Like wind in ripe grain: Search results for Linux

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Feb 8, 2011

More building begins

Thanks to generous donations forwarded to us by Venezuela Lutheran
Mission Partnership, we have begun construction of outdoor sanitary
facilities as a first step toward building a freestanding
classroom/chapel building. The need for this building is growing along
with Luz Maria's tutoring program in the afternoon. This program
has grown to the point where we have had to split it into different
age-groups at different times.

Water for the new sanitary facilities will be pumped from the well at
the botton of our hill. The well also would be used to supply water for
our fruits, vegetables and the ornamental plants that make for a pleasant environment in which to learn, play and worship. We consume a good portion of our homegrown fruits and vegetables, and donate the excess produce to needy
families. (Our "crops" include oranges, avocados, bananas, grapefruit,
limes, cassava and squash. Luz Maria also recently planted some papaya
trees, but these have yet to start producing.) The additional water
system would allow us to conserve our drinking water during those periods when the public water supply is down (sometimes for as long as a week.)

Of laptops and Linux

Oriana receives her Canaima laptop.

Last week, Luz Maria's granddaughter, Oriana, brought home an early birthday present: a free laptop computer, courtesy of the Canaima Project. (Oriana turned eight on February 7. She was born two months before I met her grandmother in 2003.)

The Canaima Project is a national program similar to the international One Laptop Per Child initiative which has distributed 2.1 million low-cost laptops to schoolchildren around the world, including such Latin American countries as Uruguay, Paraguay, Peru, Colombia, Argentina, Mexico, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Brazil.

However, the Venezuelan program is more closely tied to Intel Corporation's Classmate PC Project, which is separate from One Laptop Per Child but also very similar. The Canaima Project laptops are PC Classmate computers purchased from Portugal and reprogrammed with Canaima GNU/Linux, a special version of the Linux operating system designed with educational software for Venezuelan schoolchildren. There are plans to manufacture clones of the Portugese computers here in Venezuela later this year.

The Canaima Project so far has distributed 299,350 laptops to first-graders and 540,844 laptops to second-graders in Venezuela. As of February 2, 2011, the Venezuelan government had delivered 6,600 laptops to second-graders in communities in and around Barinas.

I was pleased to see the project promoting Linux. In 2008, we took a dozen young people in La Caramuca to a course in Ubuntu Linux
taught by Zulay Puerta, a member of Corpus Christi Lutheran Church in Barinas. As part of her
teaching position with the public school system, Zulay was assigned to
teach a course in Ubuntu in the nearby town of La Mula.

Open-source software like Linux offers many advantages to educational and non-profit organizations, especially in developing countries, due to the lack of prohibitive licensing fees. However, obstacles to adoption of Linux include a. unfamiliarity: and b. easy access to pirated software, ironically enough.
Recently I installed Ubuntu 10.0.4, the latest stable version, on our desktop and laptop computers. How did I do this? By buying a DVD from a street vendor. Ubuntu Linux is available for download from the Internet, but since our Internet connection is rather slow and we are subject to frequent power outages, this is not the best option for us.

And you can buy anything from the buhoneros, or peddlers, that throng the streets of any Venezuelan town. Food, clothing, arts and crafts, motor oil, you name it. There's nothing quite like buying a glass of orange juice squeezed on the spot from locally grown oranges. Of course, you also can buy anything that can be recorded on a CD or DVD -- movies, music, software or Playstation games -- and most of it contrary to international law. One exception is the open-source software. Linux CD and DVDs are intended to be freely copied and distributed. But I could have purchased Windows Vista or Windows 7 disks, complete with the necessary codes to "crack" the anti-piracy technology.

When I first visited Venezuela in 2002, the buhoneros still sold bootlegged movies on VHS tapes and music on audiocassettes. As the price of CD burners dropped, the cassettes disappeared. Likewise, as DVD burners and DVD players have become more and more economical, movies on tape have become obsolete. But the illegal trade continues. At least with software you have a choice that's better for ethical and other considerations.

Mar 12, 2008

Crash course in the commandments

Sometimes it is best when you have only a limited time to speak. It helps you focus on what is important. On Sunday, March 2, we presented a crash course on the Ten Commandments, the objective being to finish up that first section of the Small Catechism with our confirmation class students in La Caramuca and move on to the Apostle's Creed. Things did not work out precisely as planned.

The week before we invited not only our regular students, but all of their families, including parents, to attend our overview of the Ten Commandments. Eduardo and I were able to visit personally many of the students and parents in their homes. Our plan was to have Pastor Ted Krey, who would be visiting La Caramuca that afternoon, speak on the first three commandments, Eduardo would speak on the next three, and I would present on the last four.

