Wow, so I am a bit fried….

Today was a bit of a zoo. Everything from a php coding issue, to metallurgy, to people management issues, to assisting with a suicide prevention. Go figure, the life of a tech dude.

And this, is why your church needs a website. It might well have saved a life this evening.

In the online world, it is rare that one ever crosses the line into 3D activities. Terroristic threads, and suicides are 2 subjects that do result in crossing that line. And this is why your church needs a website. Time is of the essence in such matters as one might expect, and 3D, not virtual intervention is key. The problem of course is connecting the two to make it possible. This is where your church enters in.

People, even the most careful individuals do leave cyber trails, and often times under pressure give other clues. They may not want to involve others in their situation, yet suicide is often times a call for help. It doesn’t matter if its for real or not. All such threats need to be followed up on if indeed possible. And no, its not always possible as sometimes, there just isn’t enough info to work with, and generally, unless its a terroristic threat and a call from the FBI, most ISP’s won’t assist.

Thus, in this case we did have information to work off of, and we found a church website, and found a pastors contact info. We no doubt ended up waking him up, but the end result, is a young person is now in a hospital rather than dieing in their bedroom, all the while his parents were asleep. (for all you parents out there, this can happen… and I can only imagine the heartache involved, had this youngster succeeded).

As a result, please do make sure your church has a website, make sure it has a contact number, as well as your pastors name. (I don’t know that posting the emergency number online is wise to avoid prank calls and such), but the main number, and an answering machine which directs folks to an after hours emergency number is certainly a viable option.

Now, some readers might think such a situation is a rarity. Sadly, online suicide threats occur somewhere in the world 24/7/365. Most webmasters and administrators are not well equipped to deal with such issues, but more and more are finding it is a critical need, as virtual communities become more and more life like.

This of course doesn’t mean that every situation will have a successful outcome. In many cases, the person is too hard to track, the net tools, dont work, or we end up chasing evidence that goes no where. And of course, there are always the situations where its someone just out for a thrill to see what a fuss can be made by crying wolf. And in other cases, the person succeeds, or in others, they never travel over the same cyber path for months if ever. Thus, there is no way to really know that such plans are effective in many cases. Yet, if one life is spared, it makes it all worthwhile.

Praise God, the youngster got to the ER, praise God, we reached the pastor, praise God, the church had a website, praise God, all the right people were at the right place at the right time.