Clean or Unclean: A Flowchart

One of the ways I've been filling my time, now that I'm not in school anymore, is by preparing for the event formerly known as PMI. (Presently it's nameless...) This event is a huge to.do for Pioneer Bible Translators, where those interested in joining come to check us out, where missionaries congregate, where important training takes place, and where the semi-annual board meeting takes place.  With all this going on at the same time, it's an event planning nightmare and it requires all hands on deck.

I was given a piece of this pie as my very own: Children's Activities and Games.
Childcare is a must at an event like this and kids have to have a chance to exercise their muscles during games and exercise their heads during activities. So my job is fill the holes in the schedule with activities and games that correspond to the lessons. This endeavor has me scouring the internet but sometimes she comes up dry. And whenever I am frustrated by dry spots on the internet I take it as a personal mission to ... spritz it?

(like I did with 5 Date Ideas for a Long-Distance Relationship)

So last week's dry spot was a flowchart for determining if an animal was clean or unclean by levitical law. The lesson we're covering during not-PMI is Peter's vision at Cornelius' house. The whole: and God said, I made that! Don't call it unclean!
They're trying to have the take away for this lesson be that while children's Bible's depict pig on the blanket, God was presenting a lot of animals that probably looked really gross to Peter (the CEV translates unclean as disgusting in some places in LEV 11), bringing us to the theme of the week: the Holy Spirit: sometimes He tells you to do things you don't want to do.
This flow chart could also be used for Old Testament lessons covering... wait for it... Levitical law. It's versatile like that.

Flowchart for determining if an animal is clean or unclean according to the Old Testament Law

Click to make it bigger!!

Ok, so this was intended for ages 6-12 and is simplified for that purpose. (I'm talking to you biblical scholars and bible college students! Breathe easy!)
As you can probably deduce, if the answer to your question is yes, follow the green arrow, conversely if no, follow red arrow.
I consciously pondered leaving in terms like "chew the cud", "cleft-footed", and "carrion bird" despite the target age starting at 6. I concluded that these are major key terms for this particular discussion and we should start to familiarize the students with them. I did include a glossary at the bottom of the page including a list of examples.*
When it came to birds, there wasn't so much a list of attributes for determining if a bird was unclean as much as a list of birds. But these birds found themselves in three major categories as illustrated above. I feel comfortable with it and it's just a Sunday School activity and Peter just found out that eating all the animals is ok so I don't have to worry about someone facing hellfire and brimstone on my poor instruction!
The final question: is it a reptile? is my way of summing up the section on things that crawl on the ground, whether it moves on its belly or walks on all fours or with many feet (LEV 11:42). Listed were things like weasels, lizards, and I'm taking "with many feet" to mean centipedes. Weasels are covered in mammals and centipede fits into a 6 year olds definition of "bug" so all that remained was Thou Shalt Not Eat Reptiles.

So there you go! Flowchart. My present occupation.


*Even though sometimes the work I have my hands in now can feel so far from Bible Translation, the work I want to be up to my elbows in, there are actually a lot of parallels and overlap. Sometimes its the serving missionaries at not-PMI by entertaining their kids. Sometimes its the serving state-side missionaries by taking things like Chrildren's Activities and Games off their plate. But sometimes I get to put my training to work. Deciding on whether or not to keep key terms that mean nothing to the people in hopes that they will apply a biblical definition to it vs taking an imperfect term from their language and hoping the imperfections won't hinder the message vs an assortment of other options is an important part of Bible translation!

Portland 2014

(continued from Las Vegas 2014,
which was continued from I Hate the Journey.)

Portland. The most hipster city on Earth.
From the labyrinth of Powell's book, through the bike lane lined streets, in and out of local coffee shops, to the churches we came to visit, Portland was an exciting, if not freezing, addition to our annual trip to Vegas.

It all started with a few cold calls. We got in contact with a church who said they were interested but wanted to really know the people they committed to supporting. "Give us a call if you ever find yourself in Portland," they said and we did.
Jacob's aunt works at a church up there as well. They had given us a gift for our 2012 trip to Papua New Guinea. So we were able to meet with both churches and were invited to speak at Westside Church of Christ, sharing our ministry with the congregation who had already invested in us. It was a good trip. We were excited for the opportunity and we can't wait to visit again.

