The Weekly Wrap-Up: December 17-21, 2018

So you all know that the first five books of the Bible are known as the Pentateuch or alternately as the books of Moses. In Estonian, the language I worked on this week, they actually call Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy First Moses, Second Moses, Third Moses, Fourth Moses, and Fifth Moses. Which is awesome all on its own. But it also leads to many cases of sentences referring to "_ Moosese." This always makes me laugh because it inevitably leads my brain to picturing whatever number of moose lounging around or pastoring churches.

What can I say? It's the little things.

That was just one project this week - reviewing work again. But then, today of all days, my last day in the office in the year of our Lord 2018, someone decided we needed to publish 5 groups of Estonian. No problem, it's a lot of work, but shouldn't be an issue if all the files are ready to go.

Except they aren't.

Of course they aren't.

I can't really blame anyone in particular. This project has been causing us problems for a while now. It was something of a pilot fish for us. Our translator is very reliable and technologically savvy, so we've been testing some new methods on this project. Some worked. Some haven't. But that means it has been through more stages than normal. It has also already been Beta published twice. I'm really hoping this will be the last time.

Anyway, Group 01 still had some missing translations, and text that should have been deleted hadn't been. Groups 02-03 also had missing translation and incorrect styles. Groups 04-05 are great because I just finished reviewing them. My files are impeccable.

😁

I still have to check everything. So today, I was able to finish running all scripts on Group 01, and I even split booklets 2 and 7. (I'll probably use this as a reference so I know what I did and didn't do, which is why I'm including more detail and technical jargon than I normally would.) They should actually be ready to publish when I get back.

Next year.

Indeed, this is likely the last entry for 2018, unless I get the sudden urge to post some maudlin epic next week. Which, it is me, so that's not outside the realm of possibility.

Instead of a Pic of the Week, I'm going to leave you with a quick video tutorial on splitting booklets. I hope you find it interesting. (And I hope it works.)

The Weekly Wrap-Up: December 10-14, 2018

My brain is a sieve. It's legitimately starting to worry me. It's a good thing I made my December List of Doom because otherwise, I'm not sure anything would get done. The problem is I can't remember if I added everything to the list.

Oy vey.

This week was an odd one. I was trying to accomplish several things on my list and trying to figure out the priority for translation projects. Sometimes it has more to do with how active the translators are than anything else. To that end, one of our newest projects is Romanian. They aren't even formally using Train & Multiply yet, but the team is so excited about it that they've actually translated 11/12 groups already. Of course we're going to reward that enthusiasm by getting production started as quickly as possible. But I'm still having to review a lot of Marie's work, so we're down a production specialist. Fortunately, her work is pretty decent - just a few details to keep an eye on. We're getting there, but I couldn't begin to tell you when I'll actually take over as team leader. The end of the year is a terrible time for starting new things.

I don't know if you've noticed this about me, but I tend to hyper-fixate on things. It's a little bit like having an addicted personality. I get extremely focused on something and then have to research the heck out of it before I can move on. Some things are simple to get rid of - ask my two days of hyper-fixating on Scott Foley in Scandal. Conclusion: the show is dumb and not worth my time. (The MCU, however, doesn't seem to be going away any time soon.)

Anyway, this week's hyper-fixation was stamps. Specifically, the stamps I ordered at the beginning of December so they'd be here when I finished my Christmas cards. Which they weren't. I kid you not, I was tracking those babies every single day from their origin in Missouri, of all places, until they finally arrived in my mail box. The irony of the U.S. Postal Service delivering stamps late is not lost on me.

This week was budget meetings for ECC. We always do those the week after the retreat - more on that later. I, thank the Lord, did not have attend the meetings. But that did mean I was pretty much on my own for the week. Nice and quiet. I did get lunch out of it on Friday. Not bad.

What else? There was a baby shower on Thursday for one of our Mobi folks. I won a prize for guessing 8/9 items in the diaper bag correctly. I didn't think it was that difficult - what would you normally put in a diaper bag, after all? But apparently it was. Whatever. I'm awesome.

We're back on regular chapels for the moment. Did I talk about stand-up prayer times? We were trying out a new format this fall where we didn't do chapel on Tuesday or Thursday. Instead, we met for 15 minutes up in the lobby to have prayer time for some current needs. It's quite different, and there are parts I like and some things I don't. But it's nice that we do something.