The attendance was good, about 30 people including adults and children. The teaching was interspersed with Eduardo leading the group in song with his guitar. We also had someone keeping the rhythm with our pandareta (a kind of tambourine). One hymn that is becoming a favorite here is “Cristo, Vida del Viviente” ("Christ, the Life of all the living”).

The only problem that arose was that by the time it was my turn, the sun was going down (we had gathered in our covered patio which offers protection from the elements, but no electric lights) and the children were growing restless (they had been marvelously patient and attentive up to that point). So basically I had about 10 to 15 minutes to finish up the Ten Commandments.

I took Edwar José, Sarai's infant son, and placed him on my shoulder. “Look at Edwar José,” I said. “His parents, José and Sarai, share their home, their food and many other things with him. But what has he done to deserve this? If his father were to ask him to help with his construction work, would Edwar be able to do so? If his mother asked him to go in the kitchen and fix dinner, what would Edwar be able to do?

“Why do parents care for their children when their children can do nothing in return for them? Because every child is a gift to his or her parents from God, our Father in Heaven. If your father gave you a nice shirt, would you throw it in the dirt and stomp on it? No, you would take care of it so it always would look nice and show people what a fine gift you father gave you. Every child is a gift from God the Father to his or her parents, so it is natural for parents to love and care for their children.

“Likewise, since God is the Father of every one of us, we all are dependent on him for every good thing in life. All the good things we have are gifts from God that He given us out of His love and grace, not because of anything we have done to merit them. So we should be thankful for all that we have, and not look at the good things that our neighbors have and want those for ourselves as well. In fact, not only should we not jump on people, hit them and take what they have, like the men who stole Eduardo's cell-phone, we also should share what we have with those who lack the basic necessities of life, like food and clothing. For if we trust God, He will not only give us what we need, but more than what we need.”

I am not sure how much of that I got across, but at least I hit the high points.

The following Sunday, March 9, Eduardo, Luz María and I filled in whatever points we had overlooked about the 10 Commandments for the children in La Caramuca. For example, Eduardo talked more about what it meant to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. He emphasized that “the church” is not a grand building, but a community of believers gathered in one place for worship and prayer. “Each of us are the living stones that make up the structure of the church,” Eduardo said.

I also preached that morning at Corpus Christi Lutheran Church in Barinas on the resurrection of Lazarus. You can read the text of the sermon (in Spanish) here.

We give thanks for recent generous contributions from Chuck and Chris Hewitson of St. John's Lutheran Church, Vancouver, Washington, and Children's Christian Concern Society of Topeka, Kansas. Thanks to these gifts, we were able to purchase a desktop computer for $300 (including the monitor). This opportunity coincided with the offering of a class in computing taught by Zulay Puerta, a member of Corpus Christi. As part of her teaching position with the public school system, Zulay was assigned to teach a course in Ubuntu Linux in the nearby town of La Mula. Luz María has been taking about a dozen children from La Caramuca to this course every week.

Ubuntu Linux is the operating system that I have installed in the old desktop system that I brought down from the United States. I have used various iterations of Linux since 1997, starting with Caldera OpenLinux and progressing through Mandrake, SuSe and now Ubuntu. I think Ubuntu 6.06 is the best so far, although all the distributions have their strengths and weaknesses. I have had experience with other operating systems as well, including Windows, OS/2, Macintosh OS 7, OS 9 and OS X Jaguar. Linux is the best and keeps getting better. Lack of security and vulnerability to viruses alone makes me wonder why anyone uses Microsoft products.

Anyway, about the time that Zulay started teaching her course, we heard that Eliana Carrasco, a member of El Paraiso Lutheran Church in Barquisimeto, had a son who was closing his cybercafe business. So he had a lot of inventory he needed to liquidate at a discount.

The computer we bought is a Compaq Deskpro ESX. I recall using an earlier model of the Compaq Deskpro as managing editor of No-Till Farmer and Ridge-Till Hotline for Lessiter Publications in Brookfield, Wisconsin. I always appreciated the quality workmanship. This one is a little different than that 1980s-vintage Compaq: It has a 1.4-gigaHertz processor, 128 megabytes of RAM and it did have a 20-gigabyte hard drive until I replaced that with a 40-gigabyte disk from the no-longer-functioning computer that Luz María had.