3 Things We Will Definitely Revisit

Symposium Coffee - This is a charming coffee shop in Tigard run out of a house built in 1910. While the main room is excellent for the typical coffee shop atmosphere, the former bedrooms make excellent nooks for conversation and meetings. While here, I had a lavender latte. A latte I have craved everyday since.

Powell's - Our hostess warned us about taking in more money than we were willing to part with upon entering the enormous bookstore. Fortunately for our wallets, coffee was first on the agenda. I unwittingly said "for here" and received a mug that was ill-equipped to meander through the stacks with me. We will have to return so that I can get lost.

Killer Burger - This alcove of a restaurant was the prefect treat after the hockey game. With bacon and fries served with every burger, the only real question was which masterpiece to devour. I think I forgot to chew as I inhaled that huge and amazing burger. AND, since we were there at closing, they gave us about a pound of leftover bacon! For the win!

Las Vegas 2014

continued from I hate the Journey

If you are ever in the position of needing to use Fox Rental Cars as your rental dealer be sure that you approach their facilities on a full stomach. To do otherwise is to invite hostility and anger into your life. They will take forever. Hungry people are not happy people.

When staying on the Las Vegas strip, be aware that there are different buildings for the same hotel and if you get the cheapest room you will be staying in a dingy 3-story building behind the enchanting tower you envisioned yourself in. I stayed in Circus Circus so the tower wasn't that enchanting to begin with...

Make sure that you book your hotel on the appropriate side of the strip or you'll be riding the interstate all day to the exact same exit and wondering why you rented a room 10 miles from where (seemingly) everything else in Vegas is.


More to the point, we had four major To-do's in Vegas as enumerated below:

1. Speaking at All People's/New Horizon Church
   All People's has partnered with us in our ministry with Pioneer Bible Translators for a number of years. Recently they merged with New Horizon's Church to form one of the most welcoming congregations I've had the pleasure of visiting. We got the chance maintain our relationship with All People's, grow our relationship with New Horizon's, and develop relationships with a number of members of the congregation. 
2. Meeting with an executive pastor at The Crossing
   Formerly a pastor at Forefront Church in Virginia Beach, I had the pleasure of enjoying a delicious Thai lunch at Archi's with him and his wife. It was an opportunity to catch up on a personal level and work to make ties with The Crossing church. 
3. Attending Verve
   Having been planted by the same person who planted Forefront, Verve was a familiar place where I was able to worship in the way I grew up worshiping. Additionally, I was able to catch up with people I had met in previous trips to Vegas in addition to meeting new people, including but not limited to a MACU alumni. My alma mater is so small most people I meet traveling have never even heard of it, let alone have graduated from it! When we briefly covered our life's story we found a peculiar amount of overlap, which I think will let her be an amazing source of networking!
4. Sharing at a micro-group
   Right before we flew out to Portland, I got the chance to share with a woman's mirco-group at Verve. I love the chance to share my work in a time frame that exceeds 5 minutes. It really gives an opportunity for the audience to lead the discussion, inquiring about things that are important to them. And it really gives me an opportunity to communicate why the mission of Bible Translation is so important. 

Partnership Development or fund-raising can be a daunting task. Getting in contact with people, hearing the word "no" about 80% of the time, having plans fall through, it works out to being a job that is very very draining. But when the foot work has been done and all that is left is coming out to Vegas, sit down with people and sharing, and having new plans and opportunities pop out of the wood work, it makes PD a pleasure rather than a drudgery. 

Keep an eye out for "Portland 2014" to hear how our multi-city PD trip continued. 

I Hate the Journey

I hate traveling.
Like a lot.
I am 100% a destination girl.
I compulsively need to arrive at the airport two hours early, despite the fact that I have never ever needed that much time.
I pop a Xanax an hour before departure, because I'm terrified of flying.
I preform breathing exercises during take off and landing, because I'm anxious the Xanax won't work. (It's called meta-anxiety, being anxious about being anxious and it's my cross to bear...)
When we've finally stopped rising drastically and taking sharp turns and other acrobatic feats in the air, I spend about 3-5 minutes looking around. I turn on my phone and then turn it off. I glance at my Kindle and then away. And then I say to Jacob: I'm bored...
I'm a watch checker. Every 10 minutes until I realize I'm about to drive myself crazy (which would be quite anxiety inducing), until finally I find an arguably horizontal position a little less than totally uncomfortable and drift in and out to an every half hour watch check.
I try to make my flights 2 hours or 16 hours and avoid anything in between. It needs to be over soon or long enough for me to accept that this is my existence now.

