I love the weekends when I can Skype and see my family - especially my niece Bella, and watch her change and grow, even though I am approximately 5569 miles away from them...
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| Sunday morning Skype with Mum, Imogen and Bella! :0) |
So often the internet has a bad wrap - and yes it does get abused and mis-used....but I really want to focus on a positive. Being a missionary and living away from friends, family is hard, and you want to see them sometimes (and sometimes you want to see them a lot!!), but flying half-way across the world is generally not that practical! I am so glad that I have the internet, that I can send instant communication to friends and family all over the world. That I can see them too. I love Skype and the fact that I can ring my Granny who doesn't have the internet - but I can ring her house phone! It is just awesome!
Reflecting on all of this really made me think about missionaries in the past, and that their only way of communicating was through post - you have weeks of delays to hear news/see pictures. That would be so hard for me. Don't get me wrong, I love receiving/sending post....but email, Skyping, blogging is just awesome, so convenient. I love how people can really feel part of what I am doing here as they get weekly updates and can see pictures too. I can contact all my supporters at once too, and it doesn't cost me tons of money in postage and paper! I can talk to my family for an hour and it's FREE!
So this post is a 'YAY' to the internet and the joys of email, blogging and Skype - thank you for connecting me so easily to my friends, supporters and family...
So true!!! The missionaries I spent some time with in Peru are in their 80s and they started out in the jungle there and their ONLY mode of communication was mail that arrived on a boat...can't remember how often but not very. She told a story of how the locals would make fun of them because they saw HOW EXCITED they got when the boat arrived. Young boys would mimic the sound of the whistle of the boat outside of their window just to watch them run out the door looking! Great story but I'm glad it's not you! :)
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