The need for speed

International | Homespun computer network keeps missionaries in touch | Mindy Belz

in Green Bay, Wis. - Missionaries rely on the perennial array of homegrown innovations to get their job done where they are called, which usually happen to be places that have not met the late 20th century. At a recent exhibition in Green Bay, Wisc., put on by JAARS, the aviation support arm of Wycliffe Bible Translators, one volunteer rep demonstrated a hand-cranked cassette player. Another showed how a windshield wiper motor converted into a makeshift generator could be capable of neutralizing snake-bite toxins with its low-current, high-voltage charge.

While onlookers gawked at the gizmos or took a turn at cranking out baroque scores like so much homemade ice cream, a nearby computer station sat thoroughly alone. Part of a demonstration set up by a local mission network service, it proved so everyday for most people as to be overlooked. Smack dab in the middle of the computer age, technology-literate youngsters and oldsters are more apt to be fascinated with quainter gadgets.