Way back when, I started this blog to keep people updated on my ministry. Of course, at the time, I was still funding. My ministry description was also a lot different.
Since then, I have occasionally used this blog to talk about my ministry. More often, I use it to sort out my thoughts, give book reviews, or just generally angst about things.
So, to keep with the spirit of what I set out to do, in the full knowledge that most of my ministry involves me sitting at a computer manipulating files, I'm going to start a weekly review of ministry-type things. I may, on occasion, address a specific ministry thing on another day. But, Lord willing and the creek don't rise, I will do a Weekly Wrap-Up every Friday, telling you what I worked on in a given week. I'm counting on you to remind me of this next Friday. (And maybe come up with a better name for it.)
Train & Multiply
This was actually a fairly busy week for me. I've been working on the Japanese translation of Train & Multiply, whilst learning the ins and outs of the process. On Wednesday, I learned how to transfer new text from what we call a transfile (translation file) into the InDesign booklet file. This part is actually done pretty quickly. We run a script, Bob's your uncle, everything that the translator changed is now inserted into its proper space in the master file.
Of course, text comes in all shapes and sizes. So my next job was a) to make sure everything that should have transferred did, and b) to make sure there's enough space for all of that text. For example, here's a sentence in English:
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Here's the same sentence in Hindi (another language we're working on):
तेज, भूरी लोमडी आलसी कुत्ते के उपर कूद गई।
As you can see, character spacing changes from one language to another. So what fit in a space before may not when you change the language. I have to check the files to make sure we don't have overset text. And I have to do this in 34 booklets (just level one for Japanese) with varying page numbers.
I also keep up correspondence with people interested in using T&M. Every week, we have between 5 and 20 requests for sample material or training. The sample material is easy - they can download it off the website. Training is a little harder to coordinate. We will have two training events in the U.S. this year, but not everyone can make it to Greenwood, Indiana. One individual needs training in Australia and Myanmar, so I'm trying to figure out the logistics, who will be in the area, that sort of thing.
I also keep up the T&M Facebook page. It can be a little tough finding material to post. Once people get the materials, we don't often hear from them very often. That's another things we're working to change.
Finally, we're trying to organize our files. We use Google docs, a website called Trello, and our own shared drive. We don't want to get into the middle of 27 new language projects and realize we have no idea where all of the files are. I like Trello - it's a good organizational tool. But it can be difficult to keep track of the thousands of files we end up with for each individual language project.
Chapel
Every week, we have chapel on Tuesdays and Thursdays, except for the first week of the month when we do a half day of prayer on Wednesday. CROSS-training started again this week, so we've been hearing from our trainees in chapel. I always like hearing their stories. There's a lot more diversity than you might expect from a small midwestern mission agency.
This week, we heard from EunJin and KyoungMin, a Korean couple serving at HQ for a few months. They serve as liasons to the Korea Evangelical Holiness Church, which OMS helped found 109 years ago, and the Korean Evangelical Church of America, which branched from the KEHC and is headquartered in California. (Fun fact: if you encounter a denomination overseas that ends in EHC, it was probably started by the KEHC.) We also heard from Michelle, a Brit going to Mozambique; Heather, who works in HR/Mobi; and Lora, who joined because she married the OMS Kids director.
Other Projects
Every so often, someone will pop into my office to ask me to work on something with or for them. This week, that person has been Foster, and the project was the art installation in the lobby. He wanted to do something different instead of the normal lobby stuff, so he took apart the tree he made for Christmas (probably on my Facebook somewhere) and made art. I've been helping him fill in some missing pieces.
Here's how it started:
Bonus
Occasionally, I need to do something that engages a different part of my brain. Or I just need to walk. This week, my distraction was found upstairs in the Development department. Dynamic Women in Missions created a Scrabble board, so Sarah and I took a few minutes to play a game. Of sorts. We don't actually play. We just pick out letters and make words. Like Bananagrams, I guess. This was one of our better efforts:
Since then, I have occasionally used this blog to talk about my ministry. More often, I use it to sort out my thoughts, give book reviews, or just generally angst about things.
