The Weekly Wrap-Up: November ?? - December 1, 2023

Heeeeeyyyyyy! Long time, no see. 

I don't actually remember the last time I posted on here. Part of that was planned. Most of it was not. 

So let's start from the top. Early in November, I helped out with our cross-training group. We had nine new missionaries who were here for their final week of training. My contribution was the four-culture game. We have to pretend to be part of a specific culture type, come up with a greeting and cultural norms, and then either visit or host other cultures. I was added to a group so the newbies could get a more rounded experience. Our culture was the really open, touchy-feely one. My favorite, right? But I gave it my all. It's so uncomfortable, but I tried to make sure everyone else was as uncomfortable as I was.

Then, I traveled to Michigan to speak at my aunt's church. It was my first time talking to them about Train & Multiply, but it was a good experience. I met a lot of nice people. 

But the problem is, I met a lot of nice people. Somewhere along the line, I picked up COVID. Yes, for the first time (that I know of), I succumbed to the dreaded pandemic. Sort of. Mostly, I felt like I had the flu and a really bad headache. But I had to do my quarantine duty, so everything I'd planned to do went out the window. Also, I managed to fall down the basement steps, so I jacked up my ankle and knee (on different legs) for some added fun. 

Fortunately, I had pretty much recovered by Thanksgiving week. I have been needing to reformat my hard drive on my computer for months now because it wouldn't update anymore and had some annoying quirks. That's basically what I've been doing for the last week. I was somewhat smart about it because I had a list of programs that I needed to redownload along with their passwords and registration keys. 

Of course, every plan is perfect until you put it into action, so I'm still finding things I need to fix. But it was a fairly painless process, for which I am truly thankful. 

I'm working on getting Christmas cards out to you lovely people, along with planning for Christmas around OMS. This is always a crazy time of year. 

I hope you are well and that you remain so for the holiday. 

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!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: May 17-21, 2021

Hello, my friends!

I hope you have had a fantastic week. It's been quite busy around here, and I don't see that changing any time soon. I keep having to remind myself to take time to breathe.

I had devotions again on Monday. I used the opportunity to talk more about The Chosen, which is fantastic, and you should watch it if you haven't already. We had a good discussion.

The last training day was on Tuesday. We had really good presentations and good feedback from our participants. I'm really pleased with how things went, but I'm also really glad that it's done. Somehow, I never remember just how stressful training events can be. I'm sure it will be a while before we do another one like this. Which is fine, because we have plenty of stuff to do.

I forgot to post this last week. Sarah very kindly gave me some fantastic things to keep me going throughout the training. We've been eating gummy bears ever since. :D

The rest of the week has been meetings and work on French booklets. Truly exciting stuff! ;)

I know it has been a while since I talked about my battle with anxiety. That doesn't mean it has gone away. I am getting better, with the help of medication and therapy and Jesus. But it's still a constant fight, weighing events and trips against how I'm feeling that day, making sure I have clear exit plans, practicing my breathing exercises - honestly, it's exhausting. Part of that is my own brain's inability to let things go and just relax, but it is also the nature of general anxiety disorders - they are GENERAL, meaning there isn't necessarily a specific trigger that will spark the anxiety. For a while, my anxiety about having an anxiety attack was actually causing me to have anxiety attacks. Ugh. Like I said, exhausting. But I am getting better, and I appreciate your prayers and patience as I navigate this reality. It makes travel difficult, so I don't get to see people as much as I want as things open up. It's frustrating, but I also know that a lot of people are in a similar boat, so I don't want to minimize the effect it can have. Please practice patience with everyone you meet - we're coming out of a dark tunnel, and for some, it was just one more thing on top of an already fraught existence. 

Anyway, if you want to know more or just share your own story, I'm here. We have been through the wars, this year my friends, and I see no reason why we have to suffer alone or in silence. So, be good, and above all, breathe.

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: May 10-14, 2021

Whew! This week has been all over the place! I guess I could say that of a lot of weeks, but this one really has made me feel like a ping pong ball used in an Olympic-level match.

