[thumb:134:l] Yesterday was a big step forward on the major project that I’m working on. I’m working on a team that is trying to build an Information System for the Campus Ministry in Eastern Europe & Russia. We want to provide a web-based tool that will allow staff to keep track of the things relevant to their ministry as well as to help them make decisions about which ministry activities to engage in. It will also provide data to leadership at the national, area, and global levels to understand what is going on in these ministries.

Needless to say, this is a huge undertaking. Our first step is to talk to our field staff and better understand what they do, how they think about it, and how they make decisions. To do this, we are conducting focus groups in Hungary, Ukraine, & Romania to help us.

Yesterday, was the first one, and it went very well. We didn’t cover as much as we would have liked, but that is part of the learning process in the first one. We had about 7-8 people from our Hungarian team participate. The time was moderated by our new team member, Scott Friderich, who is a researcher and missionary here in Budapest. He has been a great addition to our team.

I go out of the picture in a few weeks because of my surgery, but I know Scott, Jerry & Scott Neel will carry on in my absence!!