It happens on every mission trip to a non-English speaking country.

You need to communicate something to a national but there aren’t any interpreters around. You might try making hand gestures or frantically thumb through your little phrase book, but what if you could press a button on your phone to translate what you want to say?

That’s the promise made by a number of language translation apps (“applications”) for mobile phones like the iPhone. We’ve looked at several of them, but the best we’ve discovered seems to be Odyssey Translator, available for iPhone and iPod touch.

Odyssey has several different languages available, each sold separately starting at $5. Current offerings are Italian, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, and Mandarin Chinese. The company reports that Dutch, Russian, Japanese and Greek are under development.

Odyssey Translators are 100% resident on your iPhone or iTouch—no wi-fi or data connection needed. Select what you want to say from 210 categories and the app allows you to build your own phrases and sentences–more than 100,000 of them. You can actually hear how to pronounce the words.

One reviewer wrote “We travel to Cozumel often and I like to try to speak as much Spanish as possible as a courtesy. After trying several other translators, I came across this one. It’s AMAZING. Not only does it teach you the words, it will show you how to pronounce them too. You will love it!”

Odyssey does have several scaled-down versions that they offer for free, but judging by the reviews, you would be best to steer clear of them. We suggest sticking to the “pro” (paid) versions if you want something that is actually beneficial.

Do you have a recommendation for a good app for cross-cultural communication? We’d love to hear about it. Please comment and share your thoughts.

We will continue our series on apps for mission trips with our next blog, which will focus on apps to plan and organize your travel.

Stay tuned—there’s an app for that!

For many mission trip participants, days spent abroad are some of the most memorable and meaningful moments of their lives. So much is packed into such a short period of time—new people, places, cultures, ministry experiences. Memories that you want to cling to for the rest of your life.

Many assume they will never forget these times. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long after returning to life “as usual” that those memories fade.

 Keeping a written journal is helpful, but many find the fast-paced demands of these trips prohibitive to journaling. Even if we take pictures we often forget the stories behind the photos.

 The good news for iPhone users: There’s an app for that!

 This is our fourth in a series of blogs on “apps” (mobile phone applications) useful for mission trips. Today we look at two apps that promise to revolutionize how we remember our trip experiences.

We must say upfront that the claims that both apps make are exciting but judging by user reviews may not completely live up to their hype. Regardless, we think you will find enough functionality to make it worth the $2-$3 download costs.

Travel Diary with Zoom allows you to record the story of your trip with text, pictures and maps. Instead of taking a picture with the iPhone camera application, you use Travel Diary, which automatically saves the time and location of each picture.

In addition to the pictures, you can add comments describing your activities, which also get the time and location stamp. You can press a button from any picture and a map appears showing you where it was taken.

Travel Diary allows exporting to Facebook, although some users report problems with this feature. The app cost is $1.99 and is available from the Apple app store.

A similar but apparently more robust app is Trip Journal, selling for $2.99. It calls itself the “Ultimate trip tracking, recording, documenting and sharing solution currently available for iPhone.”

Trip Journal does have several features missing from Travel Diary, including the ability to send friends real time updates from the places you are visiting. It also tags photos with your location and offers user friendly map controls, along with real-time trip stats.

Trip Journal exports to Google Earth, Facebook and Picasa.

Since reviews are mixed for both these apps, we would suggest if you do use one of them that you download it well in advance of your trip. Do some test entries to make sure the app delivers what you expect.

Do you have a suggestion for a journaling app not listed here, or one for mobile phones other than iPhone? We’d love to hear about it! Please comment and let us know.

Our next blog will look at apps for communicating cross-culturally.

Stay tuned—there’s an app for that!

“25,000…but what’s that in dollars?”

“How much did that taxi ride on Tuesday cost?”

“How is our team’s food budget? Can I afford to take them to that fancy restaurant?”

If you have led mission trips, then there’s a good chance you have asked questions like these while traveling. From an administrative standpoint, keeping track of finances during a trip is one the most difficult challenges leaders face.

Many missions organizations require their team leaders keep receipts for all financial transactions, or at least have some kind of contemporaneous record keeping. That’s easier said than done when dealing with multiple exchange rates and a team that seems to always be on the move.

As we continue our series on mobile phone apps for mission trips, we look today at apps for handling finances.

When it comes to tracking finances during a trip, iXpenselt is one of the best reviewed.  It tries to simplify daily expense tracking and budgeting. The app is designed for tracking a household’s monthly budget and expenses, but you could easily use it for tracking your next trip budget.

iXpenselt instantly indicates your budget vs. expenses. One nice feature is that it lets you take photos of your receipts, which can be exported along with various records. If you have ever tried to keep receipts organized while on a mission trip, then this feature alone is worth getting the app!

It includes a world currency list and a currency conversion utility. There is both a “light” version, that is free, and a full version which sells for $4.99 at the Apple app store.

Mobile Receipt, also $4.99, is another app that allows you to photograph and organize your receipts then turn them into expense reports. It supports more than 70 currencies.

One final expense tracking app to consider is TapExpense. Users will probably appreciate its simple, straightforward approach to tracking expenses. It also allows you to work with multiple currencies.

Two other financial apps to look at are Currency Exchange Rates Pro and Measures-Unit and Currency Converter. Currency Exchange Rates features 227 different currencies and the ability to automatically update exchange rates if you have Internet connection.

Measures-Unit and Currency Converter not only converts money but also speed, weight, area, length and more. It features a database of 1,000 units in 38 categories. It also has some neat design features, like the ability to change appearances.

Both of these apps are currently $.99 and are available for the iPhone and iPod touch.

Keeping track of finances on mission trips may always be a challenge, but hopefully with apps like these you will be able to spend less time on administration and more time on ministry.

We’ll continue our look at apps for mission trips in our next blog as we focus on journaling tools.

Stay tuned…there’s an app for that!

By now you’ve probably seen the ads for Apple’s iPhone, the ones that end with, “There’s an app for that.” While there are apps for finding local restaurants and processing credit cards, you may be surprised that there also are numerous apps appropriate for missionary, ministry and humanitarian travelers.

Yes, there are apps that can make your next trip better—and even save your life.

Apps—short for “applications”–are programs that run on your mobile phone, just like software that runs on your desktop computer. Apple has introduced more than 100,000 of them since 2008, according to recent reports.

Although the iPhone, along with Apple’s new iPad, have been getting all the “app” attention, there are thousands of apps for other phones as well. Chances are if you have a newer mobile phone, especially those capable of Internet access, there are apps for it also.

One of the largest marketplaces for non-apple apps is www.GetJar.com. The site has more than 50,000 applications for 2,100 different devices. Best of all—GetJar’s apps are all free to download.

Apps for Apple products can be access through the iTunes software (free download from Apple) or through the device itself. Many of Apple’s apps are also either free or they have minimal costs (under $5).

Ministry Travel has waded through the sea of apps to find those we feel will make our client’s travels better. In our next few blog posts we will introduce you to some of these. We’ll show you apps for handling finances abroad, keeping safe, managing teams, communicating cross-culturally and more.

Stay tuned—there’s an app for that!