Orlando group helps computerize missions

               Photo by Michael Wacht 

By Michael Wacht

ORLANDO — With an average of about 20 volunteers at any one time and a suite of rooms in a building owned by First United Methodist Church here, the Missionary Computer Fellowship has supplied more than 10,000 new and refurbished computers to missionaries and ministries throughout the world.

The group will be closed throughout July to fill commitments they’ve already made to ministries in Nigeria, Peru and Puerto Rico, according to Walter Trippe, the fellowship’s director.

Tim Sanders, a member of Sandy Hook United Methodist Church in Columbus, Ind., is taking 12 computers with him to Costa Rica to help adults there get jobs and get street kids “interested in tech stuff and…off the streets.”

Sanders is a missionary with Latin America Mission out of Miami Springs, Fla. The computers he is receiving from the Missionary Computer Fellowship have early generation Pentium processors, so they are slow by today’s standards, and have no CD drive.

“I don’t need the CD-ROM drive for training,” he said. “I’m also getting network cards, which I’ll install. That will make the computers a complete solution to teach basic word processing and spreadsheets.”

Since the systems do not include the CD drives, which are in high demand, Sanders is getting the computers free. “We were looking at hundreds or thousands of dollars to purchase this kind of equipment,” he said. “Now we can use those funds for other programs in the mission…lunches for kids or put it toward a home for children from bad home situations.”

The Fellowship normally charges $175 for a Pentium machine loaded with the Microsoft Windows 95 operating system and Microsoft Office suite of programs, which includes word processor and spreadsheet applications, according to Trippe.

“We sell the computers for two reasons,” he said. “The first is to cover our expenses, though we don’t have very many expenses. The second is to control our workload. If word got out that we were giving away Pentium computers, we wouldn’t be able to keep up. We’re almost always drowning anyway.”

The 12-year-old Missionary Computer Fellowship was the idea of George Wilson, a member of First Presbyterian Church here. Wilson traveled to Ecuador to work with a missionary radio station and saw computers being used in ministry there. “He came back with the idea that missionaries would need computers,” Trippe said.

Wilson, who worked for Martin Marietta, a defense and aerospace company, asked some of his co-workers to help him start the ministry, according to Trippe. The group started working with New Tribe Missions in Sanford, Fla., to build battery-powered desktop computers. As laptop computers became more widely available, the ministry changed its focus to rebuilding used computers.

The Fellowship’s office now houses hundreds of rebuilt computers, repaired monitors and printers, a software library and a training center.

As word of their ministry spread, Trippe said local companies and individuals started donating their used computers. “A few years back, we were happy to get XTs,” he said. “Now the lowest level of used computers we do anything with is a 486, but we’ll take anything people give.”

While the volunteers have to worry about whether different computer parts are compatible with each other, Trippe says he doesn’t have to worry about the ministry’s compatibility with its various church partners. “We’re a ministry of First Presbyterian Church, which handles our finances for us,” Trippe said. “We’re located in a building owned by First United Methodist Church and I’m Baptist. Everything has seemed to be compatible.”

For more information on the Missionary Computer Fellowship or to donate or request computer equipment, contact Trippe at 407-422-9265 or trippe-wd@juno.com.

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