What good datatechs do

Many of you are likely wondering "what is a datatech?" Simply put, the datatech is the person who runs the computer in church so everything that is supposed to show up on the monitors/projectors does at the right time in the right way and nothing that isn't supposed to appear does. I volunteered run the datatech position at my church once every few weeks. The great thing about this (as opposed to worship team) is you don't have to show up for the mid-week practice. You do still have to show up two hours early on Sunday though.  Thus, here I am, at church, with a computer... so what do I do in the spare time?  Blog!  [how's that for a long explanation of why I'm blogging Sunday morning?]

We got some real snow here recently... only about 3 inches... but man is it frigid out there! Last night it reached -30 celcius... whatever that is in fahrenheit. I realized awhile back that, while I'm more comfortable in F with the higher temperatures, I really only know Celcius for the low temperatures. I'm kinda hoping this cold spell doesn't last too long. It's far too early in the year to be stuck with cold weather.  =)

[Sidenote: this week's worship team is mostly highschool kids... and man are they fun to watch. The sound guy who works next to me is fussing about how stiff they are; but they're quite good for being in highschool.]

I feel like there's not been much noteworthy stuff going on. Last night Timo hosted a nacho/nacho party. We made nachos and watched Nacho Libre. As stupid as the movie is, I was doubled over laughing quite a bit.

Oh, here's an interesting thing I've been studying lately. In my current topics in missions class we were studying modern day slavery this week. Here's some crazy things I learned:
-- There are over 27 million people slaves in the world today (this doesn't include sweatshop workers or minimally paid employees)
-- The average cost to buy a slave is $47
-- The slave trade grosses 42 billion a year. If you think that's a lot, realize it's only 1/10 of what Walmart grossed last year. http://www.doughroller.net/personal-finance/10-largest-companies-in-the-world/.  If you're still concerned about losing that free labor, consider the possibilities if all 27,000,000 enslaved people were gainfully employed and had the money to buy from other businesses.
-- The average cost to sustainably free a slave is $400
--------> This includes buying them, counselling/therapy, and training so they can support themselves.
-- To free all the slaves in the world would take an estimated 11 billion dollars. That means that if half the people in the world gave $4, all the slaves could be freed.
Now, does the fact that slavery still exists today seem like a stupid thing? Consider some of the things you buy that are likely made/harvested by slaves:
-- chocolate
-- coffee
-- cotton t-shirts
-- electronics (certain metals that make electronics function are mined by slaves in Africa)

If you're still interested, take a look at this website: http://slaveryfootprint.org/. The state department put it together to help raise awareness of all the ways in which people support slavery. How many slaves are working for you?

Well, that's all for now. Leave a comment if you feel like it, letting me know how you're doing and what's going on in your life.  =)