I was only able to work a bit on French this week. I made some decent progress, but most of the week has been focused on the first two days of online Zoom boot camp training. We have a good group, though we did lose one participant due to time commitments, but everyone who was able to make it has been really engaged and ready to learn. There have been a few rough spots, of course, but over all, I'm really pleased with how things are going. My facilitation team has been meeting quite a bit this week in between training sessions to practice and make sure we are doing our best to communicate well with the participants. Lots of good questions, and I'm excited to see what happens when we finish up on Tuesday.

On Wednesday afternoon, though, I went to get my second vaccination shot. I've heard all kinds of things about reactions and recovery periods, but I did my research and felt that this would be a good time to take care of that. 

On Thursday, I woke up feeling a little stuffy, but nothing too terrible. We made it through the first session of the day, and I knew that the second session was work time for the groups - nothing in which I had to participate. I had started to feel a little meh, so I went home for a nap around 11. By 12, I knew I wasn't going to make it back into the office. I had a fever, body aches, chills, and I felt incredibly dizzy any time I got up to get anything. Thankfully, my dear friend Sarah (who led this training back in March) very graciously stepped in for the final session of the day. I am so grateful for my amazing team who rolled with it and kept the ship sailing smoothly.

I'm feeling better today, but I'm still not 100%. Fortunately (maybe), most of my day has been filled with Zoom meetings, so I just had to sit and listen, contributing occasionally to the discussion. I'm confident that this weekend will give me ample time to fully recover. 

One more thing, the latest issue of OMS Outreach has been published. You can find the online version here by clicking on this sentence. If you recall, I mentioned a super secret project that I'd been working on. This is it! No, I didn't write any articles. But all of the handwriting in here is mine! Yes, you may now judge my terrible printing skills. And, of course, read about the amazing things God is doing through OMS. 

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: May 3-7, 2021

I made a baby this week.

...

Yes, I did write that just for the shock value, but I did actually make a baby this week. Out of play-doh. At a shower. Totally legit. One of my coworkers recently started fostering, so we had a book shower for her. It was a lovely day. 

Anyway, I finished a group of Telugu this week! Yay! The situation in India is only worsening, so it's a bit bittersweet, but I have faith that progressing with this language will bring a small amount of joy in an otherwise dreary time.

The next language is French. For now, the French booklets are only used in Africa. But there are 29 countries in Africa that speak French (at least a little), so this is definitely a worth endeavor. Loathe as I am to give any credit to colonialism, it does act much like Ancient Rome in creating a common trade language that many people use. Quite useful in evangelism, though we do still like to have materials in the heart language of a people group. 

The rest of the week was pretty much devoted to the boot camp. It's next week, people! We had a 3-hour rehearsal on Thursday that went fairly well. However, we have lost one participant, so that will require some reconfiguring. Good times. My team and I will definitely appreciate your prayers for this event. 

On Thursday afternoon, I was able to help out with our semi-annual work day. I couldn't work all day because of the aforementioned rehearsal. I did a bit of feathering of mulch, but it was cold and wet, so I was only out for a couple of hours. 

In other news, masks are no longer required at HQ! We're that much closer to getting rid of the panic at the disco tag. I'm still not totally sure what the arbitrary line for that is. We'll get there.

Shout out to my fantastic mother and all of the amazing support she has given me over the years! Happy Mother's Day to all of the moms and like-moms out there. 💜

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: April 26-30, 2021

Is anyone else looking ahead at the next few months and wondering how you're going to get everything done? I am definitely there. I guess I'll do it the same way I've always done it - one step at a time. But some of those steps will feel an awful lot like lava, so, you know...

Okay, belaboring the metaphor a bit. But there is a ton to do, and I always feel like there's not enough time. This week has been largely focused on the boot camp. I would really appreciate your prayers for this event (May 11, 13, and 18). I don't know that I ever feel fully prepared for these, but this one in particular has me concerned. Two members of my training team are very new to this process, and the other has a lot of personal stuff going on at home. I want this to be a good, informative event for the trainees, but I'm feeling the stress big time!

