October 2003

Mindekirken's Technology.
By Magne A. Hatlevik

A couple of months ago I wrote a story about Mindekirken's web site that you can find at www.mindekirken.org. In that story I outlined the importance for Mindekirken in having a website at all. Proof of that showed up at Mindekirken on a Sunday not too long ago. A couple from Kansas came to the Norwegian service. They were visiting the Twin Cities and in searching for things to do while here they had submitted a search on the travel website www.travelosity.com and there they found a link to Mindekirken.

A link that brought a couple from Kansas to Mindekirken, represents a level of value for Mindekirken. If you recall what I wrote in the July article, "The second level [of value] is an outreach ministry. At this level, visitors will know where to find Mindekirken".

So how is the information that appears on the web site composed? You guessed it. With Mindekirken's computer systems. I remember back in 1995 or so when I first started working with the computers at Mindekirken. All we had was an IBM-286 computer with a dot-matrix printer. Today we have 4 computers, a high speed HP laser printer, a photo scanner and an Epson inkjet color printer. The fastest of the computers, the laser printer, the scanner and the color printer we have acquired through purchase or gifts during the last year or so. A cat 5 Ethernet network wired in the office wing at Mindekirken ties all this equipment together. To top it off, the network is connected to the Internet through a fast DSL broadband connection.

What is next? In the process of finishing off the basement in the new addition we have decided to wire one of the rooms with many network connections. The reason for that is that we might be offering a genealogy class in the near future and for that we will use computers and the Internet to do the genealogy research.

In closing, I want to point out that Mindekirken has just a tiny budget to run and maintain all the technology needed for an outreach ministry of this kind. We will as always welcome your donations to the Computer Fund.

The Norwegian Lutheran Memorial Church ·  924 E. 21st St, Minneapolis, MN 55404-2952 ·  (612)874-0716