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| Laurene |
Member Name: Sparkling Member ID: 000245 |
| Native American, 42, Married |
Newberg, Oregon, United States |
Personal Details
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| Gender: |
Organization |
| Age: |
42 (30-Aug-1968) |
| Relationship Desired: |
Ministry Partner
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| Ministry Type: |
Local Ministries |
| Called To: |
United States |
| Calling: |
Unreached People
Children
Teens
Healing
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| Church Practices: |
2 or 3 times a week |
| Denomination: |
Christian Church |
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Sparkling is offline
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Make Contact
Last activity: offline |
| General Faith and Daily Life |
Laurene is the owner of Heaven's Blessings Tiny Zoo, a
software development company making family friendly games
with a Christian foundation. She is the Producer of
Chariots, a racing game set in ancient Rome on the island of
Cyprus where players can race on foot, on horseback or in a
chariot. Chariots is for sale online at
www.chariotsgame.com right now! Laurene is also the
producer of Visions, our flagship project. Visions is a
Christian MMORPG set in the 2nd century holy land with quest
and skill based gameplay. Visions is currently in
development by our entirely volunteer team. Together we are
working to reach the world for Christ through games. With
man, this is impossible, but with God, all things are
possible!
More about me:
I first became a Christian when
I was 4 years old. My family was attending an Assemblies of
God church at the time, and I was in the "Children's Church"
program. I remember the teacher was Valerie Smith, and she
was talking about what would happen to people when they die
if they are not saved. I knew I didn't want to go to hell,
so I asked Jesus to be my savior. I wandered away from God
a little bit in college, but have come back to Him in my
adult life. When my first son was about 2 years old, I
realized that I needed to get him into a Sunday School
program so that he could have other Christian role models
besides just me. That's when I started going to church
again too. I have 4 children and they have all been
baptized, by their own decision. My husband is not (yet) a
Christian so I take the kids to church myself. My sons are
involved with Boy Scouts, my daughter is involved with
American Heritage Girls (Christian scouting for girls), and
we homeschool all of our children. My faith is at the core
of everything I do, and I hope that my children will grow to
embrace their faith in every area of their lives as well. |
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| My Calling |
I am a Christian Game Developer, and a Homeschooling Mom.
Both are a calling. My children come first (though
sometimes it is not always apparent due to the ever
increasing hours that I spend working on the development
projects I lead) as they are at the core of my motivations
for becoming a game developer in the first place.
We are
all gamers. Well, I wasn't at first, I used to hate
computer games. I hated that my family spent so much time
playing them instead of paying attention to one another. I
was jealous of the time my husband spent staring at the
computer instead of talking to me. Until I discovered a
game that I actually liked, and it helped me to understand
how they could be so captivated by the electronic box we
know as "the computer". For me, it was MMOGs. For other
people it may be some other type of a game. But I needed
that personal level of understanding about what makes a game
fun and compelling and attractive, so that I could better
understand my husband and my children. Over a period of
about 3 years of playing a game called EverQuest, and
watching my children play any number of other games,
combined with my efforts to teach my children at home, a
realization came over me. I've since learned that I'm not
the only one to have realized this, but I am perhaps the
only Mom who is trying to do something to change it. That
being, that children (and adults) are spending countless
hours memorizing (and I do mean memorizing by heart!) reams
and reams of pointless details required to succeed in their
game that will have absolutely no importance in their daily
lives whatsoever. My oldest son had the entire progression
tree for the game Civilization memorized, and yet he would
not memorize his scripture verses. My children have untold
numbers of details about Pokemon memorized. And yet they
won't learn their geography lessons. The ability is
obviously there, but school just is not as fun, and thus not
as compelling to learn, as games. It doesn't have to be
this way! We have the technology! We have the skills! We
have it well within our means to make the acquisition of
knowledge fun and even compelling and engaging. Why is it
that every educational computer game I buy seems to think
that we have to implement an exam at the end of each
"chapter"? Who wants to take a test while they are playing a
game? Who thought that would be fun? Not me, that's for
sure! So I started getting this idea to make educational
games that are fun.
Then I had several isolated, and
increasingly frequent, experiences in EverQuest that took
this idea to the next level. I had some friends in EQ that
had fallen away from their walk with God, they had lost
faith or lost hope, or both, and if they had a Bible in
their house they would not read it. But they would tell me
their troubles, and I would pray for them, and they would
thank me for the prayers. They would even let me "read" (by
typing it) the Bible to them in the game chat. I was able to
comfort them, encourage them, and help them get through
their daily troubles while we were playing the game
together. I was able to speak God's word to them, when they
would otherwise never read the Bible on their own. I was
able to pray with them, when they otherwise never would have
prayed on their own. And it occurred to me, that there is an
unreached people that missionaries to Africa, Uganda, and
Columbia will never find. They are people, primarily middle
class people, who have hidden in the world of online games
in order to escape their troubled and despairing lives.
These people are desperate for someone to love them, there
is a God sized hole in their lives, but they don't know
where to look to fill that gap, so they attempt to appease
the loneliness with games and other forms of entertainment.
There is a very real mission field in the virtual world.
My company, Heaven's Blessings Tiny Zoo was formed in 2003
to create Christian games in attempt to reach these
unreached people for Christ through games. Our flagship
project is Visions, a MMORPG set in the 2nd century Holy
Land with quest and skill based gameplay. Visions is still
in development by our volunteer team. And our recently
released title is Chariots, a racing game set in ancient
Rome on the island of Cyprus. Chariots is available for sale
online now from our website at www.chariotsgame.com Please
share the link with your friends! |
Looking For Info |
We are primarily looking for developers who are interested
in helping us work on Visions. We are a team of volunteers
using our skills for God to make Christian games. We need
programmers, scripters, 3D artists, Animators, Level
builders, Website developers, Marketing assistants, Quest
writers, and Forums moderators to increase our staff and
make this thing happen faster.
Should an Angel Investor be
interested in purchasing needed tools, or sponsoring our
team to attend industry conferences, or other financial
assistance we certainly would be open to talking about those
opportunities. But we aren't expecting to obtain financial
help through this venue. We understand that the current
economy is depressed. God continues to provide for our
needs despite the economy, and He continues to bring to us
the people we need to finish the game in the way He wants it
to be made. So we really just are seeking prayers and
volunteers to help us finish our dream. |
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