The Weekly Wrap-Up: April 23-27, 2018

You know what, guys? It has been a week.

Seriously.

And not really because of work. Or at least, not only because of work. You wouldn't think work would have been a problem this week, because it's CMF Seminar week. That means most people were off-site. But it also meant lots of trips back and forth. That can make it difficult to really get a lot done in the office. But I managed to get a few of the Chinese booklets done. And I had time to talk to a couple more people about joining the production team.

Incidentally, if you have InDesign experience (even if you don't) and you'd like to learn about Train & Multiply and have a few spare hours to volunteer, please give me a call. I have a wonderful opportunity for you.

Umm, what else happened this week? Chapels were good. I've been planning the next single ladies dinner. (We have dinner once a month. It's technically for all single people. But there are no single men right now. We've put in several requests with Mobi. All to no avail.)

There's probably more. But they've been working on the lobby windows all week, and I think whatever solvent or adhesive or chemical they are using for whatever reason is filtering only to my office. And it's giving me a horrible headache. I've had this knot going since Wednesday. So I'm going to leave you with the Pic of the Week.

That may or may not have anything to do with a certain movie I may or may not have seen last night. (Though if you've seen it too, we need to talk. I don't know if I can take another year of uncertainty. I must process this with another fan. And I'm using fan in the strictest terms. I need a fanatic. Like me.)

Have a great weekend!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: April 16-20, 2018

Hakha Chin is done!

Hallelujah!

Seriously, words cannot express how grateful I am to finally be done with this language. At least for now. There will always be more Hakha Chin. But the first two groups have been published (provisionally), and they should be available for training next week. I have been working my booty off to get this done, and I'm very happy to go back to the normally scheduled program.

Which is Chinese. Well, to be specific, simplified Chinese. I can't even really tell you what that means, other than that there is also a traditional Chinese. I'd imagine it has something to do with the characters. But beyond that, I got nothing. I just know it's a lot shorter than most other languages I work in. It also has its own idiosyncrasies. I'm actually breaking a lot of the normal rules in order to make these booklets look like the others. But needs must...

We had two good chapels this week. The Beasleys talked about their first five years here, and then a woman who helps with Light in Darkness spoke. She has had personal experience with the human trafficking industry, and it was a horrific things to hear. Just when you think you understand how evil people can be, you realize you have no clue. But God is redeeming those experiences as she shares her story with other victims and survivors. It was hard to listen to, but good to hear.

I have to give big kudos to Foster and Lori for finishing the decade displays this week. I have helped in small ways along the journey, but those two carried the big burdens with this project. You should really stop by OMS sometime to see the finished work. It's a great way to learn about OMS' history over more than 100 years of ministry.

Somehow, in the midst of all of this (and by that, I mean every night staying late at work), I was able to get some thank you notes written. I'll send them Monday, and hopefully then I can work on my next prayer letter. And figure out when I can finish my post on the Philippines trip. I really can't let another month pass before I get that done. I just don't know how to get these projects done and do thorough updates at the same time. I'll figure it out. Probably.

Finally, we have our Pic of the Week.

My standing desk arrived! Now you know why I was clearing stuff off my desk in the last couple of weeks. I'm hoping that this will promote a healthier lifestyle, or at least get me out of my chair every once in a while. I'll let you know how it turns out. 

The Weekly Wrap-Up: April 9-13, 2018

Ack! I'm writing this at 5:11. I want to go home. But I also want to update you, dear readers. It's been a crazy day. (Maybe there's something to the Friday the 13th myth. Maybe I'm just born with it.) There's so much I have been thinking about and wanting to ruminate on with you, but there just isn't time. I'm trying to crank out three language projects, all of which are somehow top priority, work on thank you notes to donors, work on my regularly scheduled prayer letter, get some Outreach proofs proofed, potentially recruit new people, and just generally try to keep my head above the, this week at least, entirely metaphorical water. All while rearranging my desk/office to make room for things that will theoretically make me healthier and more productive.

It's a lot.

I don't have a Pic of the Week. I'm sorry. I haven't done a Word of the Week on Facebook in a month probably. I'm feeling like Humperdinck in The Princess Bride. OOH!

I hope you all have an excellent weekend, and here's to less stress next week. 

The Weekly Wrap-Up: April 2-6, 2018

Has this week gone really fast for anyone else? I feel like I blinked and Friday was suddenly here. I suppose it's mostly due to how diligently I focused on my work.

Yep. That's definitely it.