Really, I wish that security was the only part of flying. I'm good at security. So good. Like a TSA ninja! I walk up to the buckets and suddenly there is a flurry of buckets all over the place. Outwear! Liquids! Laptops! I fly into the tube of detection and FREEZE. arms over the head.... And GO! And stop! wait for the signal.... DONE!
Ninja.

But then I emerge off the plane. stupid flying box of improbable doom. I rarely check baggage so I don't have to bother with baggage claim. I just try to leave the airport as quickly as possible.
I'm a destination girl.
But there are some days, some fateful days, where there is no one waiting for me and I have to navigate....
Airport Transportation!!!
Dun dun dun.
To be continued.

This Christmas I became a Crazy Cat Lady....

So this Christmas, I went overnight from having one cat to three...
I'm getting a sample of being a crazy cat lady and it stinks! (haha, pun!)
We're watching someone's cat who's out of town for the Holidays and on that same day Jacob brought home a feral kitten.
So we've have to tame the wild beast, coax the guest cat, and placate the resident cat, all while trying to keep the dog from antagonizing and/or death.

It's been an eventful, stressful, and hilarious time. Let me share some points with you:

The Litter Box for Multiple Cats

Since Shadow (the resident cat - RC)'s box is covered, we decided to use another box for the kitten. Luckily we had an amazon shipping box on hand. Unluckily, Jacob didn't turn the flaps out all the way....

The kitten has not developed the fine art of covering her deposits. Marie (the guest cat - GC) has taken to entering her litterbox afterwards and covering it for her. Apparently, she thinks that's too disgusting to bear. I concur.

Kitten has taken to Shadow (RC)'s box. I guess we spent $5 on a new litter box for nothing....

Featuring Kitten as an Ornament

Playing with Multiple Cats

It's really hard to tell if cats are swatting at each other with mirth or malice....

The kitten apparently has a death-wish as she insists on charging the larger cats who obviously hate that.

Marie (GC) has taken to sneaking up on kitten and swatting at her while she is grooming herself. As she is a kitten and has not mastered this new skill, it results in her overbalancing, doing a couple of somersaults, all the while flailing her claws wildly in hopes of retribution. It has yet to be successful.

Shadow (RC) really enjoys stalking the kitten. When he pounces, he tries to fall just short enough that the kitten is able to jump 6 inches in the air in fright.

Kitten has taken to sprinting across the room and leap frogging off of Shadow's (RC) head. He loves it...

When playing with the laser pointer, everyone wants to play but no one wants to get close to the others. Asher (the dog) is least discriminating. We like to get him a little too close to Marie (GC). She knows how to fend for herself. And Asher looks so offended after she swipes at him.

My in-laws sent a very large Christmas present to my house which I'm not to open until they arrive. Marie (GC) and kitten have been using it to play with. Kitten hides and peeks around one corner, while Marie sneaks around the other and thwacks her on the rear. Kitten jumps sky high and Marie licks herself in delight.

Feeding Multiple Cats

Asher (dog), per usual, likes to eat cat food. With just one cat, we kept it to a place where Shadow (RC) can get to but Asher can't. The kitten, however, cannot access the shelf. Hopefully, dog problems will not be forthcoming.

Marie (GC) hates the system. Instead of eating her food that her mistress loving brought for her, she prefers to eat Shadows (RC)'s food. And instead of jumping to the second shelf and eating there, she prefers to reach up and nudge the food bowl until it spills on the floor. She then eats a couple bites and walks away. I guess I'll clean up that mess....

