And Finally Home

Oops! This was supposed to be posted by Monday but… Well, I have my excuses. We arrived home Sunday afternoon about 3:00. Ginger helped us unload the RV. Looking at all the stuff we took out of it, it was no wonder the poor pickup complained about going up hills! Lots of things to take care of – buy a new TV for one (I got a Smart TV and it may go back to Costco – I’m not smart enough to operate it!). We have made two personal visits, one Bible study, and I went to staff meeting on Tuesday. We hit the ground running.

Our trip home was good. No travel day was very long – except we made lots of stops which lengthened the day. For those who are interested this is the route we took.

• Sunday the 21^st, Out of Tucson on I-10 to I-8
• Overnight at Gila Bend, AZ (cheap RV Park)
• Monday, North on highway 85 to I-10, north on Arizona 95
• Overnight at Parker, AZ (windy)
• Tuesday, Out of Parker on highway 62, north on CA 95 to I-40 (left Parker before dawn to beat high winds in the Needles area)
• West on I-40 to CA 58
• Overnight at Boron, CA (cheap RV Park)
• Wednesday, Continue on 58, then north on US 99
• Overnight in Chowchilla, CA
• Thursday, continue on 99 to a county road near Galt which took us over to I-5
• Overnight in Corning, CA (dry camp in the Olive Pit’s parking lot)
• Friday, continue north on I-5 (stop in Rogue River to have lunch with Joyce’s brother & wife. Stop in Grants Pass to visit Mike & Joann)
• 2 overnights in Sutherlin, OR (mostly all day Saturday planning meeting for summer kid’s camp)
• Sunday after church, North on I-5 to home

We had a great time in Catalina but are glad to be back home. Not too thrilled with the cloudy, wet weather but living in Oregon is our choice. And, as they say, you live with the consequences of your choices.

Our last church service in Arizona was at the United Methodist Church. Then we hooked up the RV and headed out. In Sutherlin we attended the Calapooia Free Methodist Church before we headed for home.

And that is our story. I won’t post again something memorable happens. Until then, blessings.

It Comes To An End

As the week winds down… it is Saturday already. I am putting up this post tonight because we leave here tomorrow after church. The plan is to bless the United Methodist Church with our presence, top off the diesel tank, eat lunch at Jerry Bob’s, empty the RV tanks, hook up, and be gone.

It has been a great week. I completed Hebrews in the Ozumacin Chinantec language on Thursday – just in time to do 1 and 2 Thessalonians in Zapotec Yatee. It was easier to hear the words but I had to hear fast as the reader was very fast. I assume that is the way they speak. Completing Hebrews was a challenge because my computer didn’t like the upgrade our leader put on it over the weekend. It keep freezing up and I would lose a few verses. I quickly learned to save about every 10 verses.

Just to review, I worked in four languages and synchronized about 19 Bible books. Joyce priced over 1.000 stamps from dozens of countries.

Thursday night was the Volunteer Appreciation Banquet. It was put on by the “regular” people who are not volunteers and they did a really great job. The decorations were first rate, the food was very tasty, the program was good. It was a great evening and we feel appreciated.

People  are beginning to fill the seats at the Appreciation Banquet. Joyce is on the right.

Today was the lunch that Sharon does every year for the volunteers that work in her department. It was the keyboarding department last time we were here but now they call it archiving. Sharon is a year round volunteer who lives just down the street from the Center. It was a salad and sandwich potluck. Jim and Nadine Rupp who translated the Chinantec language we worked on was there to talk about it. There are so many things to consider when translating the Bible into another language that it boggles my mind. I wish I could explain all of it but I’m not sure I even understand it.

Jim Rupp is explaining translation to us

These are the archivers. I think two are missing.The lady in the flowery top right behind the cactus is from Salem. Our leader, Sharon, is on the far right.

You might be interested to know that diesel is $1.69.9 at the Circle K and Valero stations here in Catalina. Gas is $1.39.9. Not bad. In fact groceries haven’t been very high except that our style of living in the RV and with both of us working in the Center we tend to eat more expensive food than we normally do.

