The Philippine Adventure: Part One

I know you've all been waiting with bated breath. (And if you haven't, you can sling yer 'ook and not tell me.) But I can finally reveal the gigantic, epic, so-long-it-needs-an-intermission post about my trip to the Philippines. (I wrote that before I turned it into a multi-arc post. It's like when we thought The Hobbit was going to be two movies and were a little incredulous, but then they turned it into three and that was just needlessly excessive.) I can't promise it will always be coherent. (Obviously.) I have a vague idea about how I want to organize it. But we'll just carry on and see how it goes, yeah?

Let's do this.

So me going to the Philippines was a vague notion until it very quickly became a reality. I've been wanting to travel for a while now, and especially to see how T&M is being used in the field. Moreover, as much as I bang on about homeland missionaries being real missionaries (which we are, thank you very much), there are times when we feel the need to get out of the office and see how the other half live.

But there's a big difference between wanting to go and actually going. Firstly, there's the matter of paying for it. My support account is in the green, but it wouldn't be for long if I went haring off all the time. Second, there aren't many trips that qualify as work-related. For example, I've been wanting to go on the prayer trip to Israel for a couple of years now. But it's not really my field, and they aren't using T&M, so while it's ministry, it would count as more of a personal trip as far as work is concerned. Third, it's time away from doing my job. So I'd have to justify that.

This is an ECC trip, though, and that makes all the difference in the world. There are still expenses, of course, but it's a T&M event, so I'm useful, and everyone else is going, so it's not like I'm missing much in the office. But actually deciding I should go happened over a weekend, so it was a rather quick process.

I still wasn't sure what exactly I was going to be doing there. The title of the event was "Strategic Enhancement Workshop," which is really just a lot of fancy words strung together that happen to spell out SEW. It doesn't really tell you what the purpose is or what you'll be doing. The purpose, it turned out, was to bring together our best users of Train & Multiply. These people have been in the trenches, worked with the material, and figured out how to adapt it to their context. ECC wanted everyone together to see how we could help each other and come up with some best practices to help new users and also address some challenges that we might be facing in the future. As a producer of T&M, my role was to answer some questions about the process and glean from people's comments some ways that we could improve the material and possibly revamp things for different audiences. Plus, I'd get to hear loads of stories from several different fields.

So, on to the trip.

We were scheduled to leave Monday, January 29, at 5:54 in the morning. This prompted an internal debate, namely, what time do we leave for the airport, and should I sleep the night before we leave even if it's just for a couple of hours? Since there were several of us leaving from OMS, the first question was fairly easy to answer. We all decided to head out around 3:30. In the morning. It's way too early. But sacrifices must be made.

As for the second question, I had to take into consideration the travel time and the time difference in the Philippines. I knew we had a couple of long flights in the wings (natch!) and that we'd be 13 hours ahead. I also know that jet lag is a pain, and nothing really prepares you for flip-flopping your schedule. Nevertheless, I decided not to sleep the night before. I probably should have taken a nap, but I can't really sleep on planes, so I knew I needed to be as tired as possible in order to get a bit of kip. So I stayed up reading. And I guess the adrenaline of a trip ahead helped me stay awake. Didn't help me not be a total spaz, though. I get a little dictatorial when I travel. I try to tamp it down, but I'm not great at going with the flow when it comes to international travel. For the record, I did apologize to my traveling companions before we started out.

I was traveling with Paula, Vicki, and Greg. I was also traveling with Brian, but he hadn't arrived yet, and we met up with Dick in Philadelphia. We thought a before photo would be useful. We do look all bright eyed and bushy tailed, don't we?

Yeah, that didn't last very long. Our first flight was to Philadelphia. I've never flown through Philly. I guess it's nice. Nothing really stood out to me as a distinguishing feature from any other airport I've been in. We flew on American, though that really only came into play on the short hops.

That is the first and only shot from the window I got on a plane. I was only in a window seat for that first flight, and really, I'm okay with that. A window seat is nice if it's a short flight or your first flight or you plan to sleep the whole time. It's less nice when you're trying to prevent blood clots in your legs or you have to pee every few hours. No one likes climbing over someone else to get out. I don't mind being the one climbed over as it usually forces me to get up and stretch. It's a personal preference. No disrespect to my window-seaters.

