The Weekly Wrap-Up: May 23-27, 2016

This week I cried tears of frustration over a document I was editing.

Multiple times.

Sure, I could tell you about the other stuff I did. I could tell you about proofreading the Conference program. I could tell you about rearranging the office and moving furniture. I could tell you about killing the many-legged water bug hanging out in the corner. I could tell you about moving flags into my office from across the compound. I could tell you about the really great chapel on Thursday about the Homes 4 Haiti project. I could tell you about the red nose I wore into the office on Thursday because it was Red Nose Day.

But these were all temporary things. They took small amounts of time. 

Whereas the aforementioned document took no less than 75 percent of my time this week. Probably more. 

What was so difficult about it that I was moved to tears?

I'll tell you. 

Firstly, there were actually two documents. One was a short proposal document. The second was appendices to the first document. 

Secondly, the total number of pages was 115. 

Thirdly, the appendices were a compilation of documents, copied and pasted into one document without regard for formatting. This will be important later. 

Fourthly, the appendices were largely legal documents, filled with heretofores and shall nots and Signatories. I've heard enough horror stories about legal documents to know that a misplaced comma can be the difference between liable and not liable. So it required slow and careful perusal.

Fifthly, the documents made multiple references to one another. So I had to make sure all of the references were correct and pointing to the right page numbers. Page numbers that kept changing because...

Sixthly, seriously, the formatting was a beast. I've had enough experience with Word to know that the bullets and numbering feature can be a bit testy. But every time I changed something, something completely unrelated would happen. Whole paragraphs would go bold. Numbers would appear and then disappear. 

I pulled every trick I knew. Every back door, every hack, I Googled until my fingers bled. 

All to no avail. 

Also, it was due today. 

So I stayed late, did what I could, and emailed it back to its owner. 

But not before purging the bad juju from my body in the form of tears, punching things, and saying thesaurus-approved bad words. 

Needless to say, I really need this three-day weekend. 

Just don't be surprised if I spend the majority of it thinking about that document. 

The Weekly Wrap-Up: May 16-20, 2016

Not gonna lie - I almost forgot about you lovely people today.

Fridays are always weird. Sometimes they are super productive. Sometimes it's like swimming through molasses. I'd say today has been a mix of the two.

I'm having a hard time believing we're only in the middle of May. I realize it all goes quickly from here. But seriously, longest month ever, amirite?!

This week was all about two Cs: Conference and Comps.

I emailed a guy about our photo prop on Monday because I hadn't heard anything after ordering it two weeks ago. Turns out, he sent the proof to someone else. So I approved it, and voila! It arrived in the mail today. So one down.

I also emailed some people about the flag ceremony. Well, Sarah did. She knows them better. But I officially have four flag carriers. So that's progress. I'm freaking out a little. This is the very first thing people will see. The flags always signal the start of conference. I want it to be nice. I want it to be unmemorable.

So yeah. Conference. Have I mentioned that you should totally go? You might see me face plant into the flag of East Timor.

Just kidding. We don't have work in East Timor.

So, comps. I've been preparing spreadsheets comparing English Edition 3.0 to English Edition 4.0. We get questions sometimes from translators. What have you changed? How important is it that I retranslate everything I've already translated? With these files, we can show them exactly what has changed and let them decide if they really need to do a new translation. It's interesting to remember what we've done now that we're a few months out from it.

Spreadsheets are fun. Am I a nerd for saying so? Don't care. Excel makes me happy.

Although, I am a little annoyed that we're using Excel so much for mainly text-based documents. Granted, we have a good reason. Formulas still work. But it reminds me of those nightmare days when people would give me their papers to proof with weird formatting, and it turned out they'd written them entirely in Excel.

Word exists for a reason, people.

Of course, it also drove me nuts when people would use Word instead of Publisher or InDesign. Word= not great with photos.

Seriously.

All right, I think I've sufficiently established my nerd cred. On to greater things.

Did I mention that Hunter Smith was here on Thursday? He and his band are leading worship for the conference (another reason you should go). I will admit, I wasn't sure of him at first. But he seems like a very genuine individual, with a great heart for God. And he knows Peyton Manning. Apropos of nothing.

I'm super distracted by the thought of what to have for dinner. I'm not sure. Thoughts?

Judgy McJudgerson

I have been laboring under a delusion for nigh unto thirty years.

I'm not going to say I blame my parents. But it was their job to give me proper biblical instruction. So I blame them a little. I'm also going to blame my Old Testament professor.

