Taviano Design isn’t really a business. 100% of my clients at this moment are all ministry-related. Each of them has something to do with spreading the Word of God to the rest of the world. There are quite a few ministries out there, but after doing a little research, I can’t really find any that are venturing where I am this year. That’s not said to boost my ego at all……..without God’s help this wouldn’t even last that’s for sure. It’s only noted to inform you that this is not business as usual. I was reminded of this today while I sent my business cards into www.overnightprints.com to be printed. I’ve never had business cards or any other marketing material while working on my own. I’ve had quite a few from jobs that I’ve had, but these will definitely be the most fun to pass out!

Marla and the girls left this morning to visit a fellow-teacher from back when we lived in Indiana, as well as one of her previous student’s (girl died this year) family. It should be great for Marla to reach out to those people, but I am guessing it will be hard to talk with the parent about her girl.

My new digital camera arrived in the mail this morning – http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=9/19/131/1336&pq-locale=en_US – so it’s been fun opening that up and seeing what it’s like. My Mom and Grandma are both stopping by and we’re going out for supper tonight so that should shed some light on the evening. It’s good to get some quiet time every now and then I guess. Odds are the quiet time will be filled with video games played in surround sound and absolute quietness in evening devotions…….what a contrast.

When I was growing up I remember missionaries always coming to our church, speaking on how they have gone overseas and encountered a different culture with the gospel. I never really wanted to assume their role, but fail to realize that I actually am one of them now. We might not be in Bangladesh, China, South Africa, or any other distant land, but we do have a group of people (and one church) that financially (also with prayer and encouragement) support us to be doing what we’re doing here in Ohio (web / graphic design for churches and ministries). I now better understand why those missionaries always had such interesting stories. We’ve been through quite a few bumps along the way, but God has shown us that He cares for us so much through the process. He’s recently used our group of supporters to encourage in ways you wouldn’t believe. I’ve definitely learned that you don’t have to get on a boat and go across the ocean to let God use you to reach the lost. Maybe He has a new way He wants to use you wherever you are at, or maybe in some far-away land?

Yesterday I received this month’s WIRED magazine. One of the larger articles was about the blog industry. The internet is full of people’s online notes about their opinion of life, their favorites, reviews of products, and any other off-the-wall thought you can think of. I knew there were a lot of people out there spending a few worthless minutes a day writing these things, but had never realized how much value this world gives to some of them. I could really care less who reads this blog, but some people don’t have that mindset.

There are groups of individuals who have even formed small companies (sort of like a magazine or newspaper) to deliver a certain style of online content to the universe. People are no different. Whether you are reading from their words on paper, online, or talking to them face to face. God wants to reach them in some way. What we say in trying to build our own world does not matter a bit. This is God’s world, and no matter how many blogs get written, only His word is enough to judge others by.

For two weeks I have actually been without a computer, so I’m starting to blog to get back into the swing of things! The hard drive on my laptop went bad so I sent it to Florida for data recovery. The guys at DTI Data were able to pull the information off of the drive and send it back on my external drive. Although it was pretty expensive, they were the best deal I could find and were able to recover every file for me.

Without the information I would have lost all of the websites I have created (unable to update them unless I re-created them) and 1,000′s of digital pictures of our family from the last 8-9 months. I couldn’t avoid the drive crashing, but I definitely could have backed all of that data up before hand (wouldn’t have had to pay to get it back). Life goes on I guess.

It’s amazing to go through something like this and realize that God will get you through it no matter what. Without that understanding I would have easily been angered or depressed about it all. Exciting things will be happening in the near future so stay tuned!