The Weekly Wrap-Up: June 18-22, 2018

So I'm actually writing this from the front desk of OMS today. I usually work on this off and on from my desk downstairs, but they needed someone to cover reception for a couple of hours, so here I am. It's been fairly quiet, and I write that knowing that I'm probably about to get fifty calls in a row now. Tempting fate and all that jazz.

I finished another group of Hakha Chin this week, including the booklet I affectionately refer to as "The One Where We Commit Murder." No joke, the booklet is a narrative, and in the course of things, we actually kill the evangelist. I can still remember the first time I read it, thinking, Is this really going where I think it's going? Oh. Wow. Yep. Dead guy.

Not that we show the dead guy. But it was a little more frank about things than we usually are. Fact is, missionaries die sometimes. It's not pretty. There are the ones you hear about because their story was especially dramatic or inspiring. But there are a bunch more who you will never know about until you get to heaven. People who labored in Africa or darkest Peru and got malaria after six months or got bit by some weird animal - I sound like I'm playing Oregon Trail now. Point is, I was impressed that we actually went there in this booklet, but it still catches me off guard every time I work on it.

The other booklets were much less traumatic, unless you count their formatting, but how many times can I really complain about how we didn't allow enough white space for translation? I'm bored, you're bored, so let's just assume that's always the case with every booklet and move on.

I'm thinking about my next letter and what I'm going to write. It'll have to wait until after conference, but I don't want it to be just about conference. I need to address my funding needs, and I'm trying to find a way to do it that isn't pleasehelpI'msuperpoor.

Although true, I'd like to present the many benefits of supporting a missionary. To that end, I'm asking for your help. As a supporter of said missionary, what are the benefits you experience? Are there any? Am I doing a terrible job of imparting these benefits to you? What can I do better? I'm very interested in your answers.

And if you can spare a few extra dollars over the next few months, it would be greatly appreciated. I've had several unexpected medical expenses on top of expected ones, plus my laptop died and needs to be replaced, and I had to decline several car repairs because I don't have the funds for upkeep. As always, prayers are also needed.

Okay, so I can't actually say there have been fifty calls. But there have been about a dozen, which is odd for Friday afternoon, and I should probably pay attention to my duties.

Bon chance, mes amis!





Oh! Pic of the week!

Look at these beautiful people! We all matched one day (sort of) and just had to take a photo. Aren't we precious?

Okay, I'm really done now. 

The Weekly Wrap-Up: June 11-15, 2018

So I think I mentioned that I was working on a new group of Hakha Chin booklets. I've seen all of these in English, but it's been a while, and I've never had to deal with the translation side of things.

And after I opened up the first booklet to start working on it, I was worried that I would take far longer to finish than normal. 55 errors in overset text, which told me that we hadn't left nearly enough white space in the English templates for a longer language. Things you only learn as you go.

I didn't want to add pages. I will if I must, but adding pages throws off the whole booklet, and if you ever have to train a large group of people in multiple languages, they should all find the same thing on page 15. Sometimes it's unavoidable if you want something readable. But if at all possible, I try to avoid it.

Fortunately, I finagled some extra space out of nowhere and got everything to fit. It won't all be on the same page, but it's only off by a paragraph or two instead of whole pages. I'll take it as a win.

Three of the five booklets were in similar condition, so it did take me a full week to finish the group. But I'm actually really proud of that because I was anticipating 7 days instead of 5.

Chapel on Tuesday was a recognition chapel, first for Andrea Fisher, who has been here five years and was introduced as our new director of mobilization, and then for Ken Westercamp, who has volunteered here for ten years.

On Thursday, we had our intern chapel. They led worship and then each gave a short-ish testimony about themselves and/or what brought them to OMS. I always like hearing them speak, but it's also always a reminder of just how old I am now.

One sad note for this week - we had to say goodbye to Madison. I don't think I've mentioned her much, but she's been a big part of ECC for a little less than a year. She joined us as an administrative assistant while she funded to go to Hungary full time. She's a huge help in keeping us organized, and together with Sarah, we kind of became the three amigas of ECC. We also bonded over origami and Broadway, and I shall miss her greatly. But I know she will do great things in Hungary, so throw her some love, yeah?

Ashleigh (not in ECC, but still lovely), me, Sarah, and Madison

We like walking around the building in the afternoons.

The Weekly Wrap-Up: June 4-8, 2018

For a lot of reasons, this has not been a great week. That's life, sometimes. It marches on whether you're prepared for it or not. All we can do is just ask for grace and continue taking those small steps forward with the realization that the weekend is right around the corner.