Now, when traveling to Asia, you usually fly in a general westerly direction, right? It just makes sense. Sure, it's a giant ocean under you, but I just think it's closer. Especially when you're in the easternmost part of Asia. I mean, come on. Christopher Columbus went West to get East. Surely we could follow his example.

But no. We flew East.

To Qatar.

Not sure what you've heard about Qatar. But I'm sure most of whatever you've heard has been a little sketchy. More on that later. Here's one thing I know, though. Qatar Airways is really nice. Nice planes. Nice flight crew. Nice food (for airplane fare). Nice entertainment selection (with built-in censoring of swear words and sex scenes). Just all around nice. And do you know the really great thing about flying to Qatar from the United States? There aren't many people who want to go there. Which meant I had an entire center row to myself. It was beautiful. And on an 11+ hour flight, that's important. This was the flight I really needed to sleep on. And sleep I did. Sort of. Mostly dozing. But it worked well enough that I wasn't a zombie when we arrived in Qatar.

The airport is really nice. Like, really nice. Also, there's a giant bear right in the middle. Propped up against a lamp. I have no idea why.

There are also screens everywhere. Bright screens that could sear your face off if you stood too close.

But we mostly did this. People, if you're traveling abroad, please let me stress to you how important it is to make sure you do two things. First, check your phone service in each country, whether you are just traveling through or you're staying there a while. Connecting to the internet in the airport is not easy. It's also probably monitored in certain places. Know before you go.

Secondly, make sure you have greenlisted these countries with your bank. You don't want to freeze your accounts because you forgot and used your credit card when they can't be sure you authorized it. And if you don't have phone service, when they call to ask, you can't tell them it was actually you.

Not that I did much shopping at this time. No point buying stuff you'll just have to lug through the rest of your trip. More on that later. But I did make a new friend.

This is Boris. If you're ever in the Qatar airport, please say hello. And send me a photo. I need to know he's okay.

Now, the great thing about traveling from Qatar to the Philippines is that, again, not many people are heading in that direction. So once again, on my nine hour flight (also on Qatar Airways - can't say enough good things about them), I had a row to myself. Except here's where the good entertainment part comes into play. Because at this point, although I've only advanced about six hours into the future in my personal timeline, I was trying to operate on Philippine time. And that meant staying awake. The whole flight.

I'm fairly certain I managed to do it. I watched a lot of movies. But my tether was nearing its end when we finally landed in Manila.

If you've been to Manila, then you will immediately understand that my use of the word chaos is entirely appropriate. I don't actually remember most of it. I must have made it through immigration and into the country because the next thing I remember is debating whether or not to get some pesos. I'd been assured that credit cards would be fine, and we wouldn't be doing much shopping anyway. So I didn't get any pesos. More on that later.

Then I remember trying to figure out how we were going to get to the hotel. We knew there would be a shuttle on the hour. We weren't sure if we had arrived in time for the next one or if we'd have to wait a whole hour. But then, a bright spot appeared! There, like an oasis in the desert, was Lois Pannabecker. She was in charge of putting the event together, and like the lovely lady she is, she'd basically commandeered the hotel shuttle to come get us.

Seeing as it was around 11 pm when we actually left the airport, I couldn't really tell you much about my first impressions of Manila. I just remember it took at least 30 minutes for us to actually leave the airport complex. And that's not because we were stuck in traffic. That airport is just huge. So many parts to it. It's insane. More on that later.

Our hotel that night was just a quick layover, but it was still quite nice. Here's the lobby:

I know, right? Very swanky. But before you get too excited, here's the view from the window:

There is no shortage of hotels in Manila. There's no shortage of anything in Manila. People, cars, buildings, roads - you name it, they got it. Except green space. That is strictly reserved for Not Manila.

It was not hard to fall asleep that night. I wasn't even really sure what night it was. Maybe Tuesday. Yeah. Tuesday. Because we'd been in transit for about 28 hours and then we gained 13 hours. So we left early Monday morning and arrived late Tuesday. Sleep was definitely not a problem.

On Wednesday, then, we got ready to make the trip north to Tarlac. Miraculously, everyone had arrived mostly on time and in the right place. So we threw all our junk into a greyhound bus and headed out of the city.

Now Tarlac is about 80 miles north of Manila. It's really not that far. It's slightly less than the distance from Indy to Huntington. And yet, it took us 2.5 hours to get there. And I kid you not, more than an hour of that was getting out of Manila.