My other project this week has been Telugu. It's been somewhat bittersweet working on this language. Telugu is primarily spoken in India. If you've watched the news at all, you know that India is being hit hard by COVID. Many of our national coworkers have been quite ill, and I know a few have died from the disease or the lack of available care. It's so easy to narrow our focus to what is going on in our own country and forget that there is a whole world out there experiencing tragedy and upheaval of their own. Quite often, I pray for the countries and people who will be using the booklets as I'm working on them. This has felt even more pressing this week. 

There was some palaver in my own personal life this week that started with a bulb burning out and ended up with the possibility of having to move my fridge, stove, and cupboards out of my kitchen. Fortunately, I have been spared that, but it was quite the nail-biter for a while. I'm going to thoroughly enjoy all of the sleep I get this weekend.

Happy Orthodox Easter!

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: April 12-23, 2021

Yes, it's true, mea culpa, I didn't do a blog post last week. I had to go up north to do some visiting. I had a lovely time and saw many wonderful people. It was exhausting, though, moreso mentally than physically. It's the most traveling I've done in a while. 

So, last week, I was able to publish that group of Russian. I did some proofing for the magazine, which will be out shortly. I hope you'll recognize my handiwork. 

Boot camp prep continues apace, and that has been somewhat challenging. We're all approaching Zoom and facilitation with different levels of comfort, so patience and practice are the key words. These are not my favorite words, however, so a little humility comes into play as well. I'm confident we'll be able to put on a good training event, but I'm also glad we have plenty of time beforehand. 

This week, I was able to finish a group of Telugu and send it back to the proofreader. I also got a prayer letter written, so that will be going out next week. 

Of course, the big news is that I got my first vaccine shot on Tuesday. My arm was a bit sore, but I felt okay after. We'll see what happens after the second shot. 

That's about it for me this week. 

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: April 5-8, 2021

Yes, it was another short week. We had to be out of the office on Friday because they were upgrading our Internet. I will happily hang out at home for that purpose. I did do some work, of course, but a lot of what I do is dependent on having access to the world wide web. 

I was able to publish the rest of the French group, worked on Telugu and Russian, and did a ton of stuff on Zoom. There's always something new to learn about the platform, and Sarah and I seem to spend some time each week testing something. There are a lot of features that it will never occur to people to use or even ask about, but I always like knowing exactly what is available. 

There are a lot of discussions going on about things that are still half formed or not ready to be announced. For some of them, I don't know why I'm involved in the discussion. But others have been quite interesting, and it'll be fun to talk about them when I can.

That's what I've got for you. Stay warm!

Bye.

The Weekly Wrap-Up: March 29 - April 1, 2021

Yes, it's a short week, and for sleep reasons and for historical reasons, I am thankful. Once again, this is not how I would prefer to spend my Easter weekend, but since when does anyone get exactly what they want all of the time? SO, we press on.

This has been a fairly productive week. I finished my group of Russian, and once that is approved, I will move on to publishing. I also completed a group of French, which will also be published. So, if all goes well, two groups will be published next week. 

My team is continuing to work on preparations for boot camp in May. We're making good progress, but there's always a lot to think about. At least we now have a full complement of team members, which makes our lives easier. We're reaching out to more parts of OMS, including our literacy program, so I'm excited about that. 

I'm ruminating on some prayer letter ideas for April. It can be a struggle, so pray I find the right words. 

One of my side projects is creating videos for my mom as she leads the children's program at her church. The last few weeks have been all about Easter, and one thing she keeps saying is that the saddest day ever led to the greatest day ever. I think about that a lot. For all that we struggle and go through painful experiences, we will never know the agony of dying on a cross with the weight of past, present, and future sins of billions of people. I know of no way to repay that debt, and thankfully, I don't have to. My job is to love Jesus and pursue him forever. I encourage all of you to explore that thought and discover the joy of the Lord in your own lives.

He Is Risen!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: March 22-26, 2021

I don't really have a game plan for retiring the 'panic' tag. I mean, we're still technically in it. After I get the vaccine? After the stupid mask mandate ends? What do you think?