Oh, and I did something this week that I haven't done for a long time - a radio ad! We've aired a lot of repeats this year because we've all been so busy. But it was nice to get back in the studio and record something new for the gifting emphasis this year. I don't actually know where it's hosted yet, but I'll try to remember the link if I find out.

I think that's about it for the work week. On to the retreat. This can count as our Pic of the Week.

So our theme was "...and the soul felt its worth." Sarah and I planned most of it (with Tarah before she left). Oddly enough, there's not a lot of resting for the people in charge even when that's a core goal of the retreat. But it was still good. We started last Friday. Sarah and I went up early to get last minute supplies and do some decorating.

We would have team discussion a couple times a day. Eric, Tarah's husband, led worship for us. We had the retreat at Shunem House up in Noblesville. I highly recommend it. It's a guest house of sorts for missionaries and pastors. I wrote a couple of devotionals for the team time, and we did a lot of personal reflection. What does it mean to save a soul? Can we adequately care for other souls when we don't care for our own?

We also had some team activities. This was by far my favorite.

We made them put together gingerbread houses and decorate them. But only one member of the team could use their hands at a time. That person had to be blindfolded. The others had to talk them through the process. It was hilarious to see, but we actually ended up with some decent houses.

We wanted to do something different, so on Saturday night, we had everyone dress up for dinner. We went to Houlihan's, which was a lot of fun. After dinner, we opened presents. 

We've done the White Elephant routine a few times, but it kinds drives me nuts. We always end up with the same things or a bunch of crap. So I instituted the Secret Santa rule, and I send out a survey so people can be specific about the kinds of things they like. We also did a contest this year on the best-wrapped gift. Jim won with his Snowman gift for Tarah. 

I thought it was very cute. 

I had Shane this year. See, it's a secret for everyone else but me. I have a system that makes things random, but in case I need to tweak it, I can. But no tweaking necessary this year. 

I was quite pleased with my penguin themed gift. I think Shane liked it, too. I was also pleased with the gift I received. I think everyone had a good time and appreciated the personal touches. 

So last year, I got a little bit sadistic with some puzzles - for a good reason, not just because it's me. This year, we wanted to be a bit nicer about it, so we put out two puzzles that people could work on throughout the weekend. But we have some very motivated people when it comes to puzzles. This was the mad scramble to finish them before we had to leave the house. 

All in all, I think it went well. We'll have to wait for the evaluations. 

The Weekly Wrap-Up: December 3-7, 2018

You've probably heard me mention Sam a few times on here. She's a good friend and the director of Dynamic Women in Missions. Our brains seem to work on a similar wavelength. She frequently has me write up little blurbs for their publications. But it works better in person, when she can talk at me and I can distill the intent into a few compelling sentences. That was fine when she was upstairs. But now she's in another building. I must now brave the snowy expanse when she calls for aid. It's like I'm Rohan and she's Gondor and the beacons are a telephone.

It's really cold outside, guys.

Hey! How's it going? Yes, we are early. By the time I would normally post this, I'm hoping I'll be welcoming our retreat guests for the weekend. I am 95% sure we're ready for this weekend. I think it's going to be good. But it has definitely been a struggle getting to this point. Lots and lots of preparation and planning and buying and writing and calling and practicing and finding out about extra costs. All that fun stuff. But it has the makings of a really good event. Please pray for the 13 participants. Our theme is "...and the soul felt its worth." We're really hoping that they recognize their worth in Christ and start taking care of themselves a little more.

We had our regular prayer rally on Wednesday. It was a nice time to pray for eight of our OMS ministries, including a new one to the retirees. I'm really happy we do this. I'd hate for any missionary to feel tossed aside after they've given most of their lives in service here. We also had a chance to pray for three of the Billion.Global signatories. This is another thing I'm really happy about. I love that so many different organizations are working together and not trying to hoard their territory. We're all working toward the same goal, so why wouldn't we use what we're good at to complement each other's efforts?

Somehow in the midst of all of this, I managed to finish those last five groups of Tagalog. They should soon be on their way to the proofreader, and I can start to tackle the next two projects sitting in my inbox.

I'd appreciate your prayers for me this season. There is a lot to do and everything has its own deadline. The Pic of the Week should give you an idea of how I'm feeling about the next few weeks.

(I'd show you what's on the list, but I mentioned a few names, and there's no point in spoiling the surprise.)