October 26, 2005
I Feel Like A Webmaster
...or as Bob Seger would put it: "I feel like a numba..."
Yesterday ended with a wonderful bang. I Like Waffles. By God's grace (and the careful website structure and templates left by D. Allen; and the easy to navigate structure of kingcart.com), we were able to upgrade our webstore to be a credit card merchant fulfillment place. What that means is our checkout process is a lot more user friendly and open to more options (like Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express, and Paypal... when it used to just be paypal, which not everyone uses). There was so much room for error and I really didn't want to crash our store and have us down for days for repairs. I'm so thankful and happy that it's worked out. It really stretched me to tackle it and it feels so good to be on the other side.
I'm looking forward to "being on the other side" of our office move. We (Charlotta, Sam, the kids and I) went to spy out some potential land yesterday. Here are some photos.
Luke 15 tells some wonderful parables about the kingdom of God and underline how much God values and cares for us. The "Prodigal Son" story is one of my favorites (probably because I was a "Prodigal Son" myself). It's always interesting to try and dissect a parable like that, because when someone makes up a story, they usually have a reason for every detail of that story. When you create something out of nothing, each detail is chosen or not chosen according to the whim of the storyteller.
I love how the prodigal son made up an excuse (a line) or a speech to give his father, about not being worthy to be called his son... When he started giving that speech to his dad, his dad interrupted him and called for the best robe, a ring, sandals, and a fattened calf... The robe seems to speak of identity and covered any shame that his failure might've brought him. The ring was probably like a signet ring, which could be used in town or wherever to buy goods on credit. It was like the father was giving him a family credit card "until he got back on his feet." The sandals are something, apparently, that slaves did not own. He probably returned without shoes, so this was an identity thing as well as a practical thing. And killing the fattened calf was for a big party to celebrate. That is so cool.
Posted by Doug Van Pelt at October 26, 2005 09:25 AMso are you planning on building a new office?
peace... love... bdg...
Posted by: brent at October 26, 2005 03:21 PMYou know those manufactured homes that you can buy? The HM office is one of those. It's a 5-bedroom home that is a great "house" for our office space (especially when we used to have five employees and 6 interns during that summer of 2002). Anyway, it seemed like a good solution to our office needs back in 2001, but little did we know that the land we rent that it sits on would be sold out from under us. So...no, we are not building a new office for HM...just moving the old one!
:?)