Menial Work is My Spiritual Gift

Like most people, I have a couple spiritual gifts, but I really think that one of them is doing menial work. I really love it! Once, while serving at Verve in Las Vegas, I stood over a copier for three hours. Data entry? I'm your girl! You want me to type, in a language I don't know, an entire book of the Bible? I am on it!
(I mean, I love thought provoking, problem solving work as well! But I really really love some menial work!)
As an added bonus, doing menial work often means I get to free up people to do work that only they can do! And I really love serving people in that regard!

What I am working on right now!

I have been given the pleasure of working on the Catholic Lectionary! 

Papua New Guinea has a strong Catholic presence. With both that and our desire people using the Word of God in their heart languages in mind, we have the idea to make a shell book of the Catholic Lectionary. A shell book is a book who's formatting is done in such a way that you can easily replace the "meat" of the book with any language and not have to worry about the formatting or structure because that "shell" is already there!

What this means is that I get to take a scanned copy of Lectionaries C and A (I already completed B, next year's Lectionary over the summer) and insert computer formatting codes. I remove Scripture passages and replace them with commands dictating which passages to insert. I give every title, subtitle, and sub-subtitle it's own code so that there will be consistency in formatting across the book. And I spell check as the text recognition software is far from perfect. 

Looking back this sounds like more than a menial task, but really after you've memorized the right codes (\ms, \mr, \s1, \s2...) it's clicking and typing all the way down. 

I'm super excited that working to get the Word of God in people's heart language doesn't always have to be something I can help with until I get to the field, but there are opportunities, like this one, to work to that end right here and now! 

I'm super excited that I can give other translators opportunity to do things that only they can, while I do this work on their behalf. 

I'm super excited to have a menial task, because I really really love them!

5 Tips for Studying for Comps

So it's that time... Time to start studying for comps. Hopefully you saw this coming and used the tips I gave in 4 Tips on How to Pass Comprehensive Exams. If you didn't, don't panic. I didn't do most of them myself, but I still passed! Those tips were given in the hindsight that's 20/20. 

But now it's time to pull out the coffee and the course notes and the flashcards that you may or may not have been working diligently on this whole time. 

The question is like an elephant in the room.

Now what?

5 Tips for Studying for Comps

1. Write things down. When you're having an emotional breakdown because Comps is in 8 weeks, and you know nothing and while 8 weeks sounds like a long time it's NOT! It's like SAND IN AN HOURGLASS!!! (does this ring of personal testimony? Sorry...) When you get stressed, you can look back on the things you wrote down and be happy at the empirical evidence that you do know things! Additionally, notes are way easier to review than reading through the class materials or textbook again. So take notes to study later. 
2. Try to condense things each time you write them. You may need to start off with an extensive explanation of what "evidentials" are. But after you're familiar with that, all you need to review is Aikhenvald 2004 - evidentials. It's way faster to read through that the original notes and when you consider how much you have, being able to zip through it quickly will be nice. 
3. Start with the scholars. For comprehensive exams at the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics, we had to cite scholars, which meant that we had to memorize A LOT of scholars. We found it was easier to learn the subject in terms of the scholars than it was to get a general idea of the principles and then try to stick scholars in that. So rather than reading through the course notes and working out sense, reference, connotation, denotation, and then trying to learn scholars, we would learn Frege, Mills, and Russell  and in doing so learn the above with a frame work to put it in. 
4. Get your acronyms. Acronyms are especially good for lists. I used them for my scholars. Rather than pulling out my hair trying to remember who talked about perlocutionary force, I had an acronym for each subject. I memorized years by vague patterns and the order of the scholars. And then I put a key word with each of them. I didn't do that until after tip 2 and 3 above. It was good for studying but then when I just knew my brain would shut down at a critical moment during comps, the list was rote. 
5. Talk to your professors on their time. This may be a bit shady, but I believe the responsibility is on their shoulders. Let's say you go to talk to your professor on their time when they have stuff to do and start asking about if-then statements and their subtleties... Worst case scenario, your prof will give you valuable information on the topic that edifies your understand. Best case scenario, they tell you it's not worth being concerned with. Which can be translated to mean: that's not what the comps question is, please don't waste my time. 

After you're done with comps, if you heeded the advice above, you might find yourself with quite a pile of papers you would rather never see again. This is a great time to get together with your comps study group and burn them all in a commemorative bonfire of the occasion! 

You're welcome!

Good luck!