The map really doesn't do it justice. But no joke, once you're out of Manila, it's smooth sailing to Tarlac.

Along the way, we saw some lovely sights. (Keep in mind that I took these through a bus window, please.)

Honestly, there were times when I couldn't even tell if I had left Indiana. And then a mountain would appear. Definitely not Indiana. It reminded me a lot of Spain, too, actually.

On the way to Tarlac, we were given a survey to complete. On it was a list of challenges facing T&M and dreams we'd like to explore. We had to rank them based on our own preferences and needs. With that done, we were free to eat the lovely lunch the hotel provided (I'm really bad at taking pictures of stuff like that, sorry) and take in the glorious countryside.

Soon, though, we arrived at our new home for the next few days.

I highly recommend the Luisita Microtel. It was brand new. And it was lovely.

I really couldn't have asked for a better place to spend my time in the Philippines. I had all this space to myself. And for an introvert, that is primo real estate. Especially when you're at a conference where you know there will be multiple group projects.

We had some time on Wednesday to relax a bit. I didn't want to take a nap because I wasn't sure I'd wake up again if I fell asleep. (Like, in time for the evening events. Obviously, I didn't think I was going to die.)

We had a welcome service that evening. Not gonna lie, I was fading fast. But I persevered. There was a lovely performance to kick things off.

They were really great. But I couldn't tell you the first thing that Larry talked about that night. I just know he had five points. I know he had five points because I was counting them down. And then when the five points were done, he kept talking. I might as well have been on drugs. When you're that tired, it's almost like having an out of body experience. You just cannot comprehend anything.

I tried to be personable. I really did. But there was no way that any socializing was going to be beneficial to anyone. So I walked back through the frog-filled woods (did I mention those?) from the Aquino Museum. And then I assume I made it back to my room and fell into bed, because I don't remember anything else until the next morning.

And that's where we're ending this one. The next installment will hopefully come soon. But I make no guarantees. 

The Weekly Wrap-Up: August 29 - September 1, 2016

This has been a weird week, though more for personal reasons than professional. I've felt very off kilter. It's a good phrase, that. Off kilter. I wonder where it came from.

::a little sleuthing later::

Apparently, you can also use the phrase 'out of kilter.' Kilter, of course, means good form, order, spirits or condition. I guess no one uses it in a positive manner anymore. As for its origin, no one seems to know, though most agree it has nothing to do with Scotsmen.

I have a great desire to describe good things as 'in kilter' now.

Anyway.

Like I said. Weird week. I was without hot water for much of it. My water heater decided to burn out, once with little fanfare, and a second time with a nice little POP and scorch marks. I was boiling water in order to do dishes, though I thought it best to not do that for washing hair. Cold showers are mighty unpleasant.

I had a huge headache Tuesday and Wednesday. Bordering on migraine territory, which meant I had to fight not to throw up.

I guess that could throw me off my game.

Anyway, we spent a lot of time on the app this week. We have a really great useable product. Now we need to market it. (And stop changing things!) I'm really proud of what we've created, though. I hope lots of people use this.

I processed more test files. Yay! Once approved, we can move forward with languages. It's nice to actually get this part of the job. I think back to two years ago when I started working with ECC, and I had no idea what I was in for! I thought I'd never learn the process, but here we are! I have more to learn, true, but I know enough that we can start divvying up the workload.

We had a seminar today on possible new tech for us. I learned a lot, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's another couple of years before we see it implemented. (If stakeholders decide to go this route.) I wish it wasn't so, but money talks in missions. The more money, the more we can do. I think we steward funds pretty well at OMS, but it's disheartening to see a really great idea die because we have no way to fund it. (Or missionaries leave because they have no more funding.)

Ah, well.

I'm writing this on Thursday this week because I am outta here for the weekend! Woohoo! I have a lot of vacation time left, and I intend to use it well. Have an excellent weekend, and enjoy your day off!

A Random Tuesday

How do my days usually progress? I'll tell you. Or at least, I'll tell you about today.

My alarm went off at 6:40. I'd been having this weird dream about a hotel by a river and trying to find someone who owed me $4.

I hit snooze. There's no excuse for being up at 6:40.

