Trip of a Lifetime

I have borrowed this article from http://engagemagazine.com/Magazine-Content/Stories/November-2010/Trip-of-a-Lifetime.html kindly visit Engage magazine for in depth reference. as a follow up of my earlier story on our trip to the RSA enjoy reading it.

By Africa Region on Nov 5, 2010

Cape Town, South Africa -- During a recent ministry tour of South Africa, the Radically Changed worship team -- comprised of 10 Nazarene young people from Kenya -- we saw God's hand at work, from the provision of financial resources that made the trip possible to church services in which young South Africans committed their lives to Jesus Christ.

The Radically Changed worship team first formed in April 2009 to lead praise and worship for the Africa Regional Conference. The five Africa Nazarene University students and five other Nazarene-connected young adults are led by missionary Evie Gardner and David Sanna. After the conference our group felt God leading us to continue in worship ministry as a team. We recently received an invitation to minister in Cape Town, South Africa. Due to the distance and the financial cost, accepting this invitation seemed impossible.

What seemed to be impossible became possible -- everything is possible with God, who provided the financial resources for the ministry trip.

On 14 August, the journey to South Africa began with a flight to the Cape Town airport. Regan Jacobs, the Nazarene Youth International (NYI) coordinator of the Africa South Field, met our team and drove us straight to the youth camp in Stellenbosch.

On arriving at the camp, Radically Changed was warmly welcomed by the happy faces of over 130 youth who had assembled. After dinner, we led an evening worship service. God worked through the full hour of non-stop worship and praise. The speaker ended it well by encouraging the youth never to give up; the devil will always put obstacles in our way, but the Bible says that we never need to be afraid. God will take us through the obstacles the devil puts in our paths.

The night ended when the Radically Changed group gave each young person an NYI beanie that helped in keeping their heads warm throughout the trip.

The next morning, 15 August, the youth worshiped and praised God during a powerful Sunday service. Pastor Donavan’s sermon inspired several youth to recommit their lives to Christ; some accepted Christ for the first time.

“In my whole life I have never come to encounter God and to know Him in a different way," said Koki Benjamin, bass guitarist. "As much as we were ministering, I was specifically ministered to as well…. I was humbled to see people from all sorts of backgrounds truly love the Lord. It was a lifetime experience…”

After eating lunch, it was time to say "goodbye," which was a sad moment, but it was necessary for the youth who attended to go spread the love of God that they saw and experienced in the camp.

Radically Changed went on to minister at Helderkruin primary school and St. Joseph R.C. School, which was a school for physically impaired children.

The team visited Table Mountain to see some of God's amazing creation. It was the first time for everyone in the team to ride up the mountain on a cable car. The ride provided a 360-degree view of the Atlantic Ocean and endless mountains that surround Cape Town city. This scenery left us speechless. The only thing we found ourselves doing was to sing praises to God. Other people who were not in our group joined us in worship.

We took videos and pictures. As my friend Timothy posed for a photo on top of the mountain, the background was filled with ocean, and clouds were below us. The tiny figure of Timothy compared to all that was around him revealed how small man is and how God the creator is big.

As we descended with the cable car down the mountain, it stopped suddenly. The distance to the ground was a place that one could not jump if the worst happened. With the grace of God the cable car was back to operation and we got down safely.

We met a Kenyan man called Peter who works as a taxi driver. It was so good to meet someone from home when we all were so far away from home. We talked deeply and invited him to the church; he promised he would attend.

Radically Changed went on to minister at Bluedown Church of the Nazarene, Bonteheuwel Church of the Nazarene, Michel’s Plain Church of the Nazarene, and to teach and attend workshops.

“My heart is renewed, challenged and even broken," said David Sanna, Radically Changed leader, guitarist and saxophonist. "The churches we visited were amazing. The joy they shared was Christ-like, which made us feel as one body. The special for disadvantaged kids made me realize we should always thank God in all situations. The music and worship was definitely God’s plan."