This has been a good week. Lots of small projects, but it's all necessary stuff for moving forward on some big stuff, so that's cool. Sarah is conducting her boot camp this week, and I met with my group for our boot camp in May. I think we'll have a full complement, which is nice because it means fewer changes to the training manual. We're definitely still making some, but not nearly as many. You can pray for the team as we prepare, actually. José is my co-leader and lives in OK with his wife Audrey (who has many health issues right now), Sharon lives in PA (and her husband also has health issues), and Dennis lives in KY. I don't know anything about his wife.

I started a new-to-me language this week! I'm trying to finish up the first group of Russian. It's been sitting around for a while, partly because no one is really clamoring for it, and partly because we lost our translator. So I'm just working to publish what little bit we have on the off chance that someone will need it. You never know. We're working to find a new translator, so if you know someone fluent in Russian, hit me up. 

We had a really nice chapel this week. all about our founders and looking to the future of OMS. There were a lot of good things said, but the one I wrote down was this: "Let's build for the years that we will not see." I found that to be really profound, and I think that philosophy applies in all areas of life. So many people today are about instant gratification and living in the moment, but the Bible is pretty clear on where it stands with this kind of thinking. If we truly want to make the world a better place, then we need to work for it and recognize that it might not happen in our lifetime. But it's worth the effort. 

That's all I've got for you this week. I hope you find some time to commemorate Passover and Palm Sunday. He is risen indeed!

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: March 15-19, 2021

So I'm writing this in a Word document in the (what turned out to be vain) hope that the Internet will come back before I leave for the day. It's putting a real crimp in my plans for continuing work.

Anyway, another week is in the books. It's been quiet around here; Brian took the week off, so it's just been Sarah and Alex and me. And occasionally Mike. And whomever we chat with on Zoom. So maybe not completely quiet. But definitely on the quieter side. 

The week started off well. I led devotions, and because I like themes and it was the 15th of March, I talked about the Ides and the assassination of Julius Caesar. Excellent devotion topic, I know. But it did have a purpose. Since the Ides of March was a day to settle debts and start the year off fresh, I wanted us to reflect on the last year and the unmet expectations we'd had for it. It's been a rough road for everyone, and I think some people have neglected to really deal with the loss of what we expected to happen that didn't. Regardless of whatever else we lost this past year, we also lost our sense that some things we've held to always be true sometimes aren't. As Christians, we have Truth - it's never going to change. But a lot of people have been floundering, wondering what they can trust in.

I don't necessarily want to get too deep on here, but I thought it was important to think about. 

Lots of work on Tamil this week. I finished another group of booklets. I only had to rearrange four of the five, so that's nice. I wrote a short devotional for a book that someone in the office is putting together. That on is not on assassination. But I did title it "The Valley of the Shadow." So, you know... at least I'm consistent.

We had our T&M committee meeting Thursday and the production meeting on Friday. The committee consists of me, Mike, Larry, Brian, Sarah, Lloyd, and Sherry. Lloyd and Sherry ran Project WorldReach, which entered into a joint venture with OMS to produce T&M back in 2012, but now OMS is the sole copyright holder. It's a long and convoluted story, and if you want to know more, I'm happy to tell you; but suffice to say, Lloyd and Sherry have a vested interest in the future of T&M. We were able to give them a good report, thankfully. There are some concerns about what is going on in certain countries (mostly political stuff - if you're not aware of what's happening in Myanmar, look it up; things are very bad.)

The production meeting also went well. I like getting to talk about more personal things instead of work stuff all the time with my team. You can be praying that Trista and her husband find some staff for the Christian camp they run in Mississippi. And Eliana and Veronica's mother has been ill, so pray for any decisions they have to make. And BJ's son will have his wisdom teeth removed soon. Yuck. I feel for you, kid!

As for me, I'm still setting my small goals and working up to being human again. I hope I'm up to the task.

Bye! 

The Weekly Wrap-Up: March 8-12, 2021

சேனைகளுடைய கர்த்தரின் நாமத்திலே 

Oh look, I found a longer one.