It's People Month. Yes, it's that time of year when the hordes descend on OMS for training, conference, meetings, and who knows what else people invented as an excuse to get more people in the building. This week was orientation, and we had a bigger group than we've had for a while. 17 prospective missionaries joined us this week to learn about all the things peculiar to our little mission. As usual, I joined them for the history of Christian missions session. It's always nice to get out of my office for a bit and see the new people - I often don't know we have new people until orientation or a staff briefing. That's one disadvantage to having a specialized job - not much interaction with newbies unless they'll be using Train & Multiply.

This was a prayer rally week, which meant we all gathered Wednesday morning to pray for various things. This one was a little different because we did some prayer walking. We did this last year, too. Various groups went all over the city - to the mayor's office, police station, fire houses, businesses, neighborhoods - and prayed for the services and people there. I, however, stayed back at the office and took my group through the building so we could pray over every office, cubicle, and room. We prayed for people, jobs, projects, future inhabitants, computers, safety - you name it, we covered it. There's no sense in covering everything else and leaving the home front undefended.

I've been working my way steadily through Hakha Chin. Finally, the four groups in the proof stage are done. Now, I get to work on the next four groups, taking them from formatting to creating proof files. This is the furthest we've gotten in any of the languages that I've done, so many of these will be booklets I've only ever seen in English. Should make for an interesting challenge!

I also found time this week to publish the second part of my Philippines series. Check it out if you get a chance.

As always, prayers are appreciated. Or come visit. It would be really nice to see a friendly face.

The Philippine Adventure: Tarlac Strikes Back

Let's talk about sequels for a moment. They have a bad rap. Almost everyone would agree that the second in a series is usually worse than the first. It's just the nature of things. And I am willing to concede that there are some real stinkers out there. But not all sequels have to be bad. There's Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The Dark Knight. Umm... I'm sure there are others.

Look, the point is not to talk about movies. It's to say that this is part two of my trip to the Philippines. (Yes, the one way back in February. What's your point?) And I'm sure this will be even more entertaining than the first part. Even if we are changing the format entirely.

I'm not going to go day by day. Honestly, I've forgotten what happened on which day, and my expression

 rarely

changes.

I know. I look thrilled to be there. I promise you, I was. But I have really bad resting face. I don't understand those people who just naturally smile all the time. I don't trust them. It's not normal. 

So every day, we would start with worship. 

Our worship leader was a well-known Filipino radio personality and pastor. He lost everything in the typhoon a few years ago. His journey to joining the team in the Philippines showed great faith. 

Technically, the photo in the middle is of the after lunch stretch time in which we did the weirdest rendition of "Father Abraham" I have ever heard. But the limbs moved, so mission accomplished, I guess. 

I think I mentioned that we had a lot of people representing many countries. And to pay homage to this, the worship leader would have someone read the verse of the day in their native language. Do you know how long it takes to read 5-6 verses in some of these languages? We had Korean, Hindi, Spanish, Tagalog, English, Haitian Creole, and one I can't mention. I felt it was a good representation of what I go through in trying to fit languages of varying length into the same four inches of space. 

Then we seminar-ed. The look of this varied with each session. First, since it was a Train & Multiply workshop, we had to make sure everyone had access to T&M Online. That was a chore and a half. 

And can I just say that hotspots are your friend? They are beautiful things. Especially when you need forty people to be online in the middle of the Philippines. 

Part of why we were there was to share some best practices in working with T&M. So we heard how it's being used in the Philippines, in Colombia, Spain, on short-term teams, among children, with deaf communities, in prison, and adapting it to a university context. There were some incredible stories of faithful people. It was worth the trip just to hear how God has taken this small tool and done amazing things in communities and individuals!

At one point, I actually got up front to talk about my job and why it takes so long to take the translated text and turn it into something usable. I think the message got across. People really don't realize just how much work goes into making these booklets great. 

We transitioned then to talk about some challenges and opportunities facing T&M. Based on a survey we took on the bus ride, we were divided into teams. My first team tackled the challenge of working with oral learners. T&M is a text-based program. I create the booklets, for crying out loud. I know that it's an obstacle with non-literate people and oral cultures. We looked into ways that T&M could be adapted to reach more people.

That's my team. And here's what I loved about it: we all came at T&M from a different context. Yes, there were four Americans. But all of us work in different areas. And every team member could think of several examples of situations in which T&M doesn't work as text. We had to think outside the box. And you can't present solutions to non-literate learning via text. 

