeps coming up - do you publish your entire post via news feed, or just a summary?

For a long time I was a part of the summary crowd, and the logic went like this:  You want people to visit your site - see that sidebar you've worked so hard on, see the pictures, visit other parts of the site, and so on.  The best way to do that is to publish a "teaser" - just put a title or the first few lines of each post in your news feed.  Then people have to click over to the site to read the full post.

But I think I've finally come over to the other side.  I really think it's better to publish each full post in your feed.  Why?

People are using news readers more and more, and they're keeping track of more and more friends that have started blogging (not to mention news, cartoons, photo feeds, etc etc etc).  With so much information, it's convenient to use a news reader.  It's not convenient to have to click over to the site every time you want to scan a post.  Many people won't bother.

Listen, you can still encourage people to visit your site in other ways - talk about that neat thing on your sidebar, link to your contact page when you want people to email, link to the photo album.  In fact, it would be best to remember that more and more people will be reading via news feed - keep that in mind as you write.

Check your settings and subscribe to your own feed so you can be sure of exactly what people are seeing.  And remember to make people aware of your feed - talk about it and make sure you make it easy to subscribe.

Most of our bloggers here do follow this tip.  However, here are a couple of posts on RSS:  An older post at Missionary Geek on reading what you want to read, and a video on TheBellSite - RSS in plain English.  I also wrote on my personal blog about RSS.




3 blogs with nicely displayed RSS feeds.
From top to bottom, disciplemexico.org, Asian Greenhouse and The Poulette Family.