This has been a strange week. Not in the work sense, because that never ends. But in the background, I've been very aware that it's been a year since everything got flipped on its head. 

I don't know if you pay attention to the tags on these posts. They are mostly for my reference, but if you ever want to know my thoughts on a particular thing or track the progress of something, they are there on the right for you. Anyway, I started using the "panic at the disco" tag on these posts about a year ago. I thought it would be a fun cutesy thing to look back on and know that these were the few weeks or months when that weird pandemic thing was happening. And then it stopped being fun and cutesy and took on new meaning when my anxiety reared its ugly head in new and interesting ways. (If you're wondering what a disco has to do with anything: nothing; it's a band; don't worry about it.)

I don't think I can sum up the last year in a few words and tie it off with a nice bow. No one expected any of this. I certainly haven't handled it as well as I could have. But it's also been a learning experience. Some things I would have preferred not having to learn. I think that's true of everyone. But I'm very aware that I've had it much better than most people over the last year. So I am by no means complaining. Inevitably, it will take years to fully comprehend the impact of this past year (and however long it takes to get back to some semblance of 'normal'). 

As far as work goes, I finished one more group of Tamil (see above) and fixed some things in Indonesian. We've been restructuring the bootcamp again since we have a smaller group this time around. That is taking some creativity.

Mostly, though, I've just been tired this week. I'm tired of masks, I'm tired of endless political debates, I'm tired of being tired. So I'm going to give myself a break and come back refreshed next week.

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: March 1-5, 2021

 ஜெபக்கூட்டங்களுக்குப்போகிறேன்

That's all one word. Or phrase. I'm not sure how it's classified in Tamil. But it's things like this that make formatting Tamil booklets take so long. Because I have to fit that and every other word/phrase like it into a very limited space. And it doesn't always want to go there. It can be fun, though. I get to recreate every booklet almost from scratch. It just takes a little longer than normal.

Thus, that's been the majority of my week. There have been several meetings, of course, because what would we be without meetings? Plus, I've been working on a super secret project for my good friend Foster. You will find out all about it when you receive the next edition of OMS Outreach. If you don't get it by mail, you should definitely subscribe to the online version. 

I haven't done an update on my health stuff lately, not because I don't want to, but because I guess I'm still cautious about how things are going. I'm on a new med for my blood pressure, which seems to be helping. My anxiety still pops up pretty regularly, but I've been setting little goals for myself to get out more and train my brain to stop seeing everything as an object of fear. I appreciate your continued prayers for this process. 

That's about it for me! I hope you have a fantastic weekend. Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: February 22-26, 2021

This week has felt so strange. I don't think there's a day that has felt like the day it's supposed to. 

Of course, part of that might be the fact that I fell out of bed this week. Got a little dizzy and overcorrected. Oops. Just a few bruises; possibly one puncture. It's fine.

Sarah and I finished changing the training manual for boot camp. We had a nice meeting with our respective training teams, and I have great hopes for our training in May. 

Groups 2 and 3 of Indonesian are done and published. I'm back into Tamil. It's a frustrating language to format because it utilizes more characters and we have to left justify everything. But it will be nice to have more Indian languages available. 

Sorry I'm not a fount of information this week. Like I said, it's been a weird week. It'll be nice to catch up on some sleep this weekend. 

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: February 15-19, 2021

What a crazy week! We've had snow, freezing cold, but fortunately no power outages. I've been knee deep in snow at times, but I always have somewhere cozy to return to. 

This has actually been a pretty productive week, which I really hadn't anticipated. We had a snow day on Tuesday. The office was closed because we got a ton of snow and nobody could get anywhere. I live across the street, and I couldn't even get out until after noon.

The rest of the week has been good, if a little bit crazy. I was able to publish the first group of Indonesian, which I really wasn't sure I'd get to. The first group is always the most time-intensive, since you have to split two booklets. But it's done, so I can move on to the next group. 