My next post will not be until we arrive home and I’m not sure when that will be – sometime around the 28^th or 29^th. So blessings to each of you.

Church and Nuts

Today’s a holiday. It’s President’s Day. So the Center is closed. That gave us the opportunity to do a little spiffing up around the RV and Joyce did the wash. Other than that bit of labor, it was a nice restful day. But last week? Well, let’s see.

Work as usual. I finished Matthew then did 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, and Colossians. It’s fun doing the shorter books; seems like it goes faster. Joyce is still doing her stamp thing – pricing Germany, Peru, Argentina, Panama, Chili, Costa Rica and a few others. She figures she has priced over 900 stamps so far.

Let me tell you about church. Actually churches. We church hop here. The two Sundays we were in LA we went with Jana and family to Marina Christian Fellowship. The Sunday in Fountain of Youth we attended the nondenominational worship in the RV park. Then we arrived here on a Monday. These churches have been blessed by our presence:

• January 17 – Life Point in Catalina. It is only 5 years old and growing. It is very VERY much geared to reaching unchurched people. Good worship.
• January 24 – Community Church at Saddlebrooke. This is a nondenominational group comprised mostly of the residents of Saddlebrooke – a large planned development of upscale homes next to the property Jim and Joyce own. There were at least 300 in attendance meeting in the community’s performing arts center. The place has no center aisle so there are 37 seats in a row. If you are in the middle, don’t have bladder problems! Good worship.
• January 31 – Vitoso Community Church. These folks direct their worship toward senior adults -- all hymns, choir, order of worship, but a young pastor. We liked this church. It is located in an area of mostly retired people.
• February 7 – Open Door Baptist Church which meets in the chapel at the Center. Very friendly but I had a hard time following the pastor’s message. This was our least favorite.
• February 14 – Casas Church. Jim and Joyce attend there and we have gone with them when we were here before. We like this church. They have three services. Jim and Joyce have chosen to attend the worship that begins at 7:50. In the morning! We left here at 7:15 a.m. because the church is in Tucson (I felt like I was going to an Easter Sunrise Service). After worship we went to the Senior Adult Sunday School class followed by lunch at McDonald’s with the “lunch bunch” Jim and Joyce hang out with. Then back home for a nap! 

This is Cases Church. The early worship is really quite well attended. It just doesn't seem like it because the sanctuary is so big.

Now, I’ve saved the best to last. Have you ever gone gleaning for pecans? Me either. Until Saturday. One of the other computer people I work with went last weekend and told us about it. So a group of decided to give it a try. As it turned out there were 7 of us in a van only knowing vaguely were we were going. We found an orchard about 30 miles from here. Up near Picacho Peak if you know the area. The man in the farm yard told us go down this dirt road to the end, turn right, go under the freeway and the best orchard would be on the right. We did and it was. The picking was not real good because they had already disked the center between the tree rows. But there were still lots between the trees. I got all I want to shell – about a grocery bag full. Haven’t shelled them yet. I need to do that this week.

These dead-looking things are pecan trees. Seven us us fanned out and only covered a small part of the orchard. We found most of the pecans on the high area between the trees. You can see a few clusters of nuts still on the tree in the foreground.

 The weather is what we have been waiting for – in the 80s during the day and only down to high 40s at night. The weatherlady predicts more of the same to come. So blessings to each of you. Stay warm.

The Great and the Not So Great

Well I’ll start at the beginning of the week because that is the “not so great” – although it is not bad either. It is something to be expected when one comes to this part of Arizona. It is not all about basking in the warmth of the desert sun. The first few days of this week the morning temperatures were hovering around 28*. I had to scrape frost off the windshield one morning. The daytime temps got up to the high 60s so the mornings were just something to gripe about. I did have to buy a new space heater, though. While we were in LA I went to Target and got a real nice heater because our old small ceramic one was just not doing the job that needed to be done (keep us warm). It had lights and push buttons and digital read outs and beeping sounds. Well after a month of doing all those things decently and in order it decided to do them all at once – all of them all at once. Minus the heat. So it goes back to Target if they will take it.