At Paarl New Orleans Church of the Nazarene, team member Melody realized that she had lost her purse with everything in it. While pastor and our host Regan rushed back to look for it, people were streaming into the church. Soon the room was full and we started singing and praising God. When the pastor came back, it was with the bad news that they did not find Melody’s bag. During the closing prayer, the pastor prayed that the bag would be found, even if it was at the police station. Later we decided to pass a parking lot that we had earlier stopped in. There we found Melody’s bag with everything intact. Praise be to the living God who answered our prayers.

Members of Radically Changed said their lives were changed by the warmth, hospitality and spirit of the people, and by the young people who were radically changed as a result of the ministry. I was personally touched by how much the host family sacrificed their time and resources to take care of our team. It humbled me and prompted me to ask myself the question, "How much do I give rather than receive?"

Being on top of Table Mountain also opened my eyes more to see how big our God is. The worship time we had, which also involved people just passing by, was awesome. Indeed our God is worthy to be worshiped.

“The trip was one of a kind!" said Charles Ouma, student body chairman of Africa Nazarene University. "I got to carry away a piece of every goodness of the people of Cape Town: Their warm welcome, their accommodations, their commitment to God and true worship. I will always treasure the moments I had while in Cape Town.”

Thanks to all the people who allowed God to use them in supporting this team in prayers, financially and in any other way. May God bless you all.

-- Japheth Opondo is a vocalist for Radically Changed and also the NYI coordinator for the Africa East Field.

2012 Faith, Hope and Love

We are almost winding up the year. 2011 has not been the most perfect of all the 24 years I have lived. This year has been mered by uncertainties, what with the hunger that struck our country, the demolition of legally owned houses in Siokimau the external threat from a terrorist group, the death of one of my most favourite uncle among many other things, I have asked my self a lot of questions this year regarding my destiny.

I guess this is the year when I was in the gray area, transitioning from the black to the white. I have experienced the uncertainty of surviving on a minimal salary for a job that requires full time commitment and round the clock work.

Anyway being the positive person I am, I do not intend to let these simple occurrences pull me down. I choose to look at it this way.

2011 is the year the Lord blessed me with a job just to show me the difference between full time job and a part time job. This is the year I got a real taste of living independently without depending on other people except my family of course.

2011 is the year I got an opportunity to work with the most humble staff in the country, working as a care taker for Kushee Towers in Upper Hills Nairobi, I got to enjoy the job and I made some wonderfully humble friends.

2011 is the year I met a group of 55 singers "The Orpheus Choir" from the Olivet Nazarene University, Orpheus were awesome they redefined my knowledge of the American love. Orpheus were a big group but relating to each and everyone of them was the easiest thing ever. I made a great deal of friends from that bunch.

2011 is the year I met a group of young ladies and gentlemen from Mid America Nazarene University who pulled resources to help establish a children center in Bondo Nduswe village. Staying in conditions they were not accustomed to, miles and miles away from there loved ones and doing construction work.

I hope that the year 2012 will not be a transitional year but that it will be the year I leap from the gray area of life onto the white. Speaking of the year 2012 I must mention the elections of our country Kenya. This will be one of the years I will surprise my self  with regards to the person I will vote for. I will look at that ballot paper and I will find one of the names I am not familiar with, that is the name I will vote for regardless of their popularity.

During the elections in 2007 (my very first election), I was persuaded by the question "why are you voting for the angel you do not know?..." most of my friends preferred to vote for the devil they knew. 2012 being my year of hope, I want to surprise my self by doing some of the things I restricted my self from doing, things I did not do just to be accepted by the society.

I am tired of being led by devils, So I will be on a quest to look for angels. I want to be led by angels and if they turn out to be devils then, I will exercise my right to vote after four years. I will be on another quest to look for a good if not perfect angel, until I find an angel I shall not settle for any devil. I shall keep voting for those whom I think of as angels until there shall come those of whom will prove to be angels.

