The Weekly Wrap-Up: August 19-23, 2019

I need to be better about writing stuff down throughout the week. I clearly don't take my own advice, though, because I've definitely said that before. Oh well. You'll just have to suffer with me through this less-than-auspicious account of my week.

Truthfully, this week is a little foggy. I haven't been feeling well, and that's been an unpleasant reality for far too long. I have a doctor's appointment coming up, but hands up if you think that will get me anywhere.

...

Exactly.

Anyway, I've been continuing my work on English B and U this week. I have the first group published, which is always the trickiest since it includes the two booklets we split up. Plus, I took the opportunity to walk Trista through the process of publishing. I've also been proofing Outreach pages, which are due to be printed next week. And I sang during the prayer rally on Wednesday. I guess I remember more than I thought I did.

Seriously, though, English is kinda kicking my butt. I'm trying not to get bogged down on content, just sticking to layout, but doing it concurrently in two projects is HARD. Maybe that's why I'm so foggy. Good thing I only have 11 more groups to go!

The saddest part about this week is that it's the last week for my dear friend Ashleigh. If I haven't talked about her before, shame on me, because she's brilliant. Ashleigh works upstairs as corporate secretary (I secretly call her the Keeper of the Keys), so I don't get to see her a lot, but we do make the effort to go on bus rides (walks) around the building every so often. I'm going to miss seeing her smiling face and venting to her and just generally enjoying her company.

That's probably one of the harshest realities of missionary life. By nature, it's a transient life, but I don't think I knew just how true that was for HQ people as well. We tend to have a lot of people in and out of the office, and that can be hard on friendships. I tend to be a little standoffish with new people (confession is good for the soul, right?) because I never know how long they are going to be around. I'm not one of those people who can just appreciate the experience and the time they had with someone. Maybe that's a bad thing. But it's my reality.

But we need to end on a lighter note. So, I can tell you that my prayer letter will (hopefully) be mailed next week! (Oh yeah, I wrote that this week, too.) So you can learn all about training last week and some fun info about my job. And if you don't get my letter, drop me a line, and I'll make sure you're added to the list.

Later, gators!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: August 5-17, 2019

Did you know that in all my years of hoovering up useless facts and overfilling my brain with frivolous knowledge, I never once thought to look up what Louvre meant? I mean, we just call it The Louvre. Why would you think it would mean something else? Despite the fact that it's in France and is probably a French word and might have an English equivalent.

Does anyone else regularly do the stroke protocol on themselves?

Look, this only came up because I was working on French. And I saw the word L'oeuvre. And naturally, my brain took a spiral. In the booklet, the English equivalent is 'work.' That makes sense, right? The Louvre in Paris displays work. Except it is spelled differently. So I had to do some research. And the Internet says it has nothing to do with that. There was talk of wolves. Basically, it's called the Louvre, and no one knows why.

Thanks, Internet.

Obviously, we missed last week's post. I ended up taking Friday off so I could help my mom run our annual garage sale. For several years now, I've been coordinating a campus-wide garage sale. It always looks a little different, but basically, several OMSers get together and have a giant sale in the picnic pavilion on campus. It's a great place for it because we have tables ready to use, and no one knows where we live. Plus, we're under cover, so rain isn't as much of a problem. Anyway, this will likely be the last one I do for a while. It's a lot of work, hence me taking the day off.

So last week, I was still working on French. And this week, obviously. But I finished that Tuesday and moved on to a behemoth of a project. We're republishing two versions of English because we've updated the art sets. One of them has African art (which we need for the new VCP initiative coming soon) and the other has Universal art. Theoretically, we could use this art in any country and not run into any issues of unintentionally offending someone because the people don't look like they do. Personally, I think this won't be a problem because I think the new art looks mostly like aliens. But maybe it's just me.

Anyway, it's a huge project because I'm essentially working on two languages at the same time. Sure, it's the same language, but it's also two completely different sets of files. But I need to make sure they look identical when it comes to text and layout. I've been going a little crazy with it switching back and forth between files. But some challenges I don't mind.

So, funny story. Last week was the leadership chapel (which varies depending on who is around) and we were praying for various things. But the first thing we were supposed to pray for was the world. I found that to be a fairly vague charge while also being daunting because the world is rather a large place. But I'm game for anything, so I prayed for the world. It went a little something like this:

"Dear God, the world sucks. This is not news to you, but I need you to understand that I totally get why you'd want to destroy everything with a flood. However, you promised not to do that anymore, so we're kinda stuck with things. Help us not to be overwhelmed by the overwhelming amount of suckage. Give us strength to address the problems in our own little corner and the wisdom to do what you'd have us do that is in line with your will. In Jesus' name, Amen."

It's probably the first time I've ever begun a prayer that way. It will likely not be the last.

This week was always bound to be crazy. It's a major training week, so we have about 20 people in town from all over the world to learn about Train & Multiply. That means lots of back and forth from the office to a local church where the training is being held. Do I sometimes just go over for lunch? Yes. Am I bothered by this? No. It was really cool, though, to see everyone. We had people representing every continent except for Antarctica here, which is a great reminder that my job truly has global impact.

Speaking of...

I don't know how they decide who gets what, but if you donate to OMS, chances are good that you'll soon be receiving the new Global Impact Report. It's something we're going to do every year to show how what OMS is doing is having an effect around the world. Like with many of our larger publications, I acted as another set of eyes in the proofreading phase. So if something is wrong, obviously they changed it after I looked at it. Or something. 

I think that's about it. Next week, I anticipate more English and hopefully a prayer letter. What would you guys like to hear about in this one?

The Weekly Wrap-Up: July 29 - August 2, 2019

Francais c'est finis! For now. And I don't actually know if that's the right way to say it. Whatever. Two groups of French are done. Go me!

No big issues with these groups. I'm still dealing with longer words, so that does cause some things to be wildly out of place. But we have our little tricks for getting around things.

Sometimes, though, low tech solutions are the best. For example:

The Student Activity Guide is almost always the exception to the rule. And because of that, you kinda make things up as you go along. (Sometimes. Don't tell anyone.) But one thing each activity has (when there's room) is a place for notes at the bottom of the page. But depending on the previous text, the lines for the notes could rest in a different spot every time. And there are 80 pages of this. I was trying to find a way to make sure the lines were fairly consistent, so I decided to stick the post-it on there as a way to draw a line in the sand. A high water mark, if you will. No lines below this line. Whatever, it worked. At least I'm not using white out on the screen.

Dude.

Umm... I lost my train of thought. (Let's be honest, by now we're down to one squeaky engine that really only runs half the time and some of its wheels are flat. Maybe a caboose. Possibly a rusted out boxcar that random children live in.)

I got to celebrate one of my favorite people this week. Lori spoke in chapel on Wednesday at her recognition for 20 years at OMS. That's hard for me to fathom. But, because she's profound, I've been thinking about something she said. Something like, people are very willing (well, mostly willing) to say 'Use me where I am!' to God. But they rarely say 'Use me where you need me to be!' And it's okay if that's where you already are. But if it isn't, take the leap. It's not like God is going to let you fall. Unless he needs you to. But even if he does, he's falling with you. And he'll help you back up.

Wow, this whole thing is really getting away from me today. So we'll just end it here.

Be cool.