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Tanzania Bound [2018-08-20]

Tomorrow is the big day – the Reneal team will be departing for Tanzania!  Planning for this trip began just about the time Neal and I returned from last year’s work.  We are so thrilled that we’ll be joined on this trip by Reneal Board of Directors members Sharon Fingold and Katherine Yen, along with their husbands Antonio Martinez (former Board member) and Marcus Lee.  They will be with us for the first week of work in Arusha.  It’s been a lot of effort preparing the equipment at this end, but we take our hats off to the new schools in Arusha who have had the challenge of setting up new computer rooms.

Back in the North [2018-08-10]

July was a month of big accomplishments for Reneal Team Philippines.  After finishing the installation at Calero Integrated School in Liloan, Reneal computer technicians Rhog Sampan and Lloyd Tuñacao and OJT Ervin Formentera spent a week in Northern Cebu.  They were able to complete a long list of tasks, including installation of a new Reneal system in the Daanbantayan National High School library.

Reneal Team Philippines [2018-07-23]

Hats off to Reneal Team Philippines this month!  Under the leadership of Sir Jade Reyes, Reneal computer technicians Rhog Sampan and Lloyd Tuñacao and OJT Ervin Formentera have really been working hard to support both existing and new schools.  We are so grateful for their commitment and skill!  Last week they installed a new computer lab at Calero Integrated School in Liloan, and this week they are in Northern Cebu installing a new computer system in the Daanbantayan National High School library.  They have also been visiting many other schools to make repairs and replace hardware that isn’t working.

One month to go [2018-07-15]

The 2018 Tanzania work has been on the radar screen for months; we began thinking about it pretty much right away last October when we returned from the 2017 trip.  However it’s with a jolt that we realize suddenly that we’re about a month out from departure.  We still have some software testing to do, as well as all of the packing.  Thankfully we’ll have help on that from some of our Board of Directors members, but even so it will be a trial. 

Supply lines [2018-07-07]

My main focus again this week was equipment.  I finally went through the laptops that have been accumulating to take to Tanzania in August.  The good news is that we have 92 that are ready to go!  I also worked with Reneal Team Philippines to prepare for their trip to northern Cebu to visit the schools there.  There’s a lot of work to be done during this visit, and we’re grateful to have three hard-working guys heading up there.  The other exciting news this week is that seven new students have been identified for the Philippines scholarship program; that will give us a total of 20 scholars in Cebu for School Year 2018-2019.

Chaos Part 2 [2018-06-28]

Well, that was a long hiatus for the blog!  We were off on some personal travel and then had a dear friend from the Philippines visit us for a few days.  In the meantime wonderful donations of computer equipment and fabric rolled in, so we were at capacity here at headquarters.  With a frenzy of packing, we’ve been able to ship sixteen boxes to eight different schools in the Philippines this week.  There is still more to do but we’ve made great headway.  And our team members in the Philippines and Tanzania have been on the move too, visiting schools and preparing for new installations.

A good kind of chaos [2018-05-14]

This month has been one of unexpected prosperity for Reneal.  We’ve received donations of 16 laptops and 47 desktops in the last two weeks!  This is on top of the 65 computers we purchased with a big discount from World Computer Exchange.  While this has plunged our home into chaos with computers everywhere, it is definitely the kind of chaos we love!  Thanks a million to Free Geek (www.freegeek.org) and Uneed2 (www.uneed2.org) for their generosity and support!

Cebu news [2018-04-17]

The Reneal Board of Directors met on Sunday evening.  One of the main topics on the agenda was reporting on the recent work in Cebu as well as reviewing candidate schools that were evaluated while we were there.  I am happy to report that the Board has approved moving forward with projects at Calero Integrated School in Liloan, Cantumog National High School in Carmen, and the main library at Cebu Technological University-Carmen.  While these schools must still agree to and meet numerous expectations, we are pleased to start down the path of implementation with them.

Thanks WCE! [2018-04-06]

We’ve been home for three weeks now, getting settled back into our US routine.  At long last, we got the new version of the Reneal System Administration Manual completed and distributed.  This manual is focused on the systems with Ubuntu 16.04 and it also includes procedures for the new programs that Neal has developed in the last year and a half to assist the computer teachers.  The big news this week though is that we have a bonanza of computers, thanks to the World Computer Exchange!  We’re still working our way through them, but it’s a huge step forward for the 2018 and 2019 Reneal projects.

Back home [2018-03-21]

It was a long journey, but we’re back home in California now.  It’s always good to be home after a lengthy trip, but we are surely missing our friends, family, and colleagues in the Philippines.  The last few days there in Cebu were incredibly hectic – there’s never really enough time to share everything we’d wish to with the teachers – but we felt like we were able to finish what we’d planned: eight server operating system upgrades, seven server software and content upgrades, three new server installations, lots of client computer repairs, and meetings with the scholarship committee and scholars.  In addition, we evaluated three candidates for future projects.  Neal also added some more advanced capabilities at CTU-Carmen for the college students and professors.

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