I have already ruled out some of the most popular people for whom I shall not vote and if they be the only people going onto the ballot then I will opt out of voting for that year. Some of my elimination criteria will include anybody who has a case in the court of laws whether local or international, anybody whose development agenda includes the name of the opponent among many others. I have a long list of elimination criteria, because I do not want a disappointing year in 2012. I know that good leadership will provide enough hope to work around regular disappointments.

I thank God for my family, friends and loved ones who have supported me throughout my four years of University education. I thank God for my brother who has always been so generous to ensure that I was (and I still am) hosted in his palace. I praise God for 2011 the highlights of the year I am so sure if I started counting will beat the low-downs of the same year.

That's why I wind up by saying thank you God for the year 2011 and may You bless 2012 for I know that this time there is hope.

Shangilia in Competition

Well what is Shangilia upto? This question seems to get answers every time, the more we split up and find our own interests, the more the zeal to come together is ignited. The urge to do something together is ever present, I have just realized that my life circle of friends is made up mostly of the friends with whom I travelled over 30,000 Miles. For instance in our band, the Radically Changed or RC, as the members like to call it, four of the members are part of the team that travelled to and fro the US over two years ago (justification right there).

The Shangilia bond re-ignited just recently upon the radio announcement of the Reality TV show that would be aired by Kiss Television. The concept was a very unique one, it was meant to bring together choirs from all over Kenya into a live televised competition. All choirs competing for the price of one million Kenyan money, the competition dubbed the kwaya, a unique one in that genre. Our leader and current director heard the announcement over the radio and proposed that we try it out as a choir.

The director made his proposal through the group's page on one of the popular social networking sites and the response was overwhelming. From the response one could easily tell that the group was so eager to sing together again, especially with the enticement of a cash prize attached. Our leader and director thought that we had the potential to bag the cash prize that was to be awarded. Honestly I was a bit sceptical.

The proposal was made to the group a week prior the auditions and the required identification material were not sent till two days before the competition. The whole of the week prior to the competition was used to get members to confirm their participation and to submit their required documentations. The team never got to practice until two days before the auditions, showing how much faith the team had vested in their vocal abilities.

The team met at our leader's place on the night of practice and got to put a lot of effort in the practice session, even learning a new song on the same night for the auditions. At about midnight we ate a late supper which consisted of sloppy jo and pop. The group seemed to enjoy the meal and every body was so happy over the re-union.

We agreed to meet at mid day the following day for further practice and to help those who were not with us catch up with the new song we had learnt. The  meeting place was set to be at the Nairobi Bomb Blast memorial, arrival time was one pm this time members showed up not as late as our earlier re-union. After practice that day we agreed on the type of attire we would adorn for the auditions on Saturday morning. Members unanimously agreed to wear black and white.

On the day of auditions, meeting was prompt and only one of us had a serious hard time making it to the meeting spot; reasons being the closure of major roads due to the Safari 7s game. Without wasting time we proceeded to the auditions venue and we boarded a matatu.


We were twelve in a fourteen seater matatu hence it was easy for us to practice our vocals in the public service vehicle. So upon request the driver switched off his loud blasting music and we proceeded to making music. It did not take more than ten minutes to arrive at the auditions venue. As usual due to the Operation Linda Nchi (war against terror in our country) we were thoroughly frisked just to confirm that malicious intentions, if we carried any, would not make it through to the main event location.

At the main event location we met one of our member who had made her way to the venue earlier and since we were organized, we got through the registration process and were scheduled to be the first to audition at audition spot A. As we waited to be called in for our auditions we practised more and more. Afterwards we were called in for our try outs. We made our way into the audition halls and what happened in there is protected by a contract I signed not to sell any rights about the show in which ever form, which I guess includes writing about it on my blog :(.

I felt gratified after the whole event, I was happy about us meeting, I was happy that Shangilia singers got together and we got to know the detailed whereabouts of the members above all I was awakened to the realization that Shangilia singers are a Family of Friends with ties that can not be broken.

God bless Shangilia singers.

