The Weekly Wrap-Up: February 20-24, 2023

Greetings, citizens!

This has been a full week. I have been working on my prayer letter for quite a bit of it. I have to confess, I rewrote it a couple of times. The first time, even as I was writing, I was thinking 'I don't know if I agree with this.' The words just weren't coming out how I wanted, which meant things were implied that I didn't mean to imply. Nothing terrible, just some deep theological issues that I had to reconcile and figure out how to phrase so you all didn't think I was a heretic. Lord knows there's already enough of that going around. Anyway, I'm waiting on that to be approved before I can send it out. It'll say February, but it will probably be March before you read it. I should work on getting those done earlier. 

The second big project this week was Spanish booklets. I had to put those on hold for a bit, but I managed to get another group's art swapped. Now I'm working on the final Korean booklets (the new ones) so we can have everything ready for training in two weeks. 

My third ongoing project is social media. I've been trying to do more with the T&M Facebook page. I'm just at a loss for what people want to know. But if you'd like to follow it or give suggestions, please feel free. I could always use the encouragement. 

Those are the big ones this week. I got a new project this morning, so that will likely be my focus for next week. Unless something else comes up. It's amazing how often that happens. 

But until then, I'm going to have a lovely weekend, which is also what I wish for you.

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: February 13-17, 2023

I know. I missed last week. Mea culpa. 

We are deep into the February doldrums, folks. False Spring has passed, and the days are grey once again. I know things have happened, I've done activities, time marches on; but for the life of me, I don't know that I could give a detailed account of any specific day. 

And yet, here we are. 

I do remember that I got to participate in an interview on Monday afternoon. HR likes to have people from a variety of backgrounds when they do interviews, and my number came up this week. We spoke to a lovely woman from Georgia who was interviewing for a position in Mobilization. 

The rest of my week was spent publishing Haitian Creole booklets. It always amazes me to find little things I missed the first five times I worked on a booklet. It frustrates me, too. But we have our process for a reason, and it's not like I can't change something in the future if someone points out a huge error. I'd just prefer to get it right the first time. 

Sarah, Lydia, and I got to sing for the prayer chapel on Wednesday. We did a lovely job if I do say so myself. But I've been humming the songs ever since then. I feel like I should apologize to everyone around me. 

I think that's about it for the week. I don't remember anything else, anyway. 

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: January 30 - February 3, 2023

This was a short week for me. It wasn't meant to be, but over the weekend, I let a germ colony loose in my body. I spent most of Monday and Tuesday alternately sleeping, hacking up a lung, and blowing my nose. You're welcome for the visuals. 

But I couldn't stay away forever, so I returned to my post on Wednesday. Since then, I have been working on Haitian Creole booklets. The first group I did was great - a few minor things to clean up here and there. But this last group is not going so well. 

Those would be missing translations. And considering we're on the second pass, that's doubly not good. So I've been filling those in and trying to figure out how that even happened in the first place.

But it's not all bad news. We finally have a new app that will help us in publishing booklets. Most of the stuff out there is ridiculously expensive or user unfriendly. But Veronica found us a viable alternative. This should make things go much faster. 

Speaking of publishing, we're nearly done with the Bengali booklet. That had its own delay because the printer our partners use (and that's a profession, not a device) is using equipment from the '70s, if not earlier. It is so easy to take for granted the digital wonders of the modern world, but not everyone has access to those things. Thus, we sometimes have to go old school - meaning we make things less sophisticated so that people can still use them. It's a great lesson for us. We love making things faster and easier, but if people can't use it, then we might as well not produce anything. I think ministry especially always has to straddle the line between 'the latest thing' and the sensible thing. Sometimes we do it well. Sometimes not so much.

So that was my week! I hope yours has been productive and enjoyable. Don't let any germ colonies attack you this weekend.

Bye!