Nine minutes later, I figure I'm obligated to get up. First thing I do is check my phone for the overnight happenings. A few news alerts and a text from Arika, asking way too deep a philosophical question for 6:49 in the morning. But I answer, and it makes sense to my brain, so good enough.

I don't wash my hair on Tuesdays. It gives me a little extra time for morning ablutions, and also morning devotions. Sarah Young makes her usual frightening amount of sense. I hang out at the kitchen table and ponder life's mysteries.

It's 7:50. Getting dressed might be important. I have to wear blue today. Normally, a few of us in ECC will try to match. I get a text every morning. But my matchy buddies are in South Africa this week. I still have to wear blue. We're filming today.

I get to work about 8:03. First thing is to fire up the computer. While it's coming up, I check the ECC box in the mailroom. Nothing. Then a pen and new post-its from central supply.

I check my email. Two Gmail accounts and the main Office 365. Naturally, 365 isn't working. Shocking. Reload. Nothing has come into the T&M account, and it's mostly junk everywhere else. I check Facebook. I'm friends with T&M partners and people who are traveling. Things are going well. I schedule a post on the T&M page.

It's 8:55. Time for chapel. There's usually coffee and hot chocolate for people to get before or after. I don't usually like hot drinks, but as the weather cools, you can see me with a hot chocolate.

Today's chapel speaker is Graham Houghton. Graham has been in India for 50 years, and he always has great stories. And a very unique way of telling them. He retired once. It didn't take. He's 78 and ministering in North India. There are encouraging things happening, but there is also a great deal of darkness.

Chapel normally lasts until 9:30 or 9:40. Graham finishes at 9:55. We still have announcements and introductions. We pray for a missionary leaving for Hungary tomorrow.

10:05. Back in the office. I do a bit of cleaning up and then start working on my article for Outreach magazine. It's about the history of prayer at OMS.

10:45. Time to do a bit of walking. Since we started the wellness program, I've been endeavoring to get at least 10,000 steps every day. It's also not good to sit for too long. I have a route through the building, starting by going through Communications. Lori and Susan are talking about the magazine. I chat with Beth for a minute. Then upstairs. There are a lot of people out. But there are muffins at the front desk. Score.

Back downstairs. 11:00. More research for the article. I've copied articles and notices from old Missionary Standard archives. I'm only up to 1946. Sometimes I forget OMS has been around more than 100 years. Not today.

11:40. I check my phone and see that I have a voicemail. There is pretty much no service in the basement, so I never hear my phone ring. I just randomly have messages. It's Arby's. I did a survey this weekend, and they have follow-up questions. But when I call back, there's no answer.

12:10. Time for lunch. But first - oh look, Arby's called again. Free food! I've never been so happy to have undercooked chicken. (Okay, I wasn't that happy. But Arby's is cool for following up.)

12:18. NOW I can go to lunch.

We have an hour for lunch. I used 20 minutes of it to walk. That gets me to about 5,500 steps on the day. I'm ahead of schedule.

The fare today is chicken salad. It's cheap and easy to make, which pretty much describes most of what I eat. I'm spending any extra money I have on fruits and veggies. They're healthy, you know.

1:20. Back at work. Foster has been in, judging by the ladder in the middle of my office. We'll use it in a few minutes when we start filming.

We're doing a top secret project for the OMS Christmas party. It's been a lot of fun (and a lot of work), but the secrecy has probably been the most fun. People keep asking what we're doing. We maintain the cone of silence.

It took about eight takes for me to be happy with today's segment. By the time we finished, it was time to welcome the myriad of superheroes, knights, and various and sundry costumed (or not) children so they could extort candy from the hardworking folks of OMS.

I'm kidding, it was adorable. We do this every year. OMS kids come around to the marked offices and receive candy or treats or whatever. It's a safe way to trick or treat, and though it's a bit early, it is a nice thing we do.

It does kinda disrupt the workflow, though.

I spent some time looking up a word for the #WeirdWordoftheWeek segment I do on Facebook. It's a silly little thing, but it's fun for me. This week's word is carminative.

Onward and upward. With infrequent visitors, I continued working, this time on the ECC blog posts for the OMS website.

Around 4:10, I take another gallivant around the office. I get sidetracked in Communications (which happens frequently) to talk about ramen and the filming for tomorrow (separate issues). Then I continue, stopping to compare everyone's offerings. Lots of good stuff this year. Oh, to be a kid again.

Back to the office and work at 4:35.

