The Weekly Wrap-Up: August 8-19, 2022

Yo.

Yes, we're covering two weeks since I took some time off last week to hang out with my parents. They came down to spend a day at the State Fair and to generally just relax a bit. We had a lovely time!

While we've been waiting for translators to send in work (which they did this week), I have been working on other projects. Family Fun Night has become quite involved. I don't think I've bitten off more than I can chew, yet, but I will need to be better about prioritizing things. 

But in the meantime, I've been creating forms, recruiting people, brainstorming theme ideas, creating posters, and more. I need to remind myself sometimes to curb my more crazy or sadistic tendencies - this is supposed to be fun for everyone, after all. Sarah has been a big help along with Lydia, so I don't think I'll go too far over the line. 

I've been scheduling Train & Multiply posts on Facebook. Honestly, I haven't done too much with it, especially in the last few years, because we couldn't really offer training to interested parties. But things are ramping up again, so I figure we can be a little more social. If you need a side job and like social media content creation, hit me up - there's no way I can keep this going on my own.

My next prayer letter is in the works. It's always a struggle to narrow down what I want to talk about. You're pretty well informed if you read the blog, but not everyone does, and there are always things I forget to talk about. But I'm relying on my old standby - history. I do hope it will be entertaining and informative. 

Like I said, we have more translation work coming in, so I will probably be back to my regular work next week. I hope you are all doing well.

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: August 1-5, 2022

I am doing my best to enjoy whatever downtime I get now, because I know that things are only going to get crazier as we move further into the year. I am already starting to feel it - more meetings, more emails, more 'brief chats' in the hallway that turn into mini brainstorming sessions. But that's the normal warp and weft of things, and I'm okay with that. 

This week, I was asked to take over the coordination of our Family Fun Night. This is something Julie Bishop (wife of our Executive Director USA) started last Fall as a way to gather the OMS family for something that didn't look at all like work. We have played board games and watched funny videos and eaten all manner of fun foods. I'm excited for the opportunity to come up with some fun themes for future nights. 

We had another safety team meeting this week, our first since February. There was so much transition happening and all of us had too much going on. But, and partially in light of recent events, we are back on track with making OMS a safe and healthy place to work and live. I know we are all grateful for what has already been done, but there are small improvements we can make for everyone's peace of mind. 

That's about it for the week. I have been cat sitting for the last few weeks, and this is my last full weekend with most of them. So hug your pets, bask in the sun, and have a lovely weekend. 

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: July 25-29, 2022

Alas, these halcyon days of Summer are winding to a close. The season of warmth and sunshine always feels too short, but we must do our best to enjoy it while it lasts. Sure, I may sweat a bit more, but I find it far superior to howling wind and freezing temperatures. 

It has been a quiet week around here, both in the lack of people and in the lack of work. I've been keeping busy with some smaller projects and things that sometimes get neglected, but do keep praying for our translators and the new projects that we're hoping to start soon. 

My primary focus has been on French this week as I updated the Camel Method manual. It's something we use with our M cousins as a bridge. 

Otherwise, the secret project has been progressing, and our safety team is chatting about future needs. I'm pleased with how things are going. 

Stay cool. Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: July 18-22, 2022

There was a shooting in Greenwood on Sunday. A young man opened fire on the food court, killing three people and wounding two, before he himself was shot and killed by another young man. The first young man had been planning his heinous deed for some time. The second young man had just planned on a nice night out with his girlfriend. 

I've been thinking about what happened off and on all week. Understandably so, I guess. I was just at that mall last Friday night. It's a nice spot to walk when it's raining, and of course, do a little shopping from time to time. We sometimes eat lunch in that food court. Because this is the world we live in, it usually crosses my mind at least once when I'm in there that it's actually a great target for bad people. But then to know that the murderer lived just down and across the street from me... that he could have blown up and burned down his apartment building. When I do feel anything (because this world has numbed me), it's just profound sadness. I'm sad that people died for incredibly stupid reasons. I'm sad that a young man had to fire his weapon and kill another young man in defense of others. And I'm sad that the murderer felt there were no other options in life but to inflict misery upon others. I wish I or someone else had met him before and offered him the hope of Jesus. I'm sad that there are others out there who will never be told and will spend their lives in torment. 

Come quickly, Lord. Or help us work faster.

Obviously, our work does not end. And I, at least, have felt a new sense of urgency. Unfortunately, I can't do much until translators send in work. So, this week has been spent on the special project. But it is done! Mostly. I shall reveal all in due time, but suffice to say I'm quite proud of it. And I think it will be well received. 

