Note: We are again thankful to have had Tom Bateman to help us rebuild computers, working in his own home workshop. Tom did most of the required rebuilding, allowing Bill to repair and set up the computers for each individual student in 2008. Thank you Tom, you have made it possible for us to be able to work on some things that have been neglected, and have a life outside of the computer workshop. A special thank you also goes to John Wezeman of GVSU and Kevin Kubiszewski of Foremost Insurance Company for major equipment donations. We thank Ed VanTimmeren for allowing us to store our bus and storage trailer on his property off Front Street near Leonard NW.

Computers for Low-Income students and their families: Year 2008 has again been dominated by our effort to provide computers with Internet access to low income students and their families who can not afford to buy a computer and working with Eastown Ministries to set up a "Homework House" for students in and near the Eastown neighborhood. We have sixteen computers set up in the Homework House and in the Youth Center with Internet access. We now are rebuilding and giving Pentium IV 1.2Ghz and better computers with 56k modems, and now with low cost DSL Internet connections through AT&T we install network cards. We have begun to install Windows XP Softpack (3) software for the operating system and Windows Office 2003 since we are able to purchase this software from Microsoft through Techsoup. We continue to install Open Office, a free version of Office made by Sun Microsystems since is is the program used in the public library. We continue to install Mozella FireFox as an Internet browser along with Internet Exolorer, and Thunderbird as the e-mail program.

Again this year the Public Schools, GR Community College, Davenport College, Michigan Works, United Way, churches and neighborhood associations have actively assisted students to fill out the applications and find volunteer opportunities in the community. They also refer businesses who want to donate computer equipment to us. We continue to have the Kent Intermediate School District office for home schooling (serving students expelled from school) refer parents to our program when they do not have a computer in their home. The United Way refers anyone in crisis that needs a computer to our ministry.

We have begun to provide computers to a program in area schools through the local CampFire program that organizes parents to spend a total of 40 hours in the schools reading to students and helping them read. They are using getting a free computer as a reward for parents who complete the Read=Computers program. The program will also teach the parents how to use the computer, with us teaching the classes. We have been promised a financial contribution for providing computers and teaching the classes to the families who participate in this program. This will help us pay for obtaining additional hardware and software for these computers as well as pay some of our other ministry expenses.

Computers have begun to be less available in the past year. Looking forward to the requirements for providing computers for the CampFire Read=Computers program we needed to have a quantity of computers, software licenses and additional hardware available. Because our stock of computers had become low, we purchased about one hundred computers from Valley Environmental computer reyclers at a discounted price.

We support and monitor the computer use in the Eastown Ministries Youth Center and the Homework House. Because Eastown Ministries has direct responsibility for the use of these computers, we have, through Wherever God Wills, developed a relationship with Covenant Eyes. Covenant Eyes is a Christian based business that helps parents and organizations monitor and block Internet web sites that are destructive to the mental and spiritual health of Internet users. Wherever God wills has started promoting the Covenant Eyes service and, if anyone subscribes to Covenant Eyes by clicking on a link on the computers that we donate or from our web site, we will receive 15% of the paid subscriptions. I don’t know if this will result in any income for our ministry, but the service is a good one to promote.