Craig and Jeff working on PocketBible at Java Creek Cafe
Our regular readers know that Laridian currently employs just two full-time programmers: me (Craig) and Jeff Wheeler. We have several part-time employees doing marketing and technical support work, but Jeff and I are the only full-timers. Jeff and I go way back, first working together in 1985. Except for nine months in 1988-89 when I left to join Parsons Technology and before Jeff joined me there, we’ve worked together ever since then.
I want you to know that in November of last year, Jeff was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. His prognosis is good, but the cancer is aggressive and calls for aggressive treatment. He’s had two surgeries, and recently began about an eighteen-week regimen of chemotherapy and radiation treatments.
Those of us who have had cancer victims in our families know that treatments and responses vary. However, during this period, it is expected that Jeff will go through a three-week cycle of nausea, then fatigue, then a brief period of feeling good before the cycle of treatment begins again.
Needless to say, we all at Laridian covet your prayers for the treatment to be productive and the side-effects to be tolerable.
Additionally, I want you to know how this affects our work at Laridian. Laridian is a small company and that is intentional. In an article in Christian Computing Magazine ten years ago we explained how our history of working for a huge, publicly-traded software company motivated us to create something different when we founded Laridian. We wanted to be small and stay small. One of the results of meeting that goal is that when one of us is operating at less than 100%, it affects all of us. It also affects our ability to meet our customers’ expectations. So we, too, would appreciate your prayers and patience during this period.
Of course, we all have troubles in this life. Your family has perhaps gone through a lot worse at one time or another. Jeff knows his particular problems aren’t any bigger than what you have experienced or might be currently experiencing. But we thought it was important for you to know what’s going on here so you will have some additional insight into how this situation may affect the work we do for you here at Laridian.
Again, thank you always for your prayers. It is our pleasure to be able to serve you through the work we do.
Thanks for being vulnerable. Our hearts and prayers go out for Jeff and his family.
I’m praying.
On a practical front, you guys still need to eat and Jeff surely doesn’t need to be worrying about money as he recovers. I, for one, would be happy to pre-order, and pre-pay for, the Android version of Pocket Bible, trusting that Jeff will recover and it will be released. Think of it as a practical exercise in faith: I have faith in God to heal Jeff and faith in Craig and Jeff to continue to take Laridian forward, and I’m prepared to act on that faith with some money. I’ll bet I’M not alone in that either. Pre-ordering with pre-payment is not unknown in other areas, such as DVD sales, albeit with better defined release dates! So, would you consider such a program?
Bless you guys,
Martin.
Take courage Jeff, the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much! And you have many! Father please heal Jeff and may he be perfected through this fiery trial.
Martin,
That’s a great idea but it has some practical problems. Our agreements with the credit card companies prevent us from charging your card without delivering a product. There’s some period of time — I think it’s 30 days — during which we must ship or issue a refund. We could set up a system to collect your card information then charge it when we ship, but that would take a lot of effort (that could be spent writing Java code) and wouldn’t produce any cash in the near-term, which was your goal.
Alternately, we could set up a donation system, but that has always seemed somewhat deceptive to us. There are already people who think of us as a “Christian organization” and more of a “ministry” than a “business” and we don’t want to encourage people to think of us as a ministry when we’re really a business.
In the end, if you want to send us money, the best thing is to buy something.
That’s a win-win for both us and you. You get a useful product and we get some income. If you already own everything you want, consider purchasing one of our CD-ROM or USB Flash Drive products for a friend. Then it’s a win-win-win. 
I hope this all doesn’t sound callous at a time like this. We do appreciate both your interest in our success AND your prayers for Jeff.
Take care Jeff … will remember you and Laridian in prayers …
May God continue to Bless Jeff and you, and please know Jeff will be in our prayers.
May I offer a couple of suggestions –
I too would be willing to pay for the Android version prior to release. (as others have suggested) If the credit cards are really the issue, then how about offering a gift card? That is extremely easy to set up and would not be tied to a specific product. It would allow you to bill to the current system, and then be used when products are delivered.
Additionally, I would be willing to assist writing some code, or BETA test, or assist in anyway possible, at no cost. Perhaps others would be willing to provide assistance with webpage development, etc?
My family has been affected by Cancer, (Father, Mother, and Wife) Perhaps this is a way I can return some of the blessings received.
A longtime user of Laridian software.
