I'm incredibly thankful for the online Apple support guys, who help you try to resolve issues at a distance. First in Colombia and now here in Spain, I must have spent four hours "chatting" with these people and trying out the solutions they suggested. The attempted remedies grew increasingly radical, culminating in a process that involved completely erasing the hard drive of my computer, and then restoring the data from an external backup drive. (I had a backup from March 4th, before my overseas trip.) Despite the hours that this took, it doesn't seem to have solved the problem, however. The only remaining possibility is for me to take my computer even further back in time - reverting it to where things were at the beginning of this year, before I upgraded its operating system. If this procedure causes things to work normally again, we'll have established that the issues were due to some sort of compatibility problem between the new operating system and the old software. If it doesn't solve the problem, it'll indicate that the problem is probably due to the computer's age and that the hard drive is simply beginning to deteriorate.
Either way, it looks like this year is the time for me to buy a new computer. I had to smile when the technician told me that there was no point taking the computer into the repair shop because they can no longer get the parts or do the repairs needed on "vintage" computers. He sent me a link to a web-page that explained that a "vintage" computer is one that hasn't been in production for more than five years, and an "obsolete" computer is one that hasn't been made for more than seven years. At nearly six years old, my laptop is definitely vintage and well on its way to becoming obsolete. It has served me well.
My main concern, as mentioned in a recent prayer update is being able to rescue the hundreds of documents (teaching notes and other ministry-related documents and resources) that have been created over the past ten years in an older version of the software that will no longer open up on a newer computer model. Turns out that there's a group of "application experts" that I can call on the phone, and who might be able to help me with ways of migrating and updating these old documents into a newer format for a newer computer. The prospect of a long and complicated Spanish phone call to achieve this was not very inviting in this busy week before the coaching workshop begins, and so I have put that course of action on hold for now. I'll have to do it at the beginning of April, and see what resources I can rescue before the leadership development course begins.
A last resort possibility is that my mother, in Scotland, also has a "vintage" computer, or probably it's already an "obsolete" model - an eight year old desktop computer. If hers continues to work well, it gives me one final way of opening and rescuing documents the next time I am in Scotland.
In my prayer update last week, I said that I was dreaming of a "temporary resurrection" that might help me to rescue at least the most urgent of the documents that I need for this week and next. Well, there must have been some powerful intercessors in action, because that temporary resurrection happened last night. I've discovered that by opening a certain kind of document, I can sometime "force" the software to open again, and this allows me to work on the unfinished pages I've been preparing for various workshops and outreaches. I don't know how long this reprieve will last, so I'm working hard today to convert the most urgent documents into a format that I can read on a different computer when the time comes.
If my temporary window of grace expires, my next step this week will be to do the manual backup of files, and then once again erase my whole computer, restoring it this time with a backup from January.
This complicated, seemingly time-wasting and sometimes stressful saga has made me very aware of how much we depend on our technology for ministry and communication nowadays. Even missionaries whose work involves translating the Bible into the language of a remote tribal people group are also dependent today on having the computers and software that help them achieve scripture translations so much faster than in previous generations.
I'm thankful to the Lord for how well this computer has served me, and for the fact that He has already provided the money for me to buy its replacement. I'm thankful to those of you who partner in prayer with me, and can rejoice with me at this "temporary resurrection." And I'm thankful that I have the privilege of being able to use modern technology in the work of sharing the gospel, discipling believers, developing leaders and mobilising for missions.