Sarah and I decided that we were going to offer two more boot camps (I mean, other people signed off on it, but we all know Sarah and I are the ones who do the real work around here ;)). So, now that we've decided on dates for the training, we've been going through the manual to make sure everything is current and less ECC-centric in language. We've opened the training up to the wider world of OMS, so the verbiage needs to be a little more neutral. Plus, we've learned a lot from the last two boot camps we did, so we're taking that and making things a little easier to understand. It's still a ton of info to throw at people in three days, though.

Finally, my biggest claim to fame this week - I learned how to create a volume! We have been doing volumes for the VCP curriculum. It's basically a series of booklets that they use in each term. I did the second volume for French, which includes eight booklets. We also have to make the cover pages and the back page. It's a beast when it's printed, but it looks pretty good if I do say so myself. Lots of fiddly bits, though, so you need someone who can pay attention to detail. I hope I'm up to the task. There are eight separate volumes and about five languages that will need them. I'm happy to help with VCP stuff, but it definitely has increased our workload. 

And that's my week. I hope your week has been as productive and fulfilling as mine. I hope you have a great weekend as well. Stay warm!

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: February 8-12, 2021

Oh, hello.

How was your week? Are you keeping warm and healthy? I liked the snow at first, but now I'm over Winter. So done. Needs to go.

Right, enough small talk. Two more groups of Indonesian are done, and they've already sent them back with the seal of approval. So it looks like I will be publishing three groups in the coming weeks. I also did the presentation in staff briefing for the ECC report. We do the staff briefing every month, and each department rotates when they talk about the latest doings. This was our month, and I got drafted to give the report. It was pretty straightforward, and I managed to keep on topic for most of it. I'm not actually sure if it's easier doing this in person or on Zoom. There are pros and cons to both. Either way, it went well, and I take that to mean that I'll get saddled with this duty again at some point in the future.

Somewhere in the midst of this, I managed to write my first draft of a prayer letter. This one was not as difficult as I normally find them to craft. I usually use the first one of the year to sum up the previous year. But no one wants to think about 2020. So I found a creative way around that. You'll just have to wait to see it. 

And that's my week! Next week could be interesting if we get the storm they're predicting. We've already been told to use our discretion about coming in. It's hard to make an excuse when you live across the street, however. We'll see how it goes.

Happy Valentine's Day!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: February 1-5, 2020

Bootcamp is over! I can't tell you how proud I am of my little ducklings who led this training for 19 new trainers. The hope is that we'l be able to free up some capacity for future training events without relying on the same few facilitators and tech personnel as always. Realistically, even when travel does open again, we'll still be doing online events, and the more people we have who know what they're doing, the better. 

I learned a new thing this week! Part of our work with Village Church Planting involves creating volumes of Train & Multiply booklets. That means we combine several booklets into one larger book. We have 8 volumes that will ultimately be created, but it takes time. We have to have all of the booklets published before we can created the volume, so in anticipation of this, I had to publish the necessary booklets for Volume 2 of French. Then, I learned how to create a volume. It's not completely done, but I at least have a good idea of what I'm doing now. Like most things with T&M, it's complex but not complicated. 

The rest of the time, I've been working on Indonesian. We're close to publishing the first 3 groups, but you know me, I'm finicky. I'm moving as fast as I can. Fortunately, there aren't many changes to these booklets, so there are fewer things to check. Fun fact! Plural words in Indonesian don't just add an 's' or the equivalent like you would in English. Instead, they double the word. So instead of saying, "I bought pens and markers and binders," you would say, "I bought pen-pen and marker-marker and binder-binder." In some cases, because this takes up a lot of space, you can square the word. Who knew math was involved in langauge?

Other than that, things continue much as they have for the last few months. Three years ago, I was in the Philippines. It's weird to think about traveling now. I don't know when or even if I'll get to travel again. But in the meantime, I keep doing what I can. And I thank you for making that possible!

Stay warm!

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: January 25-29, 2021

Welcome to Zoom Bootcamp, part 2. 

