The Weekly Wrap-Up: February 24-28, 2020

Guys, this might be first February in a long time that I haven't just absolutely hated. It's a weird feeling. And it's longer than normal, too! (Speaking of, everyone wish my big sister a happy 11th birthday. Feels like we've been waiting a long time for this.)

It's been a fairly productive week. I published two more groups of Mizo Chin and started a third. We're making some fantastic progress on other languages, too. I'm really pleased.

Our special guest this week was Pastor Claude from Togo. He will be the new VCP director starting April 1, and he's quite a lovely man. It's nice to put a face on the work we've been doing for the Village Church Planting languages. Plus, we heard some great stories about what God has been doing with the limited materials we've published so far. Claude gave a great message in chapel on Wednesday about Peter and Cornelius (a story we cover in T&M!).

Otherwise, it's been a quiet and cold week. I figured it would snow at least once more since I put the flowery garden stuff out last weekend. Never fails.

Okay, I think that's it. Be good girls and boys this weekend.

Bye.

The Weekly Wrap-Up: February 17-21, 2020

How did you celebrate Presidents Day? I'm sure you went all out like I did. When I asked the team on Monday who their favorite President was, there was a serious dearth of responses. But they were fascinated by the devotion I led about the Jefferson Bible. Have you ever heard of it? Thomas Jefferson had his own ideas about what should and shouldn't be in the Bible. So he did a literal cut and paste job, and one result was "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth." Anything Jefferson deemed unnatural (miracles and the Trinity, for example) or 'inconsistent' with Jesus' character (Matthew 10:34-35) was removed. That's a lot of stuff. It's quite an interesting read, and it's proof that leaders of countries are flawed people just like everyone else. As if we needed that proof right now.

I finished three groups of Mizo Chin this week. We're in the booklets now that have a lot of speech bubbles, so these will take a bit longer. But it all gets us one step closer to releasing the entire language for use in Myanmar. It will be nice to reach that goal, especially so early in the year.

You should be getting my prayer letter soon. It's being mailed out this week, so if you don't see in the next couple of weeks, let me know. We've been having some issues with our system randomly deleting addresses. It's a real mess.

On Wednesday, we had our prayer rally. This one was hosted by the director of 4VEH, the radio ministry in Haiti. They are celebrating 70 years of operation this year, which is pretty incredible even without considering that it broadcasts in a country not known for its political or economic stability. It's a real testament to God's faithfulness.

As for a health update, I got the results from my heart monitor - normal sinus rhythm, so for those of you who were wondering if it even existed, you can rest assured that my heart is firmly in place. Normality is good, of course, but it also means that there is still a question of what exactly is wrong. For now, I'm just going to keep an eye on things and keep a record of symptoms, see if a pattern emerges. Time to put my deerstalker on!

That's about it for the week, as far as work goes. If you want to stick around, I'm going to talk about the time I did a presidential ranking in college because of course I have a favorite POTUS. (Except I misspoke on Monday and said it was Pierce when I meant to say Polk. They are very different.) Who's yours?

Bye!







Okay, so presidential rankings are weird. It's been going on forever, but it's always subjective and completely arbitrary. You could argue that the first ranking took place in 1927, when Gutzon Borglum and Calvin Coolidge chose George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt to be the literal faces of Mount Rushmore. Sure, they planned on more, but who's gonna try to change it now? No one, that's who.

Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. is really the one who got things rolling. He polled 55 historians in 1948 and averaged out the results. Again, Lincoln and Washington topped the list. But there was no criteria. Seriously, how do you rank something like that when it's guaranteed for just about any president that half the country is going to like him and half the country is going to hate him?

But I tried. Because of course I did. My categories (scored on a 1-5 scale) went like this:

1. Character and public presence
2. Goal achievement
3. Foreign policy
4. Domestic policy
5. Legacy

Obviously, there are still a variety of opinions one can have in each category, but since it was my ranking, my opinion was the only one that mattered. So there.