MAY 27 - Leave Nairobi Kenya
MAY 28 - Arrive in New York, Stay at Holiday Inn courtesy of the fly Emirates
MAY 29 - Arrive at cmpgrounds 0700pm, sound check and supper prepare for Northeastern Indiana District Missionary convention.
MAY 30 - Northeastern Indiana District Missionary Convention (8:25 am (15 min)perform high energy music for ten minutes; finish at1200p.m., noon. After noon of swimming& fun at Mary Jane James' sisters' place; Birthday party for Randy's Mom at Southdale Church of the Nazarene. After the party go home with families for the evening.
MAY 31(AM) - Anderson, Indiana Southadale Church of the Nazarene 0930 am 1030 snack time & Sunday School, leave at 0400 pm head back to camp ground for service.
MAY 31 (PM)- Northeastern Indiana District Campmeeting
JUNE 1 - 700AM Drive to Georgia. Will stop at Battlefield Parkway to spend the night at the church of the Nazarene.
JUNE 2 - Arive at Adrian Camp Ground outside Dublin GA. At 0430 p.m. got to Dublin First Church of the Nazarene for evening meal and service at 0700pm for Georgia district missionary convention.
JUNE 3 - Breakfast 0800am at campground; 0900am leave for Gallatin, TN
JUNE 6 - Eduacational Foundation Breakfast 0815 a.m., Nashville, TN Lunch at Travecca Nazarene University. & to recording studio 0600pm. Cook out at Gallatin, Travecca Nazarene University performance here.
JUNE 7 (AM) - Gallatin, Tennessee First church of the Nazarene Be at the Ch
JUNE 7 (PM) -
JUNE 8
JUNE 9 - JUNE 10 - JUNE 11 - JUNE 12 - JUNE 14 (AM) - JUNE 14 (PM) - JUNE 15 - JUNE 17 - JUNE 21 (AM) - JUNE 21 (PM) - JUNE 23 - JUNE 24 - JUNE 25 JUNE 25 - JUNE 27 - JULY 1 - JULY 5 - JULY 5 - JULY 8 -
JULY 9 - Leave MIAMI, Florida fly to New York and back to Kenya

New Year's Perfect Gift!!

Visualising the future :)

2010 was such an awesome year. I got a chance to travel a lot. I went to South Africa, I went to Uganda I celebrated Christmas with my family on the western part of Kenya and I ushered in the new year with good friends. That's about it for 2010.

2011 arrived and with it I felt like there was a whole load of scheduled promises. I hoped for prosperity, I hoped to get a job, I prayed for success but above all I prayed for love.

Indeed it started well and through this letter that I got from a friend of mine, I can certainly say that God knows my future, and I don't have anything to worry about.

here is a preview of the letter! I call it the ideal Christmas gift :)

Hey Charlo,
Strange way to send a message in this day and age but I wanted to just share my heart with you as we celebrate this festive season.

Charlo you are a remarkable person as a friend, colleague and as a leader. Thank you for your tireless, selfless support to me in some of the activities we shared-praise team and the mag project, your willingness to help me has been well noted and highly appreceated.

On a personal note, thank you for being my friend. You are a wonderful friend. One thing I have learnt from you is being focused at the same time friendly. I really admire your courage to step into unfamiliar teritory. You are not afraid of taking on new challanges. Instead you see them as opportunities to better a situation.

Keep it up Charlo. You are going far my brother. Your future is indeed very bright :) As you celebrate during this festive season just know that you are highly appreciated. Thank you friend for everything.

Merry Christmas and a prosperous new year. May the Lord continue to shine favour towards you, increase you and keep you from all evil. God bless.

This was the most awesome gift I ever received for Christmas it was hand written and put inside an envelope ;)

Perceiving the future.