This week, we started to see the culmination of the original training we did back in November. Our original 9 trainees have been training 19 new students in the fabulous art of Zoom meetings. We're all about multiplication in ECC, and that's what we set out to do with this. As a consultant in November, I led my team of 3 through the various practice sessions that they presented. Now, I get to watch them do the same with their teams. I have to say, it's a lot less labor intensive this time around, but I still get to watch and provide feedback when things don't quite go to plan. I'm pretty pleased with how things are going so far. Our last day for this training is next Tuesday. Then we send our little ducklings out into the (virtual) world with all of the skills necessary for successful Zoom training events in the future. And our email address, because Zoom keeps updating their software and driving us all crazy.

In the meantime, I managed to complete a group of Vietnamese booklets, start on Indonesian, pause Indonesian to work on French, pause French when I ran into an InDesign problem, and go back to Indonesian. It's a good thing I take good notes, because I would never remember where I am on these projects without it. 

I need to write these earlier in the day. I'm too tired and rushed Friday evenings trying to finish up last minute things and finally get home for some sleep. 

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: January 18-22, 2021

Like sand through the hourglass, these are the days of our lives.

That will only make sense to some people this week, but it's not worth explaining. 

Anyway, it's been a varied week as far as work goes. I led devotions on Monday about the dreams of Joseph and his father Jacob. Then I finished GR04 of Tamil, which wasn't as taxing as GR03. I did some more editing of booklet 64. We had a few Zoom meetings for the next bootcamp happening next week. I've been working on GR03 of Vietnamese, which is only about 20% longer than English, so it's been pretty great compared to Tamil. I definitely have fewer pages I need to add. 

Otherwise, life goes on much as it has for the last few months. 

Yep. That's how I feel about the world at large right now. I'm pretty much ignoring it. You might say that's irresponsible. But what can I actually do about it at this moment? Exactly what I have been doing. I'm trying to get as many people into the kingdom of God as possible. That means supporting the awesome men and women using the booklets in the power of the Holy Spirit to tell their family and neighbors about Jesus. 

And since it's been a while since I wrote about my anxiety (we are now calling it The GAD), I'll catch you up on that, too. I still have it. But I'm getting better at managing it. I'm recognizing the patterns in my life that have lead up to this and identifying triggers, and I'm pushing myself to try new things and become more comfortable being out in the world. But it's a process. It's a little bit like a dance. I can have a great day and do-si-do like nobody's watching, and then a week later, I'm back in the parking lot, breathing into a paper bag and swearing off jazz music. (I hope that made sense. It works in my brain, but I recognize that my brain is a little 'special.')

Also, the pandemic is theoretically still a thing, right? I'm a bit limited on how much dancing I can do until we've all decided that was a fever dream. 

Anyway, I appreciate your continued prayers, and don't be afraid to ask questions or invite me to things. Just be prepared for lengthy answers and a solid maybe on the RSVP.

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: January 11-15, 2021

Happy birthday eve to me! Yes, I am indeed working today. I'd take the day off, but I hate doing that so early in the year. Who knows when I'll need the time? (I say that every year, and every year, I have vacation time left. Someday, I'll get it right.)

This was a fairly typical week. We worked on more bootcamp prep, which is actually going pretty well from the original training team's perspective - we only have to do 2 session out of 9. My facilitation team, however, is learning just how much we actually put into making their training experiences interesting and informative. I'm sure they will rise to the challenge. 

I'm in Tamil this week. It's another lengthy language with its own inherent challenges. I usually have to add pages to Tamil booklets just so I can fit everything in. That's not really a problem, it just takes more time to get through a group. 

I did have some downtime this week, though, because I had to do a backup and then an upgrade to Big Sur. That always takes forever, so I took the opportunity to look through the newest booklet, which Trista has lovingly laid out for us. I'm thinking it will need some pretty significant rewrites, though. There's a lot of 'Christianese' in it, and the goal for every booklet is to make it as easy to translate as possible. I'll be getting up close and personal with a thesaurus soon. 

Please continue to pray for my health situation. I've been having blood pressure issues again, and that makes life very not fun. 

I hope you have a fantastic time celebrating my birthday without me.

Bye!