5:10. Time to go home.

Immediately, I get ready for my long walk. This has become a staple of my day. It finishes up the rest of my 10,000 steps and gets the kinks out. Usually lasting anywhere from 30-50 minutes, today's is about 35, putting me well over my goal.

Dinner is frozen pizza and grapes. Highly nutritious. I watch an episode of Air Crash Investigation while I'm waiting. It's the one with the pilot who gets sucked outside of the airplane and is only held inside by flight stewards. It's a really fascinating series, and there are a ton of episodes on YouTube. I wouldn't recommend watching too many in a row or right before a trip. Very interesting stuff, though. And the pilot lived!

The show turns out to be a little too interesting. I watch at least six more episodes while playing mahjong.

And now it's 10:45. I've been dinking around on Facebook for 30 minutes. Not a very productive evening. But it was a relaxing evening. Just what I needed.

And that's a random Tuesday. 

Rainy Sundays

Rainy Sundays always make me feel uber-reflectiony. It was appropriate, then, that when church let out and I got in my car, started up the iPod and hit shuffle, the following songs were the first to play.





That pretty much sums it up.

I have to start packing today.

Ugh.

Mish-Mash

I have no excuse. I just haven't felt like posting. Everything I could talk about seems inadequate.

I've been in this weird mood, lately. Well, it's not weird for me. It happens every so often. But it's hard to snap out of it. I'm not really sure how.

Anyway.

My trip to Pennsylvania was brilliant. I met many fantastic people who showed a lot of interest in my trip to Thailand and South Asia. They were very good to me and my traveling companions, and I hope I can visit with them again in the near future.

I may have also purchased a really awesome souvenir in Gettysburg. But I'll leave that to your imagination.

Remember way back in time, when I mentioned my spider bite? Yeah, it's still there. It hadn't been bothering me, I think mostly because I've learned to compensate and not use it as much. However, I accidentally bumped it the other day, and sure enough, it started radiating pain again. This must have been one mother of a spider!

On the subject of creepy crawlies, I figured out a mostly-successful solution to my ant problem. (I had ants in my apartment. Big ones.) My dear friend Arika suggested using Boric Acid. So I bought some. And I've decided I like it. I used to drown the ants in Raid, but now, when I see one, it's dead and covered in a fine, white powder.

Sadistic? Yes. Awesome? Definitely.

Let's see. Oh! We have more people in our office now. Beka left us for Mobilization (I'm getting over it. Really.), and we got some interns for the summer! I'll try to get a picture of them sometime so you can see who I get to torture now. (I'm not that bad. Am I?) Anyway, whereas I had no one sitting by me after Beka left, I now have people across from me, beside me and diagonal from me.

I had to stop playing Solitaire at work. :(

Just kidding! Now I just hide it better.

I told you I was in a weird mood.

Let's see. Anything else happen lately? Nothing is really coming to mind. I updated the blog. There are tags for each post, and you can now view my blog on a mobile device. I'm considering Google's ad deal, but I don't want to inundate you guys. However, I am increasingly short on funds. I'm being stretched rather thin, especially with all these trips.

Oh yeah! I'm going to Poland in two weeks. I was really sick the last time I went, so I'm hoping this experience makes up for how miserable I was before. A few other really bad things happened on that trip, and I'm trying not to let that overshadow my preparations. Not that I've really begun preparing for the trip, of course. I'm too busy trying to get things together at work. Next week. Right?

Okay, I'm going to coffee break at MFM soon, so I'm going to leave you with a fantastic new word that Lori and I found. Are you ready for this?

MUMPSIMUS -noun
--adherence to or persistence in an erroneous use of language, memorization, practice, belief, etc., out of habit or obstinacy

Love it!

Brain ASPLODE!

I've been in Thailand now for a few days, so it's probably time to get something written on here! There is so much that I have seen and experienced - I don't know how I'm ever going to communicate it all to you. I have met so many people who have incredible stories to tell of God's faithfulness and provision in extraordinary circumstances. I think I'll be writing stories until at least 2013.