Rick
Rick,
Thanks for your suggestions and willingness to help. As you know, adding developers to a software project makes it take longer to complete. However, if you think there’s a possibility you could bring some experience with Java and Android development to bear on the problem, send me a resume and I’ll at least consider it. You can reach me at craigr@laridian.com.
I’m not convinced the number of people who would buy gift cards in anticipation of us shipping the Android product is large enough to justify the expense of setting up a gift card program, both in terms of the actual cost of the cards but also in the cost of integrating the processing of gift cards into our system. If you know more about this than I do, feel free to include that in your email.
Godspeed to both of you.
As most have said my life too has been touched by cancers that friends have had, our most current touch with disease is a friend from a group that we are in that is like family. He has brain cancer. He got good and bad news this week too. His current tumor is responding to treatment, the bad news they have found another one. Sigh, but he too is living life to the fullest, and has been an encouragement to those around him.
Please take care of yourselves and your families.
I do look forward to the android version when you have it ready having had it on my PalmTX, a windows phone,and a blackberry, I am spoiled with your product and it is well worth the wait.
May the Lord keep you all in his hands and give you strength
Dear Brothers in the Lord, Jeff and Craig,
Thank you for putting out the best Bible program that is out there.
I am so sorry to read of your plight, bro. Jeff. I pray that you might find comfort, hope and strength in God’s Holy Word. Here are two verses that have often ministered to me as I go through the vicissitudes of life, may they do the same for you.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. – Romans 8:18 (NKJV)
Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. 17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, 18 while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. – 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
I know from personal experience that this is not the easiest of times. I will keep you my daily prayers. May the the Lord’s blessing be upon you abundantly (Num. 6:24-26).
Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, 21 to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. – Ephesians 3:20-21 (NKJV)
Bro. Rafael Moreno
I pray for your healing, Jeff.
And as for you, Craig, I quote, “There are already people who think of us as a “Christian organization” and more of a “ministry” than a “business” and we don’t want to encourage people to think of us as a ministry when we’re really a business.”
It’s a sad thing you don’t have any idea that you are in fact in a ministry also. Perhaps you do not realize about it, but your business is your ministry as well. I feel sorry for those who have bought your software because you said so. Some of them may be using your products to minister others, so whether you like it or not, you are in the ministry. Let go your pride and maybe you will realize it’s God who blesses you. My advice is that you don’t need to say something hurting like that. If you are only for business, no need to say you are not into ministry. You don’t have to ask them whether it is okay to sell Quran or not. The more, the merrier. The fact that you did ask that because you knew your customers were Christians. They supported you because they knew somehow God took part in your application for many. And now you take them down because everything is just business. Christianity is about relationship and support. If only business, I don’t suppose they want to pray for Jeff. There are a lot of people out there suffering maybe the worst and they too need people to care for. So you think before you say.
Your faithfulness to God has ministered greatly to my wife and my walk with the Lord. I have placed you on my prayer list, and pray that God will strenghthen you through this difficult time.
Tabitha,
I actually agree with a lot of what you’re saying. But let me make some distinctions here and see if that will help.
People ask if we are a “Christian organization”. My answer is that the only “Christian organization” is the church. Laridian is not a church.
If Laridian was a church, the owners of the company (Jim VanDuzer, Jeff and I) would be its elders. We would have obligations toward our employees with respect to their spiritual growth. We would be obligated to evaluate their belief system against a biblical standard before hiring them. We would have to personally approve the contents of everything we publish. In practical terms, it means very little of what we publish would be publishable, because it all varies a little bit from what at least one of us owners believe.
Is Laridian an organization OF Christians? You might think this is an easy question to answer, but it’s not. With one exception, each of our employees attends a different church. You may or may not agree with the teachings of each of those churches. If you quizzed our employees you may or may not agree that they are Christian, depending on what that means to you. (I don’t have any particular employees in mind; I’m just saying that there are many opinions as to what it means to be a “Christian”.)
Is Laridian a ministry? A “ministry” is an organization or activity that attends to the needs of others. One could make the case that that is what we do, but I would argue that we are at best a meta-ministry. We don’t actively teach people or prepare them for any particular work. We are a supplier of materials to people who do such things.
I don’t so much mind being called a “ministry” as much as I mind what that implies to people. For example, if we are a Christian ministry, then we should carefully vet all of our materials. The problem is that no two Christians agree on what makes a Bible an accurate translation or what makes a reference book not heretical. What we try to do is publish popular, mainstream Bibles and reference materials from known and respected scholars. We leave it to our customers to decide which ones to buy and which ones to use in their ministry.
