Thursday, February 2, 2012

Computer Crashes and Preconceived Ideas

I think my neighbors are starting to wonder about me after all the repairman I've had in the house in the past few months.  Honestly. Since fall/winter has begun, I've had the washer repaired twice, the dryer repaired once, the furnace checked and rechecked, new appliances installed, and now a computer IT repairman here twice this week.

My laptop which is one year and twelve days old crashed last week.  At first, it was just the keyboard and the mouse that didn't work, but after 3 1/2 hours on the phone with an HP repairman in India the whole motherboard wasn't working. Nothing. 

Now having had a computer crash a few years back, I had learned my lesson and sent my pictures to Picasa and Picasa Web, I send photos to Walgreens for storage and print out pictures, and I back up my entire computer onto a remote hard drive thus safeguarding me from a total crash and losing everything.

I guess, however, that I wasn't running my anti virus nearly enough ( the IT guy thinks I should run it everyday) and a result I got a virus.  A bad virus.

So, after nearly three hours on the phone, I told the lovely man from India that I did not have the time to spend sitting on the phone by my computer so what would be my next choice.  He'd send someone to my house. For the low price of $139.99, he could send someone to fix my problem and get me back up and running.   Really.  "All the way from India" I asked, only to get a chuckle of this nice gentleman who said they would probably use someone more local.  Thank goodness.

I'll admit I was a little nervous to have a "techy" come to my house so much so that  I called my neighbor just so they would know that I would be having "stranger" repairman at my house.  I might have even said "just in case I get murdered, I want someone to know."

I shouldn't have been so quick to judge.  My repairman was the nicest gentleman ever and not only did he get my computer completely backed up he came back the next day to reset up my printer, Microsoft office, and email.  All together he was here almost 6 hours.

K is a godly young man from Ghana who came to this country three years ago to get his masters degree in computers with the goal of returning to homeland to set up a business to teach his country about technology and educate young people.  During the long " downloading process," we talked about our World Vision child from Ghana, Shakum and the future of his homeland.  We talked about how Americans are so blessed financially, spiritually and with a life with everything at their disposal and yet how easily we complain or compare or give up. 

We talked about how much he loves his Church in America, a church that is filled with men and women from Africa who love Jesus and see themselves as here for a mission.  I was amazed at this young man's courage to come all by himself to a foreign country to learn and grow so he can go back "home" again to share all this knowledge with the country he loves.

Mr K fixed more than computer this week, he restored a part of my optimism for our country and our world.  He gave me much hope for the future.  In him, I saw a hope for Shakum a little boy in Ghana who loves God and Soccer.  It encourages me to write to Shakum and tell him about this amazing young man I meet and that I hope someday he can meet too.

While the process of getting back a perfect laptop was long; the end result is so much more than I could have imagined.

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