Shangilia ReUnion

22nd October I got to meet with a few friends from our Shangilia choir group. We were seven and everything we did, reminded me of our times in states. We had agreed to meet around one pm at Tuskys Pioneer (a central shopping mall in the city center) but the people who came on time were displeased since every body did not gather until three pm. :(

We had planned for a picnic and a reunion of sorts getting together to catch up with one of our members who is currently working with the Fly Emirates as air hostess.
The picnic plan did not really work out well since every body came to town late. So we decided instead to try out a new restaurant in town called Ankara. We had pizza at Ankara, shared stories and had fun taking photos; later on just like in the US we got to sing in the restaurant except, not at the request of the management but at our own pleasure. That reminded me of our trip to the US some time ago. After the restaurant we went to the Masai market at a pace equal to that which we had always used in the US and we did some shopping, well at least Kevin and the girls did :).

We stayed forever at the market place after which we went to KICC, we had randomly thought about the plan at around six pm. We knew that the place would not be open that late but still we thought "why not try it anyway?" The feeling of liberty was all we were looking for!. We were not able to go to the rooftops but we stayed at the lounge for a while and took loads of photos after which we sang a couple of songs outside the KICC (Kenyatta International Conference Center). We wound up the day by going for shopping at a supermarket and yes Mountain Dew was bought! as tradition of the Shangilia singers dictates. A few other people got water to drink and by the time we were leaving the supermarket, it was seven forty at night so every body split up each person making their own way.

The day was a success allowing us to taste the sweetness of Nairobi city, enjoy our liberty, reunite with Njeri and remember the days of fun we had in the US. May the almighty God keep us and protect us as shangilia singers!!

Kenya Orphan Care Project

The MNU experience is one that is authentically compelling, intellectually demanding and spiritually challenging. From time to time, that experience compels our campus community to respond to the needs of others in a tangible way.

MNU is partnering with Nazarene district superintendent, Peter Okinyo, to reach Siaya, Kenya. Our connection with Rev. Okinyo occurred when an MNU ministry student spent a summer in that region and witnessed the overwhelming need to assist vulnerable children. Many of these children survive day-to-day in Siaya living in precarious situations without basic necessities and protection. Upon returning to Olathe, the student proposed that we, as a university, develop a plan to help meet the needs of these children.



The campus-wide plan of action meets not only the physical needs of safe residential facilities and healthy food, but also includes adult care givers who will foster mentoring relationships and a support network for the children.

The project costs include the acquisition of land, construction of housing, the purchase of a vehicle, and start-up costs for various sustainability initiatives such as a community garden and chicken coop. Rev. Okinyo, along with his wife, Grace, will provide leadership for this project and ongoing oversight. MNU also plans to send students to the site during the summer of 2011 to assist with the implementation of the project.


Every gift makes a significant difference in our efforts to make a transformational impact on children’s lives in East Africa.
Thank you for sharing our vision and for your personal commitment to our Micah 6:8 Passion to Serve Project for 2010-2011.


Interested in giving towards the project?

Visit the Mid America Nazarene University Website

HOPE

It is a real good thing if you find hope, but there is danger which comes when you wake up on hope, eat hope for lunch and then hope to have supper. The headlines in my country has been: the radical increase in food and oil prices. The country keeps going on with hope and people keep hoping that tomorrow will provide as long as they can do their best to survive till the next day, which is kind of positive to some extent.

Yesterday I unfortunately broke my brother's heater and I felt the tension, I was not quite sure whether I was the one who messed it up though but I felt sorry. I wanted to give back something; at least to enhance my apologies but hope is all I could give. I knew I had nothing at all in my pocket and I knew he was hoping I would. The event kind of reminded me when I was young and I would break stuff at home then run cos of fear but any way that's besides the point.

The persistent need in my country reminds me what one of my best friends who visited from the US used to tell me about climate change. That the effects of climate change would be so intense in our country, judging by the fact that there are no measures taken to curb the situation, but everything that there is, is the cause of climate change.

I feel we must be careful even in these hard economic times since people are spending beyond their means. Consumerism is high and there is hyper commercialization, comoditization and all factors being incentives to purchase.

It is not a surprise to find people walking around in designer wear, driving high end consumption vehicles, eating in prestigious restaurants but a at the end of the day having to go back to their small humble aboard. Some live in huge houses and big compounds but are masked with debts all the way.

