The Weekly Wrap-Up: November 26-30, 2018

Been a while, hasn't it? I took a couple of weeks to do some deputation and to celebrate the holiday with family. I had some great conversations with people, saw a lot of folks I hadn't seen in a long time, and I successfully infiltrated three pink flamingos into my sister's house. All in all, job well done. I barely remembered my old routine when I came back to work on Monday.

Of course, it was a somber week for all of us at OMS. On Sunday, my friend and coworker lost her 5-year-old son Elijah in a car accident. We feel things deeply here when our family is affected, and there's this disconnect between mourning a loss and trying to go about our daily business. But we did our best to make sure ministry continued as much as possible.

I came back to three waiting projects. Our team in the Philippines has been translating the rest of booklets now that the first couple of groups are published, so we wanted to honor that work and get them back for proofing. As part of my new duties, I review the work of other team members, so I have been going through nine groups of booklets that Marie completed. I was hoping to do all of them this week, but I only made it through four with everything else going on.

We interviewed a new candidate for a position with T&M training on Wednesday. I've never been on an interview panel before, and I wanted to make sure I gave it due diligence. We've had this particular job posted for a couple of years now, so we're all eager to have someone take over the jobs we've either had to do in our spare time or let fall sadly by the wayside.

We're also getting closer and closer to the ECC Retreat! Sarah and I spent some time this week going over the schedule and making sure we have what we need. Next week will be crunch time for creating some devotional materials and finalizing our plans. I'm hopeful and praying that it will be a wonderful time of relaxation and fellowship for us as we get closer to Christmas.

This week has served as a reminder that life is never as long as we think it will be, and time is fleeting. I'm trying to reprioritize some things and put some other things to bed, which may mean a slight delay in getting cards out to everyone. I do apologize, and I'll do my best to make sure you know just how much I appreciate all of you.

We haven't done a Pic of the Week for a while, so here's a small corner of my office that has been decorated.

Today I'm thinking about my sister Jill. She would have been 37 this year. I wonder sometimes what she would have been like. Would we have gotten along? Would she have helped me hide flamingoes around Jennifer's house? Would she have been a bridge in communication with Julie? I don't know. She died less than an hour after she was born.

Today I'm thinking about Travis. I don't know how old he would be. I was friends with his sister. She and I had a math class together, and we bonded over how much we disliked it. My dad drove me to the viewing. I hugged his sister for what felt like hours. I cried silently on the way home. I don't remember talking to her much after that. He was probably 11 or 12 when he died.

Today I'm thinking about Josh Linthicum. He would have been 27. I knew him from church. He was shy, but when he smiled, you could tell he was a little mischievous. I was in Poland when I heard. Most of the teens were there on a mission trip. I held them as they mourned, and then did it again when we were back in Poland four years later on the anniversary. He died when he was 15.

Today I'm thinking about Joshua. He would have been 8 this year. I had just started at OMS. I followed his fight to live through the words of his mother. I followed the pettiness and vile, hateful words other people wrote after he died. I felt helpless through all of it. He was 51 days old when he died.

Today I'm thinking about Oliver. He would be a little over a year old. I didn't know his parents well, but I knew people who knew them. I knew there was a risk. I sighed in relief when he was born. I sighed in grief when he died unexpectedly shortly thereafter.

Today I'm thinking about Elijah. He was a bright, inquisitive boy. He was full of energy when I saw him at his mother's (my coworker's) baptism this summer. I can't reconcile that image with the knowledge that he was only 5 when he died yesterday.

I don't know why children die. I know how. I get the science of it. I know the facts. But I don't know why. And rarely do I know what to do. It's not really about me, of course. But I'm really the only one I have control of at any given moment. And my instinct, every time, is to run away. I tend to deal with things by not dealing with them.

Healthy, I know.

But I can also pray. I can pray for my parents, who lost a daughter. I can pray for Travis' parents, who lost a son, and his sister, who lost a brother. I can pray for Ralph and Tanya and Shane and Jill and Will and Joylily, whose grief doesn't really fade with the passing of time but becomes something undefinable. And I can pray for Taylor, who woke up this morning as a mother without a son.

Why? God alone knows. And I have to figure out how to be okay with that.

The Weekly Wrap-Up: November 5-9, 2018

I'm going to make a claim here that you're not going to believe. It's fine if you don't believe it. I know the truth of it.

I experienced a miracle this week.

On Monday, I was all set to publish the first group of Chinese booklets (traditional Chinese, not simplified. Yes, there is a difference, and no, I don't know what it is.)

I downloaded the necessary files, having been assured that they were ready. I believed in those assurances, but opened the booklets up for one last look anyway, as is right and proper.

Shockingly, they were not ready. In fact, a whole section of proofs had not been entered. I had to re-run all 7 books, check them all again, fix some problem glyphs manually, and then set them up again for publishing.

It took me until Thursday to do all of this.

"But Jessica," you say, "why is this a problem? You have all of next week to publish these files."

I won't be here next week. Nor will I be here the following week. I'm not waiting two weeks to publish Chinese.

Here's the miracle: I published 7 booklets and 17 sub-booklets (because 'Good News' and 'Follow the Lord Jesus Christ' have to be divided into individual studies) into full page AND booklet format PDFs. And I did it in one and one-half days.

I'm going to bed now.

Happy Thanksgiving.

The Weekly Wrap-Up: October 29 - November 2, 2018

Do you ever think about how much jargon you use in your job or hobby or regular life? If Average Joe were to join you in your daily routine, how much would he understand and how much would be lost?

We spent a lot of time discussing this when we did the English revision of T&M. There was so much jargon and Christianese and stuff we thought everyone would just automatically know. Except they don't.

(It's like when Campus Crusade for Christ changed their name to Cru because it made sense because everyone they knew called it that. Except everyone they knew was in Campus Crusade and used Cru as shorthand. Everyone outside the organization knew it as Campus Crusade for Christ. And five years later, we still clarify what we mean when we call them Cru. Not that I'm calling them out or anything. Except I totally am. Sorry, guys.)

Anyway, there are just some words and phrases you use regularly that someone new coming in wouldn't immediately understand. Or they would understand the individual words but not why you used them in that particular combination.

Why am I wittering on about this? Because in the training manual we created to help people know how to produce Train & Multiply, I found this sentence:

• Create PDF MA4 files paginated as A4 spreads with spinal binding:

Ugh. Do I know what it means? Yes. Did it take me awhile to figure out what it means? Also yes. There are easier ways of saying this.

Anyway, four groups of Portuguese are now published. I spent Monday splitting booklets 2 and 7, which is labor intensive, but fairly simple in the end. Then I spent Wednesday and Thursday actually outputting PDF files and securing them and making them available to the public.

What was I doing Tuesday, you ask? It was our Fall Work Day on campus, which means we all do stuff we don't normally do to make our property look nice and get us ready for colder weather. I cleaned the MK Center (missionary kids - jargon again!) with Taylor and Sarah. It needed a good scrub, so we did what we could. If I had children, I would be much more likely to allow them to roam the MK Center now than I would have before Tuesday. It just seems to attract creepy crawlies and dust.

And that's about it for the week. Look at me, posting on time and everything. Go team!