It is in no way my fault.

... of course not.

What is this delusion?

For some reason, I had always assumed that the book of Judges told the story of how all of Israel was ruled by one judge at a time. And the Israelites kept screwing up when they died.

To be fair, this is the pattern of the majority of the Old Testament. But there's a phrase in Judges that I missed or lacked an understanding of its importance.

You ready for this?

"In those days, Israel had no king. Everyone did as they saw fit."

I'll explain why that's so important in a moment.

Seriously, though, I've read Judges before. Right? I must have. Maybe I just heard the stories of the most famous judges and ignored the rest of it. This may, in fact, be the first time I've read it as a whole.

Whatever.

I've come to one overarching conclusion.

Judges be crazy!

Like, seriously.

Let's run through the list of judges in this book. And a few stories that don't have a particular judge attached. I'm also going to list their highlights.

Othniel: Nephew of Caleb; captured Kiriath Sepher, Gaza, Ashkelon, Ekron; killed Cushan-Rishathaim, king of Aram; peace for 40 years; married his cousin after winning her by capturing Kiriath Sepher.

Ehud: Left-handed; stabbed Eglon, the Moabite king who was super fat, in the stomach; peace for 80 years.

Shamgar: Killed 600 Philistines with an oxgoad. What is an oxgoad, you ask?

 

Deborah: Woman; told Barak to fight Sisera; wrote a cool song; peace for 40 years.

Jael: Not a judge; total BA; also a woman; drove a tent peg into Sisera's head.

Gideon: Sneaky; methodical; probably an INTJ; had a cool dad; led 300 men to kill a ton of Midianites; screwed up later in life; had crap kids; peace for 40 years.

Abimelek and Jotham: Not judges; children of Gideon; one killed most of his brothers; the other made an epic speech and then ran away; Abi was killed by a woman.

Tola: Son of Dodo; led Israel 23 years.

Jair: Had 30 sons who rode 30 donkeys and lived in 30 towns; reminds me of the man from St. Ives; led Israel for 22 years.

Jephthah: Bastard child; led a gang; subdued Ammon; made a stupid vow; sacrificed his daughter as a burnt offering; the whole Shibboleth thing; killed people because they were mad he didn't invite them to kill other people; led Israel for 6 years.

Ibzan, Elon, Abdon: 7 years, 10 years, 8 years; more donkeys; lots of children.

Samson: Idiot; man; married a Philistine; killed a lion; killed 30 men; caught 300 foxes, set them on fire, and loosed them in Philistia; lost his wife; killed 1,000 men with a donkey's jawbone; trusted a woman; lost his hair; grew it back; killed more people at his death than during the 20 years he'd led Israel.

A donkey's jawbone for reference.

Micah: Random dude who wanted a personal priest; got his priest stolen; this is just a super weird story.

A Levite and His Concubine: No joke, that's how it's listed; may have actually been married; not a great marriage; she left him, he pursued her; there's a weird and oddly detailed interlude with her father; another oddly detailed interlude in a town square; he sends her out to be raped by a ton of guys; he cuts her up into a dozen pieces and sends her to the 12 tribes; pretty much led to the near complete destruction of the tribe of Benjamin.

Like, really? Just ... really? Look, I can understand why people freak out reading the Bible sometimes. This is just not acceptable behavior.

... which is kind of the point.

Let's go back to the beginning of the book of Judges. The Israelites have just spent 40 years in the wastelands. God has been with them every day, giving instruction on how to live when He's not physically present. Joshua carries on where Moses left off, conquering much of the land and giving the tribes a place to settle.

And after everyone who had been through the wars, wandered the desert, and followed Joshua died, their kids immediately forgot everything they had (presumably) been taught.

Well, most of them. See, this is where Judges gets confusing. Because it really just covers pockets of rebellion. Ephraim was stupid. Dan was stupid. Ephraim again. Benjamin. Over and over and over again.

And you get the sense that the author of Judges was just as flabbergasted as the rest of us. The beginning is fairly detailed. And then I think he (we don't actually know for sure who) realizes this is going to be a super long book if he goes into too much detail and just hits the highlights. Ruth helps us see a little of what the everyman was doing at this time. Pretty much whatever they thought the smart play was at the time.

