Keep an eye out for a butane charger for your portable electronics that just might be the solution for your ministry.  If you:

• work outdoors
• live or travel to remote locations
• serve often in a field clinic
• travel frequently

The pocket-sized charger is fueled with butane cartridges and are already approved to be taken on planes, just like cigarette lighters.  The recyclable cartridges will cost just a few dollars. The manufacturer says it will be cheaper than buying a spare lithium battery and more convenient than relying on electrical outlets when travelling.

You would be able to charge any device that has a USB cable: smartphones, cameras, digital media players, and more.

Perhaps our GAiN and JESUS Film ministries, as well as others, could use a pocket-sized fuel cell like this.

The charger should be sold by Brookstone some time later in 2012.

Related Articles: 

• Could You Use A Rugged Mobile Computer? (this site)
• Two Weeks of Smartphone Charging in Your Pocket (Cnet News)
• News release from Lilliputian Systems (a spin-off from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, by the way)