Globalization has prompted middle income earners in Kenya to live like what they see and spend but the culture of saving has not been commoditized at all; people are slowly finding them selves on the spendthrift but living on hope. Hoping that they will close that business deal, hoping that a brother, sister, friend or relative from abroad will send them something.

Kenya is currently taking hope for breakfast which is not a bad thing, they are slowly beginning to consume hope for lunch which is allowed and on the danger of taking hope as supper, now that is dangerous. It is time I started saving, it is time I realized the intensity of the economic pressure, it is time to be realistic.

Interview with Larry Wall In Africa

Larry Wall originally created Perl while a programmer at Unisys. He now works full time guiding the future development of the language as a researcher and developer at logic micro systems, Inc.. Larry recently gave a speech in Africa Nazarene University concerning programming and ministry. Here is an interview I had with him.

Charles: How do you use Perl programming language as a tool of ministry?
Larry Wall: Well a programming language is not really necessarily spiritual of it’s own, you know I can do some little things in the language like there is a bless operator but of course there is also a kill operator and die and all sorts of bad operators, so a language itself you can not call it a Christian language, but it has more to do with how I think the community should work and the fact that I as a believer can hear what people’s needs are and meet them.
I can sort of be a technological Jesus to them and save them from there problems on a mundane level, when someone sees someone else who is interested in helping other people and they ask them selves why do people want to do this and they ask themselves why does this community work pretty well and why are they tying to each other? Most programming communities are kind of mean and they tend to fight a lot, we are a kind of a kind community so modeling a sort of heavenly community is one way we show a picture of God’s kingdom and beyond that just making people know that the philosophy of the Perl community is based on my theology so when people are looking for somebody who they trust to talk to about theological things then people can talk to me. So it works on so many levels.
You know you can not divide the world into secular and priestly things. God is a God of everything; things that are true are true because God is the truth so it’s not a matter of trying to separate things out as trying to make it all work the same way.
Charles: So in some sense Perl just acts as a bridge to reach a certain culture.
Larry Wall: It is a bridge; it is a picture of a bridge in the same way that we as a church are to be conveying Jesus to the people around us. Perl community is a picture of serving the community around you and bringing them into a relationship. I do not want to make a bigger thing of it than it is. I mean Perl community is a secular community and most people in it are not Christians but it’s one of those places where we are watering seeds and sometimes it blossoms.
Every now and then I get a message from somebody saying “hey am a Christian because of what you said” you know that’s all I can ask for am not a Billy Graham.
Charles: How did you get it started Perl programming language? I know you have talked about it over and over but do you mind just telling our viewers how it started?
Larry Wall: Well sure. I had an itch to scratch, I had a problem to solve but the tools that I was working with were really not up to it. I had written some languages before that, when I was in college. I was also a systems administrator at the Jasper Persons Laboratory and before that at UNYSIS and had a problem that was sort of a text processing problem and I wanted a better text processing language so I came up with one, it was very small at the beginning but it grew over time just as many things that grow to be large start out very small like the parable of the mustard seed, the kingdom of God starts out small and gets big.
So too Perl just started of with a beginning of an idea and as people started using it and wanting it, we started recognizing what the real need was and developed Perl into that need that people had for a text processing language to also do other things.
Charles: I attended your workshop and you talked partly about how Perl works but to a layman how does Perl exactly work? To somebody who does not understand programming languages how does it work?
Larry Wall: Well if you are not familiar with programming language, in normal terms it’s like following a recipe or writing a recipe you want to cook up a meal and you know how to do it but somebody doesn’t, so you say here is what you need to start off with; the materials, the bowls you need and what to do, do this several times and then put it in the oven and cook it.
It’s just really…, programming is the same sort of thing you know: it’s just that the person cooking up whatever it is just happens to be a computer and computers are very kind of stupid. The problem with computers is that they kind of tend to do exactly what you tell them so you have to be very clear in your own mind to tell the computer step by step what to do and Perl is a particular kind of cooking – if you will – like there are different kinds of cuisine where you might bake bread and cook a roast or make noodles, you know different genres of cooking.
Perl as a programming language is kind of like cooking text files, my text files need just a language or files of text that your computer might spit out that are logging information and the events that happen, people who log on to the computer or anything that is happening periodically, produces this log and you might want to just scan through that and do something with it that’s the sort of thing that Perl was initially written to do and it’s still at it’s heart a text processing language it likes words and sentences and lines of text and makes it very easy to deal with that type of food. There is a book called “Perl cookbook” written by a friend of mine and it has recipes on how to do different things.
Charles: What exactly earns your living? Given that Perl is open source software, how do you make profit?