I went to the local Ace Hardware and bought a small old fashion heater with knobs to turn for the various settings. It works. But even with the extreme cold we needed to use the RV furnace to help the little guy do the job. Okay, so we were cold. Now we are hot. Nice and warm today and predicted to be 80 by Friday. Lovely.

But all that pales in comparison to our weekend – actually our Thursday afternoon and Friday. We did two fantabulous things. Jim and Joyce (my cousin and wife (this is Joyce P, not to be confused with Joyce M)) drove us to Mesa and treated us to a wonderful meal at the Organ Stop Pizza. But the pizza is really only an excuse to go hear the organ. From the picture you can see that it is huge – no, I mean really huge. 

Along the ledge they have added auxiliary instruments such as cymbals, drums, horns, etc. A man plays requests for about 45 minutes of each hour, then takes a break. His playing is fantastic and all by memory. Seating is at long tables in the middle and smaller ones at the sides. The place seats 500 to 600 people. We stayed for about 2 ½ hours and only left because other people needed our seats.

Our deal with Jim and Joyce was that they would provide the transportation and buy the pizza, Joyce and I would get the motel rooms. So we bunked at a Super 8 not far from the Organ Stop Pizza. The reason for staying the night was that on Friday we did another fantabulous thing.

On the north side of Phoenix is the Museum of Instrumental Music. They have collected and displayed instruments from all over the world. The place is arranged by continent and then by country. We each had a set of headphones and a small receiver. When we approached a television we would hear what was playing. Usually there were 2-5 short segments of music from that country and the instruments were present in the display. Africa was first, then came Asia, Europe and so on. 

Each of those displays has a television and an assortment of instruments from that country. I'm guessing there are at least 400 televisions in the museum.

These are instruments made from recycled junk. The TV is showing an orchestra playing with things like this.

The place was mind boggling. We were there about 5 hours and my feet were tired! There was a room of mechanical instruments such as nickelodeons and calliopes. There was a room devoted to leading artists like Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley. 

The Johnny Cash display. To the left was one featuring June Carter.

And there was a room where you could actually play some of the instruments. Of course, they didn’t make me sound any more accomplished but I tried.

Joyce is trying!

It was a great two days. It took Saturday to rest from all the walking on Friday. Oh, I should add that last Monday I began on a new language -- Ozumacin Chinantec. I am doing Matthew again. I’m almost finished but it is hard.

Blessings.

What Was and What Is

I think I’ll begin by writing about what was and end by writing about what is. Last week was a fun week. In my little section of the volunteer world I did what we call fine tuning to match narration with color highlight on 1 Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Timothy, James, 1, 2, 3, John, and then did Jude this morning. After working with the language a person begins to recognize words and it goes fairly fast.

If you would like to see what the final result looks and sounds like I will give you some internet directions. You will end up at a place that is NOT the language I am working on because that is, well, still being worked on and is not posted yet. But you will see and hear what is similar except this site has the scripture being highlighted by phrase and I am doing it by verse. So here goes.

Go to www.scriptureearth.org

On the left side of the screen, scroll down to Mexico. Click on it.

In the large center box you will see a lot of languages. The second         one down is Amuzgo, Guerrero.

Click on it.

Now you have a box with several options for hearing and/or                   reading the language.

Click on the second one down, Synchronized text and audio                   (Matthew).

Be sure your speakers are on and you can see/hear this language. Pretend you are a resident of Amuzgo Guerrero. You can read and hear God’s Word in your very own heart language. God really does love you and he speaks your language. Fantastic, isn’t it?

If you want to see and/or hear the language I just finished, click on Mexico in the left column.

Go down to the next to last language, Zapotec Zoogocho. 

You can only hear OR read it – not both. But when they add what I (and 6 or 7 others) have just done you will be able to hear AND read with the verses highlighted in yellow.

Okay, that was fun wasn’t it? But let’s move on.