First, last week. I did not post anything. I'm aware of this. It was a short week. Friday was a holiday, and Thursday was a migraine day. Joy. So I hope you can live without hearing about my week for once. It will be a challenge, I know, but my thoughts and prayers are with you. On to this week.

I'm finally in group 6 for Hakha Chin! But only just. Group 5 was kicking my butt. It's incredibly difficult to fit 10 lines of text into a space that was made for 6. It makes me think of the genie in Aladdin. The first and best one. PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER! Itty-bitty living space. But I shall rise to the challenge!

It was a prayer rally week. We heard from the Red Nueva Vida equipo, also known as the New Life Network team. They have been using Train & Multiply, among other things, to plant churches in Hispanic communities around the world. It actually started out as just a U.S. thing, but they now have groups in London, Guatemala, and Colombia, and they are spreading rapidly. Which is good, because that's one of the principles of church multiplication. We also continued the in-depth study of The Lord's Prayer, focusing on the name of God this time. It was fine.

I'll give you a window update before we get to the Pic of the Week. They worked on it pretty steadily last week, which probably contributed to the migraine.

Here's my window before:

Small, yes. And behind me. I can see the reflection of the sun in my computer, though.

Here's my window during:

They did eventually put up a little more plastic in order to cover the rest. I still found some stones in my office when they were done. 

Here's the (mostly) finished product:

Ignore the machine outside. Look! It's a window! Isn't it pretty? It's certainly cleaner, though how long that will last is anyone's guess. 

Okay, so now on to the Pic of the Week. It's actually a set of photos. Feast your eyes upon my backyard on Tuesday. 

There's a river behind those trees. And it normally stays behind those trees. But on Tuesday, the build up of rain finally became too much, and I got a lake instead of a field. I also got the water turned off in my apartment because if we didn't turn it off, the sewage would back up. So there's that. 

I hope that conveys just how close to the garage the water was. It's certainly not been this high since I've lived here, and I'm told the last time it reached these levels was 2008. So if it wants to stick to a 10-year cycle, that's fine. Longer is good, too. 

And of course, by the time I left work five hours later, the water had mostly returned to the confines of its normal wend through the woods. 

Like it never even happened.

The Weekly Wrap-Up: March 19-23, 2018

This will not be nearly as verbose as last week's. Probably.

It was a training week in Greenwood, which means I was mostly on my own in the office. I did have to go over to the church on Thursday to help with introducing T&M Online and to take the group pictures.

In the meantime, I was listening to this:

Still working on windows. And now on my side of the building. I still don't have a new one. But my headphones got a good workout this week.

More Hakha Chin, of course. I finished one group, after having to add pages to a booklet, which is always a nightmare, and now I'm working on the next.

And that's about it. Nothing fancy. Except our Pic of the Week. I call it "Dedication? Or Lunacy?"

That was taken on Wednesday, the day after the first day of Spring, and the day on which we woke up to snow. Lots of it. And yet, our fearless window guys were hard at work. I'll let you decide the answer to the question.

The Weekly Wrap-Up: March 12-16, 2018

It's March. And more often than not, I still wake up to snow on the ground.

I'm not a fan.

Ah, well. That's life. It's been a lovely week otherwise, actually. It started out with some trepidation. We got an email at the end of last week that we would be having "An Honest Conversation About Money" on Monday after the staff briefing. None of us were quite sure what we'd be up against. But it was okay. All about funding, and how everyone is in a similar boat, albeit differing in how they boarded. We got some interesting numbers. Homeland missionaries take an average 19% salary reduction. In fact, 81 of the 123 people who work here take some kind of salary reduction. In some cases, it's much more than 19%.

I am one of those people who takes a salary reduction. I can't really afford to, but if I didn't, whatever reserve I have built up would be gone in two months. It's not something I normally advertise, but we're being honest here, right? Anyway, we all need to put some more focus on funding. And I'm going to work on it throughout the year. I just have to figure out how.

We did get a nice gem in the middle of the meeting. Carl Walton got up to talk about a recent deputation trip, and he shared a photo from when they were first starting out.

I was highly amused.

Oh! Nearly forgot that I was volunteered to take part in a simple visual demonstration of how people feel when asking or being asked for money.

In case you can't tell, that's my 'incredulous/nervous laughter' face. As in, please stop asking me for money. I don't have any.

The rest of Monday was spent recovering from the AHCAM. (What? We abbreviate everything else around here.) And working on Korean. It's a fairly easy language, but it has some tricky bits to it. And it's hard to extrapolate the rules of a language when you only know one and it's not the one in which you're working. But I did actually finish the job in four days, which might be a personal record for this particular stage. But there were only five booklets, and like I said, Korean is easy. Next week, I start on four groups of Hakha Chin. Decidedly less easy.