Sarah, Lydia, and I took Thursday afternoon off to go to the county fair. It was partly as a reward to ourselves for a long summer of hard work, partly an excuse to see some sunshine, and partly in defiance of villainy. We had a lovely time.

Do keep yourselves safe this weekend and always. Pray for this world. Check in on your friends and neighbors. Preach peace.

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: July 11-15, 2022

I was surprisingly busy this week. I mean, I always have stuff to do, but this week was a little more random in the tasks than usual.

All week, I have been wrestling with a spreadsheet. I'm decent with Excel, but this thing was not cooperating when it came to formulas. Maybe I had too many, I don't know. So I created a bunch of workarounds, but they are pretty annoying, and I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who knows (mostly) how I did it. But this particular project will be done in August, so I won't have to deal with it for much longer. 

I have also continued my search through photos and started some research for the Super Secret Project. I'm realizing just how terrible my file system actually is. It made sense at the time. The problem is that 'at the time' refers to every instance of me creating a new file. Plus, it has transferred across multiple computers, and each computer had a slightly different naming system. I could probably try to create something better with actual rules and move all of my files into the appropriate folders and never wonder again where something specific resides, but that would take so much time and tedium. I want one of those computers like in "Minority Report" or "Iron Man" with the holographic interface that lets me see everything I have at one time so I can move lots of things at one time. 

Alas.

Our normal tech guy is on vacation this week and next, so I'm running chapel. If nothing else, it always reveals just how little I know about audio/visual stuff. But I guess it went okay, and I did actually put some effort into making sure it would go okay. So there's that.

I think I've talked about booklet 064 on here before. I probably even said it was done and ready to be published. 

I was mistaken.

We had a few more changes to make to it, which meant I had to retag some of the paragraphs. Took me a hot minute to do that and then get it off to Eliana, who is working on updating templates. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say we're not changing anything else in it for a while. I'm probably going to eat those words within the month.

I think part of what made this week seem so crazy was all the stuff I did in the evenings. We had a work picnic on Tuesday night, at which I played (and lost) frisbee golf. On Wednesday, I hung out at Costco with some friends. We had to wait out a downpour. On Thursday, I had a doctor's appointment that ended up being quite painful, so I took off the last hour of work and went to hang out with some cats. 

So yeah, that's my week. I hope yours has been profitable in some way and that you get the rest you need this weekend.

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: July 5-8, 2022

Is it that time again already? Short weeks tend to give you that feeling, I guess. I'd say I've slept since last week, but the neighbors have been setting off fireworks all week. Not the neighbors at OMS. I'm dog sitting this week, and I think at least five of the houses nearby have stock in fireworks companies. Fortunately, the dog doesn't mind them too much, but they do tend to disrupt the sleep.

It has been another quiet week at work. I finished a group of French booklets. I think I've mentioned before, it has been an interesting project. We started it with European French in mind and then switched part way through to African French and art. And because the African groups contain different booklets (to coincide with the VCP terms), we've had to do the French booklets in a weird order. So I'm working on group 9 even though group 11 has already been published. It makes my eyes cross when I look at the spreadsheet, but it only takes about ten minutes to figure it out. Honest.

Anyway, I finished up my prayer letter, which will be on its way to you shortly. We had the interns speak in chapel on Wednesday. We have five this summer, but one is in Hungary and one was ill. (I'm pretty sure they are all in college still, which brings the average age of employees in this building down quite a bit.) So naturally, this was the perfect time to interview the Gen Zers about their generation's view on missions and what they want from the Church. They had some interesting thoughts. One thing I don't want to see, though, is the Church watering itself down to accommodate people's wants or feelings. I think we've done too much of that already. People are always going to have ideas about what the Church "should" be. But the only opinion I'm interested in is what Jesus said the Church should be. Not that I think we're really achieving that, either. But it is definitely what we should be striving toward.

The rest of the week was meetings and emails and going through old photos. Sarah and I are working on a secret project. Super fun stuff. 

That's about it for the week. I'll try to make next week more exciting. (That's a lie. Too much excitement gives me hives.) I hope you have a fantastic weekend.

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: June 27 - July 1, 2022

This is going to be short and sweet, because, TBH, I kinda forgot I needed to write something this week. We're all still recovering from all the people, and in some cases, that's literal. Lots of COVID cases, though fortunately not me. But it canceled one of my events this week. 

I finished going through production logs this week, started a French project, and threw up my hands in frustration when the power was out for half a day. You start to realize just how much of your life depends on electricity. I should probably do something about that. 

Anyway, short week next week. I'll try to be a little more verbose, though. 

Bye!