But while some people followed God's commands, the vast majority did not. And the only explanation the author can give us is that there was no king in those days. No one to unite everyone under one banner, rally the troops, give instructions. Four times he reminds us of this. Twice in the story of Micah. Twice in the story of the Levite. After hearing those stories, I'd be looking for an explanation, too. (I also think he was a little afraid of strong women.)

Except the author was probably living during the reign of David. Maybe Saul. Decent kings who restored a little order. And he's forgetting a very important point. Physically present or not, Israel had a king.

God had united the people. He'd rescued them. He sent them out. He gave instructions. All they had to do was follow them.

And that precious, man-sized king of whom the author was so enamored? What happened during the years following Solomon's rule? Oh right. Israel went back to the same pattern they had followed during the time of the judges.

Clearly, having a human king made absolutely no difference. I could sum up most of the rest of the Old Testament the same way the author of Judges summed up his book.

"In those days, Israel had a king. Everyone still did as they saw fit."

Do not look to a political system to save you. Do not look to the government. Do not look to NGOs, corporations, private citizens, family, spouses, children, friends. Do not look to the church, even.

There is only one who can save.

Will you follow him?

The Weekly Wrap-Up: May 9-13, 2016

We're going to call this a half and half week.

As in, half boring, half crazy.

I've mentioned India kind of a lot lately. So you know it's important to get everything done two weeks ago. Naturally, I assumed we'd need to get the language volumes done as quickly as possible.

I got Hindi on Thursday.

Life happens, you know? It's all good.

Anyway, Hindi is now done. There were apparently big snafus with Tamil and Telugu. I have not yet gotten in the middle of those. Let's hope I don't have to.

So what did I do with the rest of my time?

I spent quite a bit of it on the app. I updated a lot of text, checked some new features, continued to have seemingly endless meetings, and, at one point, nearly broke it.

It's a rite of passage, apparently.

I also worked with Foster on spray painting air filters. It's a lot of fun.

How much fun, you ask?

That much fun.

That is such a great look for me.

Lemme tell you, I had blue spray paint up my nose. So y'all had better come to conference and appreciate the sacrifices I made for you to have an aesthetically pleasing environment.

That's going to be my thumbnail on Facebook, isn't it?

The Weekly Wrap-Up: May 2-6, 2016

Sorry about last week's update. I was feeling insecure. I keep forgetting that the primary person I write these for is me, if for no other reason than to have a record to draw from for my annual Christmas letter.

Moving on.

Train & Multiply

This was another busy week. We're really ramping things up, trying to get our ducks in a row for the India training. We essentially have to do the same materials in four languages, and it's never a simple process.

Early this week, I worked on tagging the handouts that will be given to 7,000 people. The tags allow us to put the translation in the correct space so that we don't have to reformat for every language. Once that was done, I went back to retagging the new Student Activity Guide.

Then I had to finalize the full volume that will be printed and bound in the coming weeks. There are five booklets, SAG instructions and activities, and handouts. It seems so simple; yet there's a shocking amount of detail that has to be worked out.

Conference

I ordered one of the photo props on Monday. I'm hoping it turns out really cool. I'm still working on one of the other photo stations - that's going less well.

We had a meeting on Wednesday to catch everyone up on how things are going. I think we're going to have a lot of really great things available to people this year. I would really encourage you to think about attending, even if it's only for one day. You will learn a lot about our president's vision to reach one billion people over the next ten years. You can register here: https://onemissionsociety.org/conference/.

Prayer Rally

A huge thing this week was our regular prayer rally on Wednesday. I was planning to attend like normal, and then I got a text at 7:45 that morning. "Any chance you could run prayer rally this morning :-) Ben is at the hospital and Lora and I are still out of town."

Jason normally runs the A/V, but since he was out of town, Ben was going to do it. However, his wife went into labor Wednesday morning, so he obviously couldn't do it.

I was very glad that most of the slides were already completed, but I did have to add quite a few for the speakers. I've run A/V before, but not usually for three hours, and not for something like prayer rally. Everyone was really cool about the change, and I think things went well. I'm glad I was available and knew what I was doing.

Other

I mentioned before that we're essentially doing two versions of Outreach now. I've been working on proofing the online version. It's double the pages, but still on the theme of outreach to Muslim. It's a great issue, and you can read it here: http://www.joomag.com/en/newsstand/oms-outreach-sep-dec-2015/0149935001441293200.

I took today as a funding day. I need to get a letter out and make some calls. It's great that OMS gives us the opportunity to take days periodically to work on funding. It's in their best interest, really. If we're not funded, we can't do our jobs.