So we got creative. And yeah, some of these solutions are quite a way down the road. But I would love to hear T&M as a radio drama. And hey, it was out of this discussion that "T&M: The Musical" was conceived. But more on that later. 

My second team was looking at the opportunities (and challenges) in using T&M in Europe. 

Europe is often seen as the place where Christianity went to die. One of the most poignant descriptions of Europe that I use often is that they have forgotten that they've forgotten God. And yes, there are tremendous barriers. But there are also amazing opportunities! Don't dismiss Europe as a mission field just because it's hard. That's like saying God is incapable of changing hearts. And if you believe that, then what's the point of anything?

On the last day, we divided into regions. There's no point talking about best practices if you don't have a plan to implement them in your ministry. So each region got some time to come up with action plans for the next few months. And don't assume that the office staff was exempt from this. We made our own action plan for how we were going to take what we'd learned and incorporate it into the future of T&M. 

(I need to take a moment to talk about a truly profound moment I had in the Philippines. I experienced a moment of zen, people. And it's all about a pen. Yes, a common writing instrument to you. But to me, it was a thing of beauty. It wrote beautifully, it was comfortable to hold - I could compose sonnets to this pen. I asked Lois and Dez to find me a dozen more. I think they thought I was joking because they never showed up. But I'm not joking, guys. I'm a huge nerd about this stuff. I'd show you a picture, but it's become my church pen, and I don't want to remove it from its spot in case I lose it. That is all.)

Okay, so let's switch gears for a minute. We've spent a lot of time indoors, and to be honest, that's how we spent most of our time in the Philippines. I didn't get many chances to explore. But I did find a bit of the flora and fauna to share with you.

These cats were just about the only animals I saw in the country. 

There were far more of these.

One reason we didn't spend a lot of time outside is that they were constantly burning the fields. I have no idea why. We mostly saw sugar cane. But I could definitely smell it in the air. Sometimes I could taste it. 

And of course, nights are beautiful. (I think there was a super moon while we were there. Very big and bright.)

We did go out one night to a coffee shop. It was really nice, though I don't like coffee. So I had some kind of flavored drink that reminded me of moscato (but without alcohol) and tasted amazing.

Which brings us to food. I didn't take a lot of food photos, because how many times can you really take pictures of rice? It's no joke that every meal in the Philippines is served with rice. Because it is. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. And the thing that got me was that the Filipinos didn't seem to want to put anything on the rice. There was stuff on the side. But the rice was on its own most of the time. Very odd for someone who usually accompanies rice with and. Rice and...

Feed me, Seymour!

Lots of pork. The adobo flakes were interesting, though not my favorite. Lots of soup, too. Reminded me of Poland, though no potatoes.

Those skewered pork things were amazing. I would eat them all day every day.

That is fish on my plate. I tried it because I told Deb that I would. She failed to convince me that fish is worth eating. That sweet drink in the glass, though? BRILLIANT.

These little fish showed up for breakfast a couple of times. If there's one thing I don't need upon waking, it's beady eyes staring up at me from my plate. 

Now let's talk about Sunday. It was a standout day because we didn't do any of the normal seminar stuff. They split us up in small groups so we could visit as many of the local churches as possible. And we finally got to ride in a Jeepney!

If you know anything about the Philippines, you probably know about Jeepneys. They are crowded, they are kitchsy, they are at times terrifying, and they are sadly disappearing in the Philippines. We were told that there's a movement to get rid of them. I can sort of understand. But they are also a lot of fun.

I went to the Faith Fellowship Tarlac church. This is the denominational church in Tarlac City. It was lovely. Great worship, great people, and plenty of fans on the white people.

Did I mention great food? We ate an excellent lunch after the service with the pastor's family. Let me tell you something - I may hate cooking (though I'm warming up to it), but I love cooking shows. Especially "Parts Unknown" with Anthony Bourdain. Because food is so tied up in the culture of a place. People eat things they know and can find easily. And I love seeing how that plays out all over the world. Something exotic to you or I is extremely commonplace somewhere. We used to host Russian students at our house. They were flabbergasted by casseroles.

Try everything once. You really never know.

We met up with everyone else at Pastor Mar's house, which also happens to be where a house church is meeting. Before that, though, we picked up another group that was having church under a tree. They also happened to have avocado ice cream. Now, I can't eat ice cream. Bad things happen. But it was just too intriguing. And I can honestly attest that avocado ice cream is worth just about any bad thing that could result. It is the stuff of legends. I'm drooling just remembering it.

Eventually, we all ended up at Mar's home. His wife has a roadside restaurant, too. 