Larry Wall: If you wanted to write free software - open source software – you can not sell it. There is various ways you can make money: in my case, I wrote a book about it and I get a few royalties, sometimes a company will pay you back in terms of stock offers or something like that just because they appreciate what you have done.
Mostly there are other business models, you can offer to support people so you can have support contracts or you can sell things that are associated with other people: sell T-shirts and goodies of various sorts that are associated with various open source projects.
Mostly though; people make a living by just persuading a company to higher them to do open source software and I actually do this mostly myself, I work for a very nice company called net logic Micro-systems and mostly they pay me to work on Perl and that’s because they use Perl a lot and so it helps them. I can tell them how to program Perl better and when they have ideas, I can feed that back to the program in ways that will help them so that it is a two way street, in biological terms symbiosis and so it’s often in the companies’ best interest to have some experts in community software if you can learn one of them as well enough to an expert then that company will be interested in hiring you just to take cart of that relationship.
Charles: So it’s just like you said you create a beneficial relationship kind of like a win – win situation between you and the company.
Larry Wall: Yes and it’s actually very difficult for a company to give money to a project, it is difficult for a company to give money to a project, it is difficult to set that up, it’s very easy for a company to higher somebody to work on a project so that’s what usually happens.
Charles: Is that all that you do? Do you have other programming languages coming up? Or is Perl your sole baby?
Larry Wall: Perl is my big baby, it’s probably my life work and have done other things, other programming that I have given away some of them somewhat successful but you know there are two kinds of writers, there are those people who write this story and put it away, they write that story and put it away Like Christie, every story is a different story and in a different setting, maybe she has done some character story and that’s very negligible. Then there are writers that are more like token where everything they know ends up going to the same story more or less.
I am more like that so instead of making more new projects out there, I tend to find ways of attaching it to what I already know.
Charles: To build it up right.
Larry Wall: Yeah to build it up and make it an aspect of Perl. But, that being said, I am interested in too many things, so you know, I play in the worship band of my church, I play drums and I do not know how am going to hook that up to programming but one of the ways that I hook a lot of things is that I give talks at the open source conference every year and I usually talk about Perl and something else: so I have had to talk about Perl and Chemistry, Perl and music, Perl and games, Perl and this and that and other things, so often if you can’t figure out a way of writing a paper or something, pick something random and then just look at the relationship of that to what you have and that’s a very interesting way of coming up with ideas at least it works for me.
Charles: What is one of the greatest comments that you have received in regards to your fame?
Larry Wall: Well every now and then somebody in a surprising location will give a comment. We went to a movie once at Cupertino and the guy selling the tickets says “you are Larry Wall!!! Sometimes people ask for autographs and photos and am quite happy to do that because it’s meaningful to them and it’s not a problem to me I think the time that made me happiest didn’t actually happen to me, it happened to my mother and she got the “You are Larry Wall’s mother!!!” you know when that happens to your mother she is really proud of you so am glad that it happened to her.
To me it’s not a big thing, fame is just another thing that happens when you look back into your life and see that it’s been God that has been putting you in that position you can not take credit yourself.
I mean God made me somewhat competent in some things but am more happy that am doing what God wants whether or not it makes me famous and I will use fame as one more tool to try and do things that I think need doing but it is certainly not a thing to celebrate for it’s own good, its just there.
Charles: What are some of the benefits that people have gained as a result of using Perl as a programming language?
Larry Wall: Well it is said that every computer language teaches you to think differently and so at that level it has taught people differently.
I think that the sort of comment that I appreciate most is when they say, I used to hate programming and then I started using Perl and now I love programming and now I love programming again some of that is because it is just fun and some of it because the language it’s self makes it easy to do certain kinds of things that sort of on a psychological level that it is a benefit.
On a financial benefit, many people actually do make their livings programming Perl for whatever company they are working for, a lot of people web designers use Perl this days still and there is a lot of people to whom it’s just sort of a hobby, if they want to do some wholesome animation, turn on the lights around the house or something like that they just write a little Perl script or if they want to write some games they might use Perl or they might use some other language but I think just the fact that it makes some things easy that no other language makes easy is what makes people like Perl
Charles: Do you have any last comment to young programmers out there? Something you would like to tell?
Larry Wall: If you spend a lot of time studying how to do various things but you really learn it well, find something that you are interested in and make a project of it.
Also continue growing in finding things that are interesting maybe you might grow old in doing that but just keep finding something that’s interesting in the real world that can be solved with programming and you will become a programmer.

