The Weekly Wrap-Up: June 21-25, 2021

I turned all the lights in the hallway off today. Also in my office. I usually do on Friday. I'm almost always the only one in my section of the building. It's not that I don't want to see anyone. I just don't want to make it easy for them to find me.

It's been a decent week. Lynae has been in a couple of times for training. We started her on Iloko, which is a brand new language for us. She's getting to experience all the highs and lows of figuring out the quirks of a new project. We had a Next Gen meeting, which is basically all the younger folks talking about ways to liven this place up a little. I worked on Tamil quite a bit, and we're getting close to being able to publish some of it. Otherwise, lots of meetings for future events, projects, things that really should have been an email... the Usual.

Oh! Except I did a quick voiceover for a video. And I do mean quick. I was pretty much in and out in 10 minutes. The turnaround was quick as well - what do I see in my email later that day but a link to a video. Not bad, if I do say so myself.

I do want to ask for your prayers. I've been feeling an increasing anxiety as we get closer to the anniversary trip. I really do think things will be fine, but this is my reality now. I feel a little pathetic that I get anxiety about having anxiety, but hey, FDR did make famous the saying that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. I disagree wholeheartedly with that statement - there are other things to fear. But he's not entirely wrong, nor was the original author. 

Anyway.

That's what I've got for you this week. I hope you have a fantastic weekend. 

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: June 14-18, 2021

Well, hey there.

I've said it before, I'll say it again - it's a good thing I write things down about each day. Most Fridays, I cannot remember details of what happened throughout the week. I'm getting old.

I've been cat sitting this week. That's not a work thing, but it was significant for the week. I had three cats. Two were close to OMS, but one is further away, so I've been staying at his house. He likes to bite. And then he'll be really cute, and I have to curtail my plans to spray him with water. 

I finished a group of French early on, and Lynae has come in two days for training. We have a pretty complex process when it comes to production, so I try not to overwhelm new people with everything in one go. 

Lots of meetings this week. We're trying to figure out how to get everyone to participate in a collaborative state. That's part of preparing for our hybrid event in August. Our CMFs will be gathering in person for the first time in two years, but some will only be able to participate online, so we have to figure out how that works. We had a T&M committee meeting that I missed half of to go to a doctor's appointment. Fun times.

Oh yeah, and I published the last remaining Spanish NVI and RVR booklets. We hadn't written them yet when we published Spanish before, so now we truly have a complete set. At least until the next new booklet comes out. Spoilers.

And that's my week. I'm looking forward to sleeping in my own bed and sitting in the air conditioning all weekend. It's too hot.

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: June 7-11, 2021

Okay, business first. If you use the "Follow by email" function, Google tells me that this may not be available after the end of June. I think you'll still get the emails if you've subscribed, but I don't know for sure. Google is very obtuse about this. And no one else will be able to subscribe after this month. So I may need to look at a new option other than Blogger. Ugh.

Anyway, that's a problem for Future Jessica. 

This week, I spent some time working on French, which you wouldn't think would be difficult, but you sometimes come across things that make you do a double-take. 

Anyone know what happened there? (No cheating, Lori!)

On Monday afternoon, I got to do something I haven't done in a long time - record! This recording is for the newest VBS put together by One Mission Kids (yes, we have VBS material!). I'm not sure when it will be ready, but you know I'll link to it when it comes out. It was nice to be in front of a microphone again. Well, one that isn't on my computer. 

Today was kinda crazy. We had our monthly production team meeting, which was really nice. It's a great time to hear about what is going on outside of work and pray for one another. Some of the team's prayer requests today included:

- Veronica's son will be getting married in Scotland. Pray that everyone is able to attend.

- BJ's oldest child is having jaw pain and will be seeing a specialist.

- BJ's wife Andi is looking for a job in Kentucky.

- Eliana has a friend named Marisol who is in the hospital with COVID. Marisol is not a believer.