So, to keep with the spirit of what I set out to do, in the full knowledge that most of my ministry involves me sitting at a computer manipulating files, I'm going to start a weekly review of ministry-type things. I may, on occasion, address a specific ministry thing on another day. But, Lord willing and the creek don't rise, I will do a Weekly Wrap-Up every Friday, telling you what I worked on in a given week. I'm counting on you to remind me of this next Friday. (And maybe come up with a better name for it.)
Train & Multiply
This was actually a fairly busy week for me. I've been working on the Japanese translation of Train & Multiply, whilst learning the ins and outs of the process. On Wednesday, I learned how to transfer new text from what we call a transfile (translation file) into the InDesign booklet file. This part is actually done pretty quickly. We run a script, Bob's your uncle, everything that the translator changed is now inserted into its proper space in the master file.
Of course, text comes in all shapes and sizes. So my next job was a) to make sure everything that should have transferred did, and b) to make sure there's enough space for all of that text. For example, here's a sentence in English:
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Here's the same sentence in Hindi (another language we're working on):
तेज, भूरी लोमडी आलसी कुत्ते के उपर कूद गई।
As you can see, character spacing changes from one language to another. So what fit in a space before may not when you change the language. I have to check the files to make sure we don't have overset text. And I have to do this in 34 booklets (just level one for Japanese) with varying page numbers.
I also keep up correspondence with people interested in using T&M. Every week, we have between 5 and 20 requests for sample material or training. The sample material is easy - they can download it off the website. Training is a little harder to coordinate. We will have two training events in the U.S. this year, but not everyone can make it to Greenwood, Indiana. One individual needs training in Australia and Myanmar, so I'm trying to figure out the logistics, who will be in the area, that sort of thing.
I also keep up the T&M Facebook page. It can be a little tough finding material to post. Once people get the materials, we don't often hear from them very often. That's another things we're working to change.
Finally, we're trying to organize our files. We use Google docs, a website called Trello, and our own shared drive. We don't want to get into the middle of 27 new language projects and realize we have no idea where all of the files are. I like Trello - it's a good organizational tool. But it can be difficult to keep track of the thousands of files we end up with for each individual language project.
Chapel
Every week, we have chapel on Tuesdays and Thursdays, except for the first week of the month when we do a half day of prayer on Wednesday. CROSS-training started again this week, so we've been hearing from our trainees in chapel. I always like hearing their stories. There's a lot more diversity than you might expect from a small midwestern mission agency.
This week, we heard from EunJin and KyoungMin, a Korean couple serving at HQ for a few months. They serve as liasons to the Korea Evangelical Holiness Church, which OMS helped found 109 years ago, and the Korean Evangelical Church of America, which branched from the KEHC and is headquartered in California. (Fun fact: if you encounter a denomination overseas that ends in EHC, it was probably started by the KEHC.) We also heard from Michelle, a Brit going to Mozambique; Heather, who works in HR/Mobi; and Lora, who joined because she married the OMS Kids director.
Other Projects
Every so often, someone will pop into my office to ask me to work on something with or for them. This week, that person has been Foster, and the project was the art installation in the lobby. He wanted to do something different instead of the normal lobby stuff, so he took apart the tree he made for Christmas (probably on my Facebook somewhere) and made art. I've been helping him fill in some missing pieces.
Here's how it started:
Last week, we put up the word "Illuminate" with LED lights underneath. This week, we filled in the shapes with the purple.
Today, we put the verse on the window.
All of this serves as an advertisement/reminder about the International Conference this summer in Marion, Indiana, an event to which you are all invited and to which you should all come.
Bonus
Occasionally, I need to do something that engages a different part of my brain. Or I just need to walk. This week, my distraction was found upstairs in the Development department. Dynamic Women in Missions created a Scrabble board, so Sarah and I took a few minutes to play a game. Of sorts. We don't actually play. We just pick out letters and make words. Like Bananagrams, I guess. This was one of our better efforts:
I hope you enjoyed that snippet of my week! See you on the flip side...
I did enjoy it. I learned some things. And I do hope you remember next Friday because I most likely won't remember to remind you!
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