Then I wiped the system clean of Windows and installed Ubuntu Linux and placed the computer on a mobile cart. The idea is that the children will have a computer with which they can practice their lessons while leaving our “office computer” free. God willing, as we expand our school, we would like to join the computers in a wireless network to share an Internet connection. That way several people (teachers or students) could access the Internet for study.

Internet access is important to our project as most education, but especially theological education, is by distance learning. As Luz María and her daughters, Yepci and Charli, work toward their public certification as teachers, they have received more and more assignments that require on-line research. Also, hard copies of Christian educational materials in Spanish are rather difficult for us to obtain, but it is easier to download and print what we need.

We have received an invitation from the family of Sarai's husband, José, to travel to the neighboring state of Apure during Holy Week and lead a vacation Bible school. Actually, a number of our preschool and Sunday school children are members of the same family (like many small towns, La Caramuca really consists of three or four large, extended families to whom everyone is related either by blood or marriage). This is a great opportunity because, to our knowledge, no representatives of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela have ever visited Apure. At first we thought we would all go, but Eduardo and I are committed to leading Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services at Corpus Christi. If we had our truck or van, we would be able to take a group from La Caramuca on a flying trip to and from Apure on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of next week b,ut we are limited by the logistics of public transportation. So now the plan is for Luz María, Charli, Sarai, José, Edwar José and maybe one or two other children to travel to Apure while Eduardo, Yepci and myself stay here.

May God bless each and every one of you this Holy Week.

Feb 12, 2013

Living on God's time

There are two words in New Testament Greek that can be translated into English as “time.” One is χρόνος (chronos), as in chronology, chronic or chronicle.. Chronos expresses the concept of time quantitatively, as a measurable succession of seconds, minutes, hours, days and years.

Καιρός (kairos) is the other word. It expresses the concept of time qualitatively, in terms of “the right time” or “a favorable moment.”

The difference between chronos and kairos might be illustrated with this analogy (which is used more than once in the Bible itself (Matthew 24:8; John 16:21; Romans 8:22) to explain the unfolding of God's will). When a woman goes into labor, it does not matter if it is precisely nine months since conception (chronos), the time has come for the child to be born (kairos).

In Matthew 2:7, a form of the world chronos is used when King Herod asks the wise men precisely “what time” the star of Bethlehem had appeared to them in the east (because Herod wanted to calculate the age of the child born to be a king).

Kairos, on the other hand, is the word used in Mark 1.15, where Jesus says, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent, and believe the gospel.”

For us, it is kairos, the right time to resurface the wall which faces the street with stone and tile. For some time (chronos), our building plans have been stalled because of lack of cement. We now are able to buy cement, although at a much higher price than in the past. However, thanks be to God,, we received generous donations at year's end that have allowed us to purchase all the materials and labor necessary for renovating the wall.

We hope to accomplish three objectives by resurfacing the wall:

To improve the appearance of the entrance of our mission and increase its visibility in the community. This will include, once the resurfacing is complete, the installation of a permanent sign with our new name (Epiphany Lutheran Mission of La Caramuca), the hour of Sunday service and weekday hours of our preschool and afterschool tutoring.
To fix and seal cracks in the wall.
To reduce the need for future maintenance.

We also have been able to repair most of the damage that occurred from a terrific voltage spike a couple of weeks ago. Our electrical power supply is extremely variable. Once or twice a week every week we experience a complete loss of power, lasting from less than half an hour to several hours. Every evening brings a “brown-out” with the voltage level being much lower than in the morning. We have voltage regulators, surge protectors and uninterruptible power supplies, as well as an emergency gasoline-powered backup generator.

However, one night not long ago, we experienced a surge in voltage that overcame all our protective devices and burned out five lightbulbs, a lightswitch, an electric fan, the power supply and speakers on our desktop computer, and the electronic control panel on our washing machine.

We have had the washing machine for nine years and have never had to have it repaired until now. It's not a Maytag, but rather was built by LG, a South Korean company said to be the world's second-largest manufacturer of televisions and fifth-largest manufacturer of cell phones.

We still need to have some rewiring done in the prechool. Despite the difficulties that we face in maintaining electronic equipment, we realize that it has become indispensable for education here as in the United States. For the preschool we rely on songs and lessons recorded on CD or DVD. Internet access is an important part of Luz Maria's afterschool tutoring. Our desktop computer is equipped with Canaima Linux, a version of the operating system used in Venezuela's public school system.

Plans are in place to build a chapel and additional classrooms. We are grateful to everyone who has supported us with prayer and financial contributions. If you would like to help us continue moving forward, please send donations to:

Venezuela Lutheran Mission Partnership
3089 Leyland Trail
Woodbury, Minnesota 55125-3430