Update from the Front

Thanks for continuing to pray for Jon, Joshua and me. We got through Thanksgiving and now have Joshua's birthday and Christmas to "look forward to." Here's the latest from Jon.

Hey, Y’all:

First, I’d like to thank you, from the depths of my heart, for the prayer, support and encouragement that has been showered upon me. There were still times in the last week where I felt like ‘giving up,’ though of course that is not really an option. I’ve been told that at this stage of a year long deployment, there is no real surmounting depression, only coping with it. Through this last month in particular, your support and encouragement through prayers, cards, packages, and being a Community to Sheryl and Joshua have really made a difference. Here’s an update on things over here (from a personal perspective):

There are three separate data bases I maintain, this effort constitutes about a third of my job. There is a web-based product I maintain, this constitutes about 25% of my job. About 30% of my job is tracking documents, categorizing files and sorting products. Back-up of these files is problematic due to the security of the information, and though I had taken some steps to address this issue, I had not implemented a plan for Continuity of Operations (CoOP). Early last week, my primary hard drive (on which the majority of my work is accomplished) self initiated a reformat. Thanks to your prayers and the intervention of some technical experts here, the three data bases were recovered intact. Additionally, the majority of the documents were recovered as well. Of course, the web based product was not affected. The only challenge is that the file structure was destroyed in the reformat, leaving literally tens of thousands of non-attributed documents. This will keep me from becoming bored during the remainder of my deployment; I’ve also taken steps to insure a viable CoOP plan is instituted (so hopefully, this will never be a problem in the future). Additionally, there was a related issue that could have cast doubt on my integrity—though investigation of technical data would have immediately cleared me, the nature of the issue was potentially damaging—but the issue was dismissed by leadership. In all of this, I have been aware of God’s presence and His hand of protection and provision, and the sustaining power of your prayers.

It’s pretty cool being a ‘two digit midget’ (less than 100 days left to my deployment, and getting ‘shorter’ and ‘shorter’ every day). Oorah. Jarhedjon.