We only had one chapel this week as we were celebrating Founder's Day. Founders' Day? The Day of the Founders? Whatever. They did a Jeopardy-style game with facts about the founders. I was not on a team, but I really should have been. In the first round at least, there were really only six possible answers to the questions. Once you figured that out, you could start to narrow things down. But I am apparently one of the few people who thinks this way.

I'm just kidding. That sounds mean. It was a fun and different thing to do.

Another fun and different thing for the week was being asked to record a song that someone connected to OMS wrote. I'm still not entirely sure what it's for (little fuzzy on the details), but it was nice to be asked, and it's a lovely little song. Hopefully, we did the recording justice. I was fighting off a cold, so who knows? You can listen to it on Soundcloud by clicking on this blue bit.

I was having some computer issues this week with connecting to our file storage site. Not sure why, but it caused a few headaches and delays. And we're still having discussions about file names. My brain can't quite catch on to the logic of the naming system. It has its own logic, and I can psych myself out of any naming convention if I think about it for too long. It's an annoying trait, even more so because I do everything else correctly, but when you name a file wrong, it reflects on the rest of your work. Apparently. It's incredibly frustrating.

Also frustrating:

We're getting new windows. That part is fine. I'm sure they'll be lovely. But the noise and dust while they do is not lovely. Lots of drilling, banging, fear of falling debris, etc. Not sure when they'll get around to my little window, but I plan to be well out of the way when they do.

This isn't really a work thing, but I got the chance to go see Les Misérables at the Murat Theatre in Indy on Thursday night. A friend had an extra ticket and invited me. It was such a great night! I love the show, firstly, and I was hard-pressed not to sing along with the cast. But also, it was just so nice to get out of the Greenwood bubble and feed on some culture. I need to do more of that. If only it didn't cost so much money!

Finally, I had another new experience today. Many of our regularly scheduled receptionists and stand-ins were out or busy, so I covered the front desk for an hour. It's a little daunting. There are lots of dos and don'ts, and people can ask weird questions that you have no idea how to answer. But I think I did all right. And it was nice to be upstairs looking at sunshine for a change.

So, I know we already have several photos. But the official Pic of the Week is this:

It's pie! In honor of Pi Day (3/14), a dear friend brought me a pie. I was overjoyed. I work with good people.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: March 5-9, 2018

I'm gonna do a new thing.

Shut up. I know you're all groaning because I often say I'm gonna do a thing and then it doesn't happen, and quite frankly, that might happen this time, too, but I don't care. Just hush. (And the Philippines blog is coming, all right? I just got a bunch more photos to sort through so I can give you the quality content I'm known for.)

Here's the new thing: Pic of the Week. It's something I took a photo of, something I downloaded from the internet, or something I came across in the week that I deemed important enough to spend time on. So here's the one for this week:

This is on my door now. Because it's hilarious.

Anyway, this has been a looong week. I didn't realize until I started thinking about it. I've worked on three different languages this week. I finished the Estonian panic project. I also finished Hakha Chin. Now I'm on to a new group of Korean. It should be great fun.

We had prayer rally this week, which usually means no chapel, but we had a special guest. Bishop Ezra Sargunam was the head of the Evangelical Church of India denomination. I first met him in 2011 in Thailand. He's quite a remarkable person. He was one of two people from India who had a personal invitation to Billy Graham's funeral, so on his way back, he stopped in at OMS. He gave a nice greeting on Tuesday.

It's orientation week, so we met and prayed for the newbies at the prayer rally. The prayer department is testing a new prayer workshop, so we did that for the rest of the morning. I must say, there was a lot that cut into normal work hours this week. Prayer is fine, but three hours of it wipes me out.

Like I said, it's orientation week, and you all know what that means. I get to play Vanna! We did the usual History of Missions session, and I got to do the illustrations. I don't know how I got asked to do this - I'm terrible at drawing. But I guess people like it, and it's something different in my week. Plus, I did the intro to ECC this time. The usual person would have had to come in on their day off, and that's just no fun, so I volunteered. Don't know if I'll ever do it again as I'm not entirely sure what I told them about ECC. But I had fun, and that's all that matters.

I'm getting tired of grey days. Spring can pop 'round any time now, thanks.

Let me know what you think of the new thing. And you can send submissions each week, too. That's a brilliant idea. Go me.