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But the Lord directs his steps."
~Proverbs 16:9~
Return to the home page | "A man's heart plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps." ~Proverbs 16:9~ | |
 Who are the Cottrills? Read our latest newsletter See our most recent pictures Current prayer requests Read our blog - Finding direction Contact the Cottrills | CottrillCompass.com Excuse me while I give away my advanced age. It was in the late 80s that I first discovered the amazing "bulletin boards" of information that could be accessed on the school computers. But still, in 1996 when I was exploring an office computer where I worked, I asked,"Is this the internet?" Sure enough, it was. People had things on there called web sites, and anyone anywhere in the world could see them. Nifty. So it was, on March 10, 1999 I built my first website, in hopes of getting help finding the origins of a photograph that was likely of someone on Shari's side of the family. Guess what? I still have no clue who it is in the picture, but that first website is still online - visit it here. Later that year I also built a website for Venture Teams International (the mission agency where we worked), a website I would oversee until August 2003. I volunteered for the job because I felt our agency needed a website, not because I had the faintest idea how to build one! Our family website has gone through some changes over the years. It was in 1999 that we first put our "WebHome" online (incidentally, this was about the time Google came out of the testing stages). It wasn't located where it is now, but on a free web hosting service (everything was free in those days!). Here's what it looked like in January 2000:  | Right click on this page and add it to your bookmarks or favorites! Canada and Mexico:  Read the latest news found by Google. The OneLook Word of the Day is: This is a word that has been searched for an unusual number of times today at OneLook.com |
In early 2004 our website got the look it has today. It finally brightened up to white. :-) It was redesigned in the hopes that the information people most wanted to get to would be easier to find. After over 4 years online, it had collected enough material that the former set up was starting to weaken under the load. In late 2005, another major change (though it only took a few minutes) was the move of our blog from GreyMatter software to WordPress. CottrillCompass.com has always been a place to try new things, some that look good and work well, and other things that don't! But it has had a patient audience (you!), people who have kept on coming. In the first months of it's existence, it already had visitors every day. Today, not only people that know us, but people who don't know us visit from all over the world to read our articles, click our links, ask about our family tree and view our pictures. CottrillCompass.com gets hundreds of visitors each month, placing it in the top 5% of most visited sites on the internet. The theme verse (added to the website in the fall of 2002) at the top of this page explains our philosophy. We are constantly making plans for our lives, but it is God who really guides us. It is His Word, the Bible, that is our compass. The monarch butterfly was added in 2005. The monarch is another major example of God's guidance, the way God has given them the ability to find their way here and then back to Mexico. The yellow colour that is the background of our website logo came from the yellowed page of a Bible owned by my grandfather (Cottrill). The Bible was given to him on June 26, 1921 (when he was 19) by Victor Hall, who sold his bicycle in order to buy the it. My grandfather hoped to use it to share Christ with people in Western Canada. In the end, he served God in Eastern Canada until his death in 1962. Little did he know that his son and grandson would both someday be doing ministry in Western Canada. And who knows where the compass will point next in our lives! But one thing we know - God is good, and He has an incredible adventure in store that has already begun and will stretch into eternity! See the dedication in my Grandfather's Bible in our photo gallery... |
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