- Both Eliana and Veronica may be headed back into lockdown soon.

- Trista runs a camp with her husband in Mississippi, and they are quite understaffed this year. 

- Trista's family will be visiting over the next few weeks.

As for me, I have a doctor's appointment next week. Yay.

Also today, I had a Zoom meeting with a potential user of Train & Multiply who lives in Sweden. We had a good chat, and I have high hopes for how this will expand our reach.

Finally, I met with our new production team member! YES! It is truly official. Lynae will be joining us on a part-time basis, so we'll be spending quite a bit of time training for the next few weeks. I'm looking forward to having a new team member, and we should be able to expand our effectiveness and the number of projects we're able to do.

That's all I've got for you this week. I hope you have a fantastic weekend, and I'll see you next time!

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: June 1-4, 2021

Greetings, mein friends!

No, you're not crazy. There was no blog post last week. My trip wasn't really last minute, but I was trying to get a lot of stuff done in a very short amount of time, so I neglected to tell you I was going anywhere. 

Sorry.

But I had some lovely time away, so I hope that mitigates your concerns. I spent time with my family, met with a few supporters, and generally laughed until I pulled a muscle. Not even kidding. The trip was also a bit of a test for myself on driving for three hours by myself and seeing how I handled being away from my base for several days. I did okay. There's always going to be that question, that niggle of doubt in the back of my mind, but overall, I succeeded in my quest. I did, however, come back exhausted, so we can blame that if this post goes off the rails. But that's never happened before, so I don't know why you're talking about it now.

...

Between the two days I was in last week and the four days I was in this week, I managed to finish GR08 and GR11 of French. This language has been incredibly frustrating. We started doing it with one art set, but then we switched to another mid-stream. We also started using French with the NVP (formerly VCP) material, which meant the booklet grouping needed to change. But we'd already done some things according to the old groups, so now, it's basically a mess. But we're making progress. We'll get there, I'm sure. 

We also had our first in-person chapel this week! 

We had a good turn-out, and LOOK, no masks. So this might be the last week I add our 'panic' tag to a post for pandemic-related reasons. It might turn up for other reasons. We'll see. My brain links things in weird ways. 

My big project this week was Chichewa Volume 2 for NVP (New Village Church Planting Program). This is a compilation of booklets that will be used by African church planters. As with many things in T&M, creating a volume is not necessarily complicated, but it is complex. I'm still learning a lot about what InDesign and other Adobe products can do, but they make my job 100x easier at least, so I'm very thankful to have them. 

On a side note for the week, we have changed the Bus to the Mood Squad. The Bus is what we used to call the group of us who walked around the building to stretch our legs once a morning and afternoon. During the lockdown, our numbers dwindled, and walking around was discouraged. But now that masks aren't mandated, we have a solid group of four who do security checks and wander around fostering community at OMS. (That's what we're calling it, at least. You'd have to ask the people we chat with how they'd categorize it.) We were christened the Mood Squad this week, and I'm quite in favor of it. Plus, if we don't have all four, we could become the Mod Squad, the Od Squad, or the O Squad. Silly, I know, but it helps keep us sane. 

Anyway, one of the things the Mod Squad (there were three of us) got up to was hunting down some missing forks. We had a lunch on Wednesday, the first in more than 15 months, and a few utensils had walked away from the kitchen in that time. So Lydia, Sarah, and I did some investigating, and we did actually find some of the missing items. We also found a cupboard that hadn't been cleaned or organized in quite some time, so I took it upon myself to change that. 

I really should have taken a 'before' photo, but I was so incensed by the random collection, I couldn't help myself. They were stacked on top of each other, there was coffee from 2016, and some cups in there didn't belong. This satisfied my once in a great while urge to clean. Please don't ever ask me for a picture of my desk. Or my apartment.

So that's the tea, ladies and gentlemen! I trust you are well and that you will have a fantastic weekend.

Bye!