The Weekly Wrap-Up: July 25-29, 2022

Alas, these halcyon days of Summer are winding to a close. The season of warmth and sunshine always feels too short, but we must do our best to enjoy it while it lasts. Sure, I may sweat a bit more, but I find it far superior to howling wind and freezing temperatures. 

It has been a quiet week around here, both in the lack of people and in the lack of work. I've been keeping busy with some smaller projects and things that sometimes get neglected, but do keep praying for our translators and the new projects that we're hoping to start soon. 

My primary focus has been on French this week as I updated the Camel Method manual. It's something we use with our M cousins as a bridge. 

Otherwise, the secret project has been progressing, and our safety team is chatting about future needs. I'm pleased with how things are going. 

Stay cool. Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: July 18-22, 2022

There was a shooting in Greenwood on Sunday. A young man opened fire on the food court, killing three people and wounding two, before he himself was shot and killed by another young man. The first young man had been planning his heinous deed for some time. The second young man had just planned on a nice night out with his girlfriend. 

I've been thinking about what happened off and on all week. Understandably so, I guess. I was just at that mall last Friday night. It's a nice spot to walk when it's raining, and of course, do a little shopping from time to time. We sometimes eat lunch in that food court. Because this is the world we live in, it usually crosses my mind at least once when I'm in there that it's actually a great target for bad people. But then to know that the murderer lived just down and across the street from me... that he could have blown up and burned down his apartment building. When I do feel anything (because this world has numbed me), it's just profound sadness. I'm sad that people died for incredibly stupid reasons. I'm sad that a young man had to fire his weapon and kill another young man in defense of others. And I'm sad that the murderer felt there were no other options in life but to inflict misery upon others. I wish I or someone else had met him before and offered him the hope of Jesus. I'm sad that there are others out there who will never be told and will spend their lives in torment. 

Come quickly, Lord. Or help us work faster.

Obviously, our work does not end. And I, at least, have felt a new sense of urgency. Unfortunately, I can't do much until translators send in work. So, this week has been spent on the special project. But it is done! Mostly. I shall reveal all in due time, but suffice to say I'm quite proud of it. And I think it will be well received. 

Sarah, Lydia, and I took Thursday afternoon off to go to the county fair. It was partly as a reward to ourselves for a long summer of hard work, partly an excuse to see some sunshine, and partly in defiance of villainy. We had a lovely time.

Do keep yourselves safe this weekend and always. Pray for this world. Check in on your friends and neighbors. Preach peace.

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: July 11-15, 2022

I was surprisingly busy this week. I mean, I always have stuff to do, but this week was a little more random in the tasks than usual.

All week, I have been wrestling with a spreadsheet. I'm decent with Excel, but this thing was not cooperating when it came to formulas. Maybe I had too many, I don't know. So I created a bunch of workarounds, but they are pretty annoying, and I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who knows (mostly) how I did it. But this particular project will be done in August, so I won't have to deal with it for much longer. 

I have also continued my search through photos and started some research for the Super Secret Project. I'm realizing just how terrible my file system actually is. It made sense at the time. The problem is that 'at the time' refers to every instance of me creating a new file. Plus, it has transferred across multiple computers, and each computer had a slightly different naming system. I could probably try to create something better with actual rules and move all of my files into the appropriate folders and never wonder again where something specific resides, but that would take so much time and tedium. I want one of those computers like in "Minority Report" or "Iron Man" with the holographic interface that lets me see everything I have at one time so I can move lots of things at one time. 

Alas.

Our normal tech guy is on vacation this week and next, so I'm running chapel. If nothing else, it always reveals just how little I know about audio/visual stuff. But I guess it went okay, and I did actually put some effort into making sure it would go okay. So there's that.

I think I've talked about booklet 064 on here before. I probably even said it was done and ready to be published. 

I was mistaken.

We had a few more changes to make to it, which meant I had to retag some of the paragraphs. Took me a hot minute to do that and then get it off to Eliana, who is working on updating templates. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say we're not changing anything else in it for a while. I'm probably going to eat those words within the month.

I think part of what made this week seem so crazy was all the stuff I did in the evenings. We had a work picnic on Tuesday night, at which I played (and lost) frisbee golf. On Wednesday, I hung out at Costco with some friends. We had to wait out a downpour. On Thursday, I had a doctor's appointment that ended up being quite painful, so I took off the last hour of work and went to hang out with some cats. 

So yeah, that's my week. I hope yours has been profitable in some way and that you get the rest you need this weekend.

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: July 5-8, 2022

Is it that time again already? Short weeks tend to give you that feeling, I guess. I'd say I've slept since last week, but the neighbors have been setting off fireworks all week. Not the neighbors at OMS. I'm dog sitting this week, and I think at least five of the houses nearby have stock in fireworks companies. Fortunately, the dog doesn't mind them too much, but they do tend to disrupt the sleep.

It has been another quiet week at work. I finished a group of French booklets. I think I've mentioned before, it has been an interesting project. We started it with European French in mind and then switched part way through to African French and art. And because the African groups contain different booklets (to coincide with the VCP terms), we've had to do the French booklets in a weird order. So I'm working on group 9 even though group 11 has already been published. It makes my eyes cross when I look at the spreadsheet, but it only takes about ten minutes to figure it out. Honest.

