Updating Websites and Reminiscing

Websites

Whew! What a day it’s been today! Just a few days before the year 2012 ended, I was busy moving my blog from the more complicated content management system (CMS) called Joomla! to WordPress which is I feel easier to work with and more appropriate for my blog — since it’s just a blog. This blog site is now in WordPress platform. I think that I’ll move some more of my other websites to WordPress soon.

Maintaining and Updating Websites

For today and yesterday, I was busy trying to update our national church’s website since its contents has really been outdated for some years. It’s not finished yet but it sure does take a lot of work. It’s in Joomla! CMS.

A few days earlier, some church friends have begun to take interest in translating some of our English articles into the various local dialects. That is why I have begun updating our GCI Philippines website — getting it ready. Besides, it’s a new year and a time to update the website.

It was interesting for me to look back and to “discover” back again my previous work of some 7 years in that site! It was the first website I created using FrontPage. For a good number of years, I was sending weekly updates through email worldwide to our church membership. Back then, sometime in 2001, I started an e-mail newsletter just for the fun I get out of doing it not knowing it will become a “web ministry” for years to come where the Lord has placed me. I was brought back down into memory lane when I “found” the page again at this link!

And I’m back doing the same thing again since 2010. I stopped for a while in 2009. Thank you Lord for allowing me participate in this way through creating and maintaining websites. What a day!

Just Before New Year

An Hour Before New Year

Just before New Year 2013

Last night, the last day of the year 2012, just less than an hour before the new year, we had a chance to talk to our daughter working abroad. We missed Christmas this year with her. But thanks to modern technology we can get in touch with our loved ones anytime no matter how far they may be. What a great difference the way it was during my younger days.

During the Seventies

Back then, during my college days in Manila, I had to write a letter then go to the post office to send it to my parents in Mindanao. We had no phones, no TV, no laptops, no ATM cards—just plain and simple student life without much of the conveniences taken for granted by many young ones today.

When I needed tuition money and allowance I had to send a telegram and wait for my parents’ response. And then after 3 days you go and check the bank if the tuition money has already arrived through telegraphic transfer. You go back to the bank the following day if it has not yet arrived and hope again. What a big difference it is nowadays. For a teenage freshman from the province who has newly arrived in the big city, it was always kind of lonely for many months without hearing from loved ones so far away. But those were the days.

I’m just glad communication is easy nowadays. We can talk and even see our loved ones each and everyday if we want to even if they’re so far away. I salute all the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who are sacrificing their lives to support their families at home.

Welcome to the new year! Happy new year everyone and to all OFWs out there!