Now, I did this in 2007. That's important because a) recent presidential deaths always boost them in the ranking and b) I think it's ridiculous to try rating sitting or recent presidents (recent like in the last 30 years). At the time, Washington, Lincoln, and Reagan all tied with 41 points out of 50. I argued then, and I'd argue now, that Washington should be taken out of the ranking completely, and possibly Lincoln. Georgie boy literally defined what it was to be president, so he has an unfair advantage, and no one is ever going to beat Lincoln's legacy. And Reagan was getting a sympathy vote because he'd recently died. But fourth was James Polk. In my opinion, he was an excellent POTUS. He definitely deserves to be studied more than he is now.

As for who came last, well that would be Andrew Johnson, followed closely by James Buchanan. It's not a coincidence that their terms bookended the Civil War. Neither was good at dealing with that situation.

If you want to see my old list or look at the new one I've decided to do, or if you have questions about ranking and how I dealt with people who died or resigned, I'd be happy to show you. I'm gonna nerd out this weekend! 

The Weekly Wrap-Up: February 10-14, 2020

And they're off! Travel season has begun in ECC, if indeed it ever truly ended. Our itinerant folks have been going since the beginning of January, but aside from some personal vacations, no one in my hallway has gone anywhere yet. But that's all coming to an end, now. Mike is going to India and then on to Indochina. Pat is going to India, then Rwanda, then Cote d'Ivoire. These will just be the first of many trips for them this year. Compared to their schedules, I'm quite content with one trip every 2-3 years.

We're in GR05 of Mizo Chin this week. It's been slower this week since I've had some other things going on. Lots of file maintenance. We keep a ton of backups, which is good, but they were starting to slow down the server, so I went through everything and deleted a bunch of stuff. It's a good way to relive some old projects and see just how far we've come.

Chapel this week was a staff briefing. Nothing crazy coming, which I always appreciate. We heard some cool stories about what is happening around the world of OMS, though.

Hey, I got my prayer letter done! Thanks for your prayers. I think this will be a good one. It took about two days to bring everything together. If you ever want to see more or less of something in the future, let me know.

I wish I had more for you. But we're in the season where we just keep marching forward, slow and steady. It's only when things get crazy that there's a lot to report, so fingers crossed, the crazy stays away for a bit.

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: February 3-7, 2020

Have you guys seen "The Chosen" yet? If you haven't, you're probably asking what that is.

I will tell you.

"The Chosen" is the first multi-season crowd-funded television show about the life of Jesus (that is not actually on network or cable TV). You can currently watch it by downloading an app (same title as the show) and streaming each episode. I think it's a fantastic interpretation of life in the first century AD. It's very biblical, and I think it's helpful to see the people we talk about all the time as just that - real people.

This, of course, has nothing to do with work, but it's been on my brain this week. And they need more investors so they can do a second season. So, you know...

Okay, on to work stuff. I've made it through 2.5 groups of Mizo Chin. The publishing is going well, minus the part where the footer was in Portuguese for some reason. That's why I always take a second look at booklets before they get published.

It was another week with lots of meetings. Mostly important ones, so that's something at least. But we also had a really cool chapel service on Wednesday. We heard the testimony of a man who was killed during a terrorist attack in Asia and was miraculously brought back to life. It was a truly incredible story. I love these reminders of how God is still working and watching out for his children.

Next week, I need to bang out a prayer letter. There's lots to tell, as always, but for some reason, it's always a struggle to write it out. You can bet I'll be spending significant time this weekend praying about what to include and how. Any suggestions you have would not be unwelcome, though.

Hey, on the subject of prayer, you can be praying for my production team. There's a lot of stuff going on right now, and especially because we are so widespread and live in so many different areas, there are plenty of things that can threaten health and safety. So without going into too much detail, pray for the basics - family, weather, politics. Thanks!

As for me, I will see you next week.

Bye!