Open letter: To Julia Gillard, re Julian Assange

Jeff Sparrow and Elizabeth O'shea
ABC

Well here is an article from the ABC broadcast that shows how much more of the elite and the open minded folks are coming out in numbers to support Julian Assange The editor of the famous website Wikileaks. I think the word wikileaks should be officially incorporated into the english dictionary too.

The authors write: We wrote the letter below because we believe that Julian Assange is entitled to all the protections enshrined in the rule of law – and that the Australian Government has an obligation to ensure he receives them.

The signatures here have been collected in the course of a day-and-a-half, primarily from people in publishing, law and politics. The signatories hold divergent views about WikiLeaks and its operations. But they are united in a determination to see Mr Assange treated fairly.

We know that many others would have liked to sign. But given the urgency of the situation, we though it expedient to publish now rather than collect more names.

If, however, you agree with the sentiments expressed, we encourage you to leave your name in the comments section.

Dear Prime Minister,

We note with concern the increasingly violent rhetoric directed towards Julian Assange of WikiLeaks.

“We should treat Mr Assange the same way as other high-value terrorist targets: Kill him,” writes conservative columnist Jeffrey T Kuhner in the Washington Times.

William Kristol, former chief of staff to vice president Dan Quayle, asks, “Why can’t we use our various assets to harass, snatch or neutralize Julian Assange and his collaborators, wherever they are?”

“Why isn’t Julian Assange dead?” writes the prominent US pundit Jonah Goldberg.

“The CIA should have already killed Julian Assange,” says John Hawkins on the Right Wing News site.

Sarah Palin, a likely presidential candidate, compares Assange to an Al Qaeda leader; Rick Santorum, former Pennsylvania senator and potential presidential contender, accuses Assange of “terrorism”.

And so on and so forth.

Such calls cannot be dismissed as bluster. Over the last decade, we have seen the normalisation of extrajudicial measures once unthinkable, from ‘extraordinary rendition’ (kidnapping) to ‘enhanced interrogation’ (torture).

In that context, we now have grave concerns for Mr Assange’s wellbeing.

Irrespective of the political controversies surrounding WikiLeaks, Mr Assange remains entitled to conduct his affairs in safety, and to receive procedural fairness in any legal proceedings against him.



As is well known, Mr Assange is an Australian citizen.

We therefore call upon you to condemn, on behalf of the Australian Government, calls for physical harm to be inflicted upon Mr Assange, and to state publicly that you will ensure Mr Assange receives the rights and protections to which he is entitled, irrespective of whether the unlawful threats against him come from individuals or states.

We urge you to confirm publicly Australia’s commitment to freedom of political communication; to refrain from cancelling Mr Assange's passport, in the absence of clear proof that such a step is warranted; to provide assistance and advocacy to Mr Assange; and do everything in your power to ensure that any legal proceedings taken against him comply fully with the principles of law and procedural fairness.