God's Technological Blessings (and the humans that provide them)

A little background first. A few years ago, we bought a top of the line HP computer from Sams Club. It was a good computer, but about two years in, it just died. Myself and a band of computer geeks couldn't put "humpty" back together again. So, we used an older laptop that we had sitting around. Again, it's a reliable computer, but it's old and slow. Also, it only had an 80 GB hard-drive, which doesn't last long in this age of 12+ megapixel photos and MP3's. When we were in California in May 2009, Joi's Dad offered us an old office computer that he didn't need anymore. We were blessed. It worked great, but it was showing it's age and had lots of software and user info on it from previous users that we could not delete due to not knowing the admin password. We started to make plans to revamp the computer. We were going to buy a larger hard-drive (since we had already reached max capacity due to 11 years of digital photos), some faster RAM, and a few other components to soup it up. My Brother-in-law found a copy of Windows XP that we could use and we planned to rebuild the entire box. So, we started saving for the new hardware. But then....

Russell and Steffanne showed up at our house on Sunday with a brand new HP Pavillion Desktop. They said that they want our old computer for a networking project that Russell wants to do with his sons. As a result, they decided to buy us a new computer. I was flabbergasted, speechless, confused, and completely blessed beyond belief. I couldn't believe it. It's a brand new, in the box, HP Pavillion computer with a 2.70 GHz processor, a 500 GB hard-drive, 3 GB's of RAM, an 18.5" widescreen monitor, a DVD burner, 15 in 1 card reader, etc. I could go on and on with all of the bells and whistles. I couldn't believe it! What a blessing! God provides.

For the past few months, our digital camera cards were quickly filling up and we had nowhere to download the photos since our old computer was full. For the past few months, while Joi wrote her book, finished it, and started her second book, I worried that our old computer would die and she would lose all of her work. We backed it up on an external hard-drive and a USB thumb-drive, but it's difficult to back up those files on a regular basis. Plus, I worried that if the computer died, she wouldn't have anywhere to work on her books. Now, we don't have to worry about any of that. I would like to express a huge and heartfelt "Thank You" to Russell and Steffanne for their kindness and generosity. It took us completely by surprise. It still hasn't completely settled in that we have a new computer. But, we are so excited and blessed! I can't even begin to express how thankful we are. Thanks! Thanks! Thanks! I can hardly wait to move my data to the new computer, begin customizing it, and loading our software. It's like Christmas!