Anyway, I finished up my prayer letter, which will be on its way to you shortly. We had the interns speak in chapel on Wednesday. We have five this summer, but one is in Hungary and one was ill. (I'm pretty sure they are all in college still, which brings the average age of employees in this building down quite a bit.) So naturally, this was the perfect time to interview the Gen Zers about their generation's view on missions and what they want from the Church. They had some interesting thoughts. One thing I don't want to see, though, is the Church watering itself down to accommodate people's wants or feelings. I think we've done too much of that already. People are always going to have ideas about what the Church "should" be. But the only opinion I'm interested in is what Jesus said the Church should be. Not that I think we're really achieving that, either. But it is definitely what we should be striving toward.

The rest of the week was meetings and emails and going through old photos. Sarah and I are working on a secret project. Super fun stuff. 

That's about it for the week. I'll try to make next week more exciting. (That's a lie. Too much excitement gives me hives.) I hope you have a fantastic weekend.

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: June 27 - July 1, 2022

This is going to be short and sweet, because, TBH, I kinda forgot I needed to write something this week. We're all still recovering from all the people, and in some cases, that's literal. Lots of COVID cases, though fortunately not me. But it canceled one of my events this week. 

I finished going through production logs this week, started a French project, and threw up my hands in frustration when the power was out for half a day. You start to realize just how much of your life depends on electricity. I should probably do something about that. 

Anyway, short week next week. I'll try to be a little more verbose, though. 

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: June 20-24, 2022

It is a beautiful day in the United States of America. Blue skies, singing birds, fewer babies being murdered... Indeed, a beautiful day. 

It's been another week of people around here. Both the Global and U.S. Boards met this week, and we also had the installation of the new president on Wednesday. I was a little more involved in things than I was last week, but we'll get to that.

In honor of Father's Day, I led team devotions on Genesis 22 Monday. You know, the one where God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. It's an interesting passage. 

Sarah and I worked on a project we're rolling out next week. That makes it sound more impressive than it actually is, but I'm trying to be annoying and mysterious. 

I've been going through old production logs for our projects this week. Yes, we keep a log of everything we find in a booklet that we needed to change or might be an issue in other booklets. One of my team is working on new templates for us to use, fixing previous issues. It's interesting going through the logs and seeing what is common to languages and what isn't. Glyph languages tend to bring up certain issues that we don't see in Latin languages, for example. 

Anyway, when I wasn't doing that, I was working on my next prayer letter. I waited a little longer than I normally would because I knew big things were coming this month. So that should be in the mail in the next couple of weeks. 

I also had a big meeting this week with some friends from South Asia. It looks like we'll be starting two new language projects stemming from that meeting, which is super exciting! I'm not sure yet if I can tell you what those languages are as there could be some security issues. So let's just say our cousins will be heavily involved and leave it at that.

So, the big thing this week was the installation of Jeffry Max Edwards as the 11th President of One Mission Society. Jeff will be the third president I've served under. I don't know a lot about him other than  that he and his wife Laura served in Brazil for many years and returned to serve at HQ a few years ago. It's a critical junction in the history of OMS, I think. We're dealing with the same things everyone else is - high inflation, fewer donors, more restrictions on evangelism, social pressure, etc. I know everyone here will appreciate your prayers for the future of ministry here and elsewhere. 

I watched the service from on high as I helped with streaming and video.
(Also, don't the flags look great? I chose which ones were displayed and helped arrange them.)

Good friends.

The new president with his family.

I think this will be another recovery weekend for me. There have been lots of early mornings and late nights this week. Sleep sounds lovely. I hope you get everything you need out of this weekend, too.

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: June 13-17, 2022

What up, friends?

I feel like I say this a lot, but this has been an incredibly tiring week. 

People Month is upon us once again. This week is Missionary Council. That's the field leaders and regional hub people setting the course for the future ministry of OMS. I don't actually have anything to do with the meetings. But there are a bunch of people who aren't normally here who have a limited amount of time to talk to people and get stuff done. Plus they walk through the halls at random times. It's just a lot when you're used to a fairly quiet environment.

Next week will be more of the same, although it's Board meetings, not MC. They don't usually wander as much. I still have to dress up, though. 

I did manage to get two French volumes done this week, though. Those are always fun. Definitely more colorful than our regular black and white booklets.

I also got to sing in chapel this week. We learned a new song by Kari Jobe. Now I can't get it out of my head. 

And it's flag time again. Many moons ago, I foolishly agreed to head up the flag ceremony at one of our conferences. I have never seen so many people argue over which flags should be displayed on a stage. But next week is the installation of our new president, so flags were deemed an appropriate inclusion. So I helped figure out which flags we had, which flags we needed to order, and which flags might be politically problematic at the moment. I HAVE OPINIONS ABOUT THESE THINGS! Why put me in that position if you don't want my (very rational) opinions?

Anyway. They get what they get. I can justify all of my choices, and if they don't like the choice or the justification, they can change the stuff. No skin off my nose.

I'm going to be doing a lot of BTS stuff for a while. (Behind the scenes - not the band) We're taking the opportunity while we have a slight lull in production to update some of our processes. I've been trawling our production logs to see what common issues we've had so that they can be corrected for the future. This will hopefully save us time in the future. It should also give us cleaner files. 

I can't say it's the most exciting stuff. But it is necessary. And I don't mind having a little less excitement right now. 

Be kind to yourself.

Bye!