And it is there that I encountered another great Filipino tradition.

Halo-halo.

Literally, mix-mix. As in, mix up whatever you have and stick it in ice cream. The picture above is someone else's halo-halo (pronounced hollow hollow) because as I mentioned before, I can't eat ice cream. So they made me a special batch without it. And I have to say, you really miss out when there's no ice cream in it. It's just crushed ice and coconut and corn and jellied fruit - nothing to hold it together.

We also had these. They reminded me of tamales since they are wrapped up, but it's more desserty. I was not a fan. I can't remember what is in them now. Oh, and there was also flan. Because why not?

I wish I could show you the evolution of this picture. We started out with a few. Then we added another. Then two more. Then we pulled Let in on her phone. It was hilarious.

And it apparently started a trend.

Like I said, there were a lot of people there. And somehow that became this:

Aww. Don't we look great?

After dessert, we split up again. Some people wanted to go back to the hotel. Some people wanted to go to the mall. Some people wanted to see an open air market.

I would normally do the market. But seeing as I hadn't exchanged any money and I was feeling peopled-out, I should have just gone back to the hotel and had a lie down. But no. I picked the mall.

It's huge. And it's crowded. I think there were at least five floors. Dozens of stores. And not mom and pop shops. High-end designer places. I had a hard time reconciling the mall with the church I'd been to that morning.

This is the thing about the Philippines that constantly perplexed me. Parts of it are incredibly modern. There are luxury stores, luxury hotels, a vast network of highways, beautiful buildings, the occasional park, and just really neat architecture. And then right next to it - not down the street or around the block - next door would be a shack or a street vendor with no shoes. Extreme luxury right next to extreme poverty. And there are no apologies or explanations. It just is. Like there's no reason to find it odd. I'm used to very segmented living. You have your nice neighborhoods, you have your slums, you have your mansions - none of which are found anywhere near each other. At least not where I'm from. The dichotomy of it kept throwing me for a loop.

Here's the thing that makes it all worth it, though. Wherever I go, there's one constant.

The people are incredible.

Whether you're meeting for the first time or you only spend time together in other countries, the people you encounter are the best part of any trip. They all have a unique perspective on life, and for a few brief (or not so brief) moments, you can connect in ways you never imagined. These are people I will never forget, and when we see each other again, whether in this life or in heaven, we will reminisce fondly about these experiences. 

Just a few more random moments to talk about. 

First, my hair does this in humidity. This was very early. Before it got even bigger. This was fascinating to the Filipinos. They have very flat, straight hair. Mine is neither of those. So I kept it down a couple of days to provide entertainment.

I'm not 100% certain of this next thing. But this might have been the day they were playing the Super Bowl. See, it was happening Monday morning for us. And we were very carefully instructed to not be watching it while we were in meetings. And I adhered to that. But I may have been tracking the score in real time. I look diligent, right? And I was. I was diligently tracking the plays as a team I don't care about beat the pants off a team I loathe. It was truly beautiful. (Oh hey! That's the pen. Isn't it pretty?)

Now, imagine this is a Marvel movie. The credits are rolling, but you know better than to leave because this is a Marvel movie, for crying out loud! There are always post-credits scenes. And it's time for me to talk about the thing that I've alluded to but never fully explained. 

So, I talked about the challenge of reaching oral learners, right? Well, for the trip, all the participants were connected on WhatsApp. It's a great tool, and it really helped us keep organized. But it did so much more than that. Because after our presentation, a little message went out across the wire. And I never pass up an opportunity like this.

I don't think anyone took it seriously at first. It's one of those things you laugh at and then move on. Except I can't move on. So I started writing lyrics. And then Dean came up with categories of entries in a talent contest. And it really just ballooned from there. So from Friday afternoon until Monday evening, we formed our own little underground groups. We rehearsed. We wrote and rewrote. We composed power point presentations. 

And then it was time. 

Pictures really don't do it justice. 

Which is why there is video. 

I can now present to you the exclusive playlist of entries in the world premier of T&M: The Musical. There are seven videos. I really hope you enjoy them. (There was dual translation for our Spanish speakers.)

Seriously. This is pure GOLD.

(Please don't share these outside your immediate sphere of influence.)

And that's pretty much it. I could only begin to tell you everything I experienced on this trip. If you want to know more or see more photos (I have hundreds), I'd be happy to to share.

We left Tarlac at 1:30 pm on February 6 Philippines time. That's 12:30 AM February 6 in Greenwood. 

Remember that. It's important. Because this is about to become...

...a THREEQUEL.