Now before we start, I have to admit I’m still adding blogs from 2009, so there are lots more that could be mentioned.  But here are some fun facts about the blogs I’ve got in the system so far that have started in 2009:

Most unusual blog name of 2009

And the award goes to Juicy Pomegranate Bits, from Albania.  From the blog, here is the reason for the title:

I was introduced to this delicious fruit sometime during my many years in Albania and fell in love with it.

I believe that life is a gift to be savored and cherished– similar to a pomegranate– savoring one kernel at a time.

If you’ve ever eaten one, you know that pomegranates are often messy and complicated to handle– much like life itself– but if you persevere in unwrapping this exotic fruit bit by bit, the juicy kernels inside are oh-so-worth it!

This is a blog about savoring life in Albania- despite the messiness of living in a post-Communist country experiencing the growing pains of transition.

Here you’ll find bits to savor about culture, relationships, ministry, missions, leadership, mentoring, faith, cross-cultural living, language, marriage, travel, and of course, Albanian cooking!

Most useful blog of 2009

This one has to go to Missionary Moms, which is not only the blog of a missionary but also packed with great ideas and tips.  The blog comes out of Russia.  A brief explanation:

I made this site thinking about other moms with the same desires and specifically, though certainly not exclusively, for those to whom this means living their lives and raising their kids in a different country. It is definitely an adventure to be a parent in a place where everything is foreign! It is a joy, it is a challenge, but more than anything, it is a rich blessing from the Lord. I love connecting with moms on this adventure of parenting, whether overseas or not, and hope that this site can be used to pass on helpful resources and encouragement, and can be a place of community.

Best laid out home page of 2009

I’m looking for useful information that I can scan for and find at a glance – and I have to give the award to Updates from the Messick Crew, from a family preparing to go to Guatemala.  Tabs at the top, useful info in the sidebar, but nothing is cluttered or confusing.  Right on!

Best title banner of 2009

Right at the top, looking good – there were a few good ones, but I’m going to say my favourite was Life is Beautiful from Mozambique.  Check it out.

Most recent post as I write

As I write this post, which blogger from 2009 had the most recent post?  Turns out it was this I never thought to mention that … from Ryan’s Random Thoughts in Malawi.  It’s a good post, too, about something we often take for granted.

Pinkest Blog of 2009

No contest here.  The official winner of the coveted "Pinkest Blog" award goes to Perfectly Imperfect.  Did you know that the word pink originates from the 17th century, used to describe the colour of Dianthus type flowers?  And who says this blog isn’t educational.

Have a great weekend!

Let me leave you with some verses that bloggers of 2009 have shared with us in their sidebars – 2Sam 22:23, Psa 18:32, 2Cor 12:9, and Rom 10:14-17 (these come from Perfectly Imperfect and Scott & Ruth Yingling).  A good reminder that God shares the Good News through us, though imperfect people – the good news that He has Himself provided our salvation – a story that starts before the beginning of time, but was celebrated by angels, shepherds, prophets and prophetesses, wise men, and more, at His coming.

Tara from The Livesay [Haiti] Weblog was asking me about a Missionary-Blogs.com button.  To promote this website as a whole, of course you’re welcome to link to the main page, or individual posts, or other pages.  But you can also use the button that’s found on the main page.  Just copy the image to your site, then create a link, using code like this:

That will give you a simple button that’s a link (after you change the URL, of course, to the location of the graphic on your server):

This is a great way you can help connect people with other people who share their passions in service to the Lord, or to open people’s eyes about the work going on around the world.  Thanks to all of you who have been a part of getting the word out!

Please stop by and check these out – and also let me know if you see any errors (with all that work I’m sure there were some slips!).

What kinds of blogs will you see there?  Here’s a preview!  From our brand new missionary bloggers…

• Straight from my heart… writes from Ukraine
• Life in the Frying Pan from Niger
• Adventures in the Dominican Republic! – well, you know where that is.

How about the up and coming missionary bloggers?

• Soul-Purpose in India
• Missionary Mom from Chile
• Missionary Gas is in Columbia

You want some more experienced missionary bloggers?  No problem…

• Missions Minded coming to you from Nicaragua
• JustusBlog is in France
• on target from South Korea

Finally, it’s time for the veteran missionary bloggers!

• Malagasy Musings is in Madagascar
• disciplemexico.org is, of course, in Mexico
• Church Planting in Puerto Rico is right where you would expect!

Enjoy these blogs, and please don’t forget to leave a comment on the blog posts you enjoy!

The good news is that gradually improving technology is allowing me to improve the feed little by little.  The bad news is that there are still some glitches.

You may have noticed that some of the feed links are actually taking you to comments on the post, and not the post itself.  This appears to be happening only with some Blogger blogs, and it looks like it’s a bug within Blogger itself.

If anyone hears anything about this from the Blogger end, please let me know.

Meanwhile, if it happens to you, you can just go to the blog’s main page (ie *****.blogspot.com) to see the latest posts.

Be sure to subscribe to the feed – it’s better than ever with hundreds of missionary blogs from all over the world.  The feed address is http://feeds.feedburner.com/Missionary-Blogs

Remember, you can also subscribe to this blog, Missionary Blog Watch, at http://feeds.feedburner.com/MissionaryBlogWatch.

This blog is now famous.  And not just this one, a few others too!

Missionary Blog Watch was mentioned in the October 2007 edition of EMQ (Evangelical Missions Quarterly).  The article, by A. Scott Moreau (editor of EMQ) and Mike O’Rear (President of Global Mapping International) was entitled “An Introduction to Blogging on the Internet”.

Actually, it was kind of a passing mention, under the heading of Finding a Blog.

So if any of you are here after reading the article, welcome!  This website is now watching well over 400 missionary blogs.  Many of them are listed in one of the four blog lists, which you can access here.  Or, find a country or continent in the sidebar to the left to learn more about highlighted blogs.

The most exciting thing, though, was not the mention of this site, but the highlighting of a (very) few missionary blogs!  The authors listed their favourite missions-related blogs at the end, and only 3 personal missionary blogs.  Correction – one bonus one was hidden away in the text of the article.  Congrats to these four “famous” blogs:

• Missionary Geek
• The M Blog
• Missions Misunderstood
• Under the African Rain