More examples: If Laridian is a Christian ministry, then should we be a for-profit company? Should we take a salary? Should we publicly disclose our financial statements for accountability? Should we be under the authority of a church? Should we distribute our products through the Apple? (Some Christians have a problem with some of Apple’s policies.) Should we develop software for Android? (Some Christians have a problem with some of Google’s policies.) For Windows? (Some Christians have a problem with some of Microsoft’s policies.) Should we develop software at all? Should we not all be foreign missionaries instead?
In the end, Laridian is a privately held, Iowa corporation that develops and sells Bible-related software primarily for mobile computing devices. This doesn’t mean that it’s not God who gives us success, nor that it isn’t God who is glorified in what we do. It just means that we’re not a church, we’re not your pastors, and we’re not your Sunday School teachers. We’re not even the guy who vacuums and dusts the facilities on Monday morning.
As a result, you can’t expect from us what you expect from your church or the people who work there. For example, we could (but we’re not going to) decide to publish the Koran for use in PocketBible. If your pastor, however, started preaching from the Koran, you would have a problem. We could (and we currently are) spin off our technology for use in non-Christian, non-biblical applications (not anti-biblical, just non-biblical). If your elders started using your Sunday morning worship time to teach accounting or mechanical engineering, you would have a problem.
That’s all we mean. Jeff and I are, in fact, Christians. We do, in fact, appreciate it when you pray for our company in general and for Jeff’s health in particular. We believe in the power of those prayers and that’s why we sought them out through this post. At the same time, Jeff’s situation has a practical impact on our business, and that’s one of the reasons we posted this message.
To put it back in context, we hesitate to set up some kind of donation button on our site because we don’t want to convey to people that we are a donation-based, non-profit, Christian ministry organization. We feel that would be deceptive. The fact is that we don’t rely on donations for our support, but rather on commercial transactions in which you purchase the products we create. Believe it or not, there are some Bible software companies out there who present themselves as Christian ministries in an effort to increase their sales and so that they can leverage tax laws to maximize their profits. We think this is manipulative and plays on the ignorance and guilability of a certain type of Christian and misrepresents what these companies really are.
I realize this is more than you asked for and I hope it’s not too overwhelming. We agree that our work ministers to others. Our intention in making the distinction between business and ministry was so that we would not be deceiving anyone into treating us like their church with respect to feeling an obligation to give charitably to us. That’s why my advice to such people has been to simply buy something instead of trying to concoct a way to donate.
Praying for you and with you!
“Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise.”
Jeremiah 17:14
Craig, a spot on and sensitively written reply to Tabitha. Having such clear distinctions is really helpful and it is obvious to me you are glorifying God by bringing excellence to your business.
On a separate note, I’m thrilled that the internet, which is so full of junk and filth, can help us to pray for Jeff, whom I have never met.
Keep up the good work guys. Rest well Jeff and the Lord be with you.
Greetings from Scotland
This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, … The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them. O taste and see that the LORD is good: … Ps 34:6-8
Jeff, may you know the Lord’s healing touch
And thank you all for your dedication in providing superb software that we so greatly enjoy. Looking forward to the Laridian Android updates.
Craig and Jeff,
Having been a Laridian customer for about the last 10 years. I value your products and am impressed with your skills as software engineers and businessmen. Please know that I am praying for Jeff’s health and the health of your company. I am a small businessman also and covet the prayers of fellow Christians for God’s blessings on my, my family and my business. Looking forward to the release of your Android based software.
Jerry
Father, thank you for healing Jeff.
Jeff: Praying for your healing, and comfort your you, your family and your loved ones.
Craig: great explanation of Laridian. “A gentle answer turns away wrath,” Prov 15:1a. That was well done.
Jeff,
May you feel His presence and His healing touch in the days and weeks ahead. May it be very real and very powerful and may you be able to continue to do His will on this earth!
Craig & Jeff, I use Laridian products every day, Bibles, commentaries, etc., but the absolutely most powerful one for me has been Prayer Partner. It really helps me to keep focused in my prayer life and manage a growing list of people and needs that would never be possible otherwise. So, thank you very much. (And now there is one more great need added to my list.)
Craig
Your software has been a blessing to me for the last 6 years. May God continue to sustain you both during such time of trial.