I was afraid I wouldn't get a chance to see anything outside of the guest house where we're staying. The ECC guys have us scheduled from 7:15 in the morning to 9:00 at night - that doesn't leave a lot of time for sightseeing or exploring. Fortunately, I wasn't required to be at some of the sessions, so I did get a chance to see a bit of the area. I even had time to get a Thai massage! You really can't be in Thailand and not take advantage of this truly unique experience. For about $8, I was smacked, pulled and stepped on - it was quite interesting. Only part of it was painful - the foot and head massages were heavenly. And in all honesty, it was mostly a good pain. I think I would take more time for it if I did it again, though.


It's not all fun and games, though. I am doing actual work - quite a bit, actually. We don't have nearly enough time to get everything done between downloading photos, editing videos, doing interviews and filming.

On the plus side, I've been pretty distracted from thinking about the next leg of our trip. We're headed to another country in the region with decidedly fewer amenities and a lot more travel. I've been worried about it from the beginning, but also excited, because there are so many amazing things happening in this country. There's been real spiritual warfare, and in my human weakness, it's been difficult to overcome. I've always been a worrier, and I just need to trust that God knows what He's doing and will be with me the whole time.

One of the hardest things about this conference is dealing with the security issues. There are several countries here that we can't mention because it isn't safe for our workers. This makes it hard when interviewing because we have to be very careful not to give details that might be used to identify our brothers and sisters. That's why I can't write about where I'm going next. But I'll be able to tell you about it when we meet face-to-face. We just can't have any searchable documents or pages with sensitive information.

I'm operating a bit on information overload right now. There's so much I'd like to write, but I can't get my brain to compress the information into a single stream. For example, I've had at least three people offer to find me a husband in their country. I have four new brothers in one of those countries who are just hilarious, and are always asking me fun questions.


I have to say, I'm glad I came to Thailand. I'm very glad to be part of this conference, and I would love to do all of this again. That being said, I have also been able to clarify some other things I've been thinking about, especially regarding the future. It always amazes me what God uses to open our eyes.


I hope you are all doing well! Please continue to pray for me, especially regarding the next leg of our journey.

Kob coon ka!

I hope you all had a fantastic Labor Day weekend! I myself took the opportunity to catch up on some sleep and hang out with some pretty awesome people. I am discovering more and more things to do in and around Indy, which is nice because it gets me out of my apartment. Don't get me wrong, I really like my apartment - but as the only person around to talk to is myself, and as I tend to be a rather boring conversationalist, the joie de vivre factor can be a bit lacking.

Anyway.

I'm still liking my job, and the people I work with. (I have to say that, see, because they have a nasty habit of actually reading this thing.) I've had the chance to interview some pretty amazing people, so go read the website articles.

Olusegun is a pastor in Tver, Russia, who is starting a missionary school for university students. He has high hopes that when the students return to their countries, they will begin planting churches using what they learned in Tver.

Allar and Piret are from Estonia. They accidentally planted a church, and are now learning ways to be more intentional.

Did I mention just how awesome this job is?

New Year = ?

Happy belated New Year!

Don't you hate when you have a whole thing planned about what you're going to write, and then you go off to work or shopping, and you come back and can't remember it?

Me, too.

So, what have I been up to lately? Well, the production of The Twelve Voice of Christmas that we did at my church went really well. I've been studying more about Mary since that night, and I have to say, she's an inspiring lady. I'm thinking of starting a(nother) book. That would make seven in the works. I really need to finish one someday.

Christmas was pretty good when you don't think about the kidney stone I had, the lack of family I visited, and the hours I worked. BUT, to counteract that, I was on vicodin for a few days, I saw my family after Christmas, and I get paid by the hour. So I guess everything worked out in the end.

In case you haven't remembered, 2010 is a census year, and I applied a couple of weeks ago to be an enumerator. As it turns out, I may get an even better job, so be praying that it works out. Hallmark is being very supportive about giving me time off to train. The census job is a short one, but I could really use the extra money.

In other news, my birthday is on Saturday. I have received many lovely birthday cards from people, and I think it's going to be a good day. If only I could stop feeling so old...

My parents are currently in Honduras winding down General Conference for the UB Church. I may be working on a project related to that when they get back, about which I'm very excited.

If it sounds like I'm pretty busy now, I am, which is good, because I hate sitting around the house with nothing to do. That's probably why this blog never gets updated. I'm never in one place long enough. But this is my break between work and teaching the kiddies at church tonight, so I'm making the most of it.

I hope you all received your New Year's card and update from me. If you didn't, let me know so I can get you on my list.

Sh'ma Yis'ra'eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad.