Over the past year or two, I've intermittently talked with a close friend of mine who is a missionary with his wife in Hungary about the possibility of going to Budapest to do website development for their missionary base. A couple weeks ago I was put in contact with the lady who is in charge of the communications for the Youth With A Mission Central European office. Apparently, YWAM CE would like to do a communications/media/tech workshop there eventually. I was very excited to hear about this as it would fit in so well with our previous ideas. But during our conversation I was told about a global YWAM communication conference happening in Uganda. This would give me the over-arching vision to help me understand the situation of YWAM communications.
Just over two weeks later, I've decided go. Two weeks from now, I will leave!
So what is this all about? Let me explain a bit more about the conference.
The conference is called
CRIT - Communication, Research, Information, and Technology. It was initiated five years ago in an effort to repair and invigorate YWAM's failing communication, both internally base to base and externally to the rest of the world. Through this YWAM's relational ties between bases, churches, and "outside" people and organizations will become stronger. On the website it is called a "consultation" not conference because of its interactivity between attendees. I gather it is a time to strategize various facets of communication for the organization.
Though I work with YWAM often, I do not consider myself a member of the organization. I am not a "YWAMer" (that is not to say I have something against that, the organization and people in it are fantastic. It's just not who I am). So why am I going? I have been asked to come to CRIT as someone who is outside the bubble and active in the industry. Because of the format of the conference, there will be many opportunities to share amongst members. I am hoping my expertise in web development will be useful and helpful to YWAM. So I consider this a business trip (would not have ever expected say, "I'm going to Uganda on business" before now). I am one of the "outside professionals" joining their team to brainstorm, advise, and encourage.
The reason I moved back from New Zealand was so I could begin to focus more on using my job skills to help develop and train Christian mission organizations and non-profit organizations in website development and technology. CRIT is the perfect opportunity to step into that - the contacts I will make and the viewpoint it will give me I expect to be very valuable for the future. From here, and with other options coming into view, who knows where this will take me, but I am very excited about pursuing what I believe to be my calling in life!