We are not doing much sightseeing or tourist things on this visit to Tucson. We did so much on our last two visits that we are taking it a little easier this time. We do have a fun trip planned for this week – but more about that in my post next week. However, on Friday Joyce and I went to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. It was a beautiful day, sunny but not too hot. We had been there before it was one place I wanted to see again. It is mostly outdoors among the cactus with about 2 miles of trails if you do it all. I did it all; Joyce didn’t. They have areas to see the kinds of animals typical of this part of the globe. They also have an aviary and an enclosure where you can get up close and personal with hummingbirds. Those were Joyce’s special areas of interest. We spent about 4 hours there. I was tired; Joyce not so much because she didn’t do a lot of walking; she watched the birds from the comfort of the covered patio!

A very sleepy coyote. Probably 3:00 was not the best time to visit him.

This is simply a view looking out over the landscape of the museum. The bird on the cactus is not real. Neither is the cactus. It hides a steel pole!

And now to the subject of what IS. Today we started a new language. It is very different than the other two and it is hard. It is Ozumacin Chinantec. I assume we (my compatriots and I) will get used to it and the seeing/listening will get easier. I started with Matthew about 11:30 and only got 3 chapters done. But starting with Matthew was good because there are all those names in chapter one. It helped me get oriented to the language but with words to help find where the man was reading.

The others thing that IS – weather. It is cold! All the storms that had previously been hitting California went to the north of us with maybe only a little cloudiness. The one that hit San Diego Sunday hit us early Monday morning. Lots of wind, some rain. And then the temperature dropped. Bitter cold wind today and it is supposed to get down to 29 tonight. Brrrr. The electric heater is going full blast and the propane furnace kicks on occasionally. But this will pass. It will be much warmer next week. Hope springs eternal.

So think of us as you bask in your nice warm rain.

Blessings.

Are We Really in Tucson?

When we say we are in Tucson, Arizona that is not being very specific. Tucson is big! Specifically, we are in an unincorporated area known as Catalina. If you look on a map follow highway 77, also known as Oracle Road, north past Oro Valley. The Center where we work is in this area and my cousin’s house is about 5 or 6 miles from the Center. If you want to see where we live on Google Maps, put in 37850 S. Escocia Lane, Tucson, AZ. The house is actually on the corner. See the RV parked in the driveway on the north side? That’s not ours. Jim has other people visit with their RVs and apparently the Google camera was overhead at that time. Just pretend it’s us. See me waving?

There we are all set up and settled in - top photo.

The bottom photo is taken from the road we drive in on. Our RV is off in the distance just to the right of the road. It's not as far as it looks.

To see the Center put in 16131 N. Vernon Drive, Tucson, AZ. The Center has a large study building with about 20 or 25 small rooms that were used by the translator and Mexican national as they worked through the process of making a written language and then translating the New Testament into that language. This was/is a long, arduous task. On Google maps this is the U-shaped building on the south. The U-shaped building on the north is the Administration building with a chapel on the right. I am in a room at the top of the U. The smaller building between these two houses various other offices including the volunteer office. Joyce does her stamp thing in this building. The other buildings to the left are for auto repair, construction, rug weaving, a boutique, and other things.

This lovely young lady is standing is front of part of the study building. Our break room is to left out of the picture. This is an important room with it's coffee and cookies!

Administration building in the background.

Joyce heading toward the building she works in.

This area which we all call “The Center” was originally built as a place for a translator to work with people from the village of the particular language the translator was working on. This was because the Mexican government kicked all religious foreigners out of the country (back in the 70s or 80s). So this Mexican branch center was built. Instead of us going to them, they came to us. The government has since changed and now translators live with the people they are serving.

Just to be technical we do not work for (nor volunteer for) Wycliffe Bible Translators. A couple years ago the IRS stirred their fingers into the mix and made all this volunteering a problem. For instance, in certain situations a person would have declare value for volunteer work received. And other complicated things. To navigate through that quagmire a new non-profit organization was created. So we are now working for Volunteers for Bible Translation (VBT). On the surface nothing has changed but the IRS in now happy. Well, are they ever really happy?

I hope this helps you understand a little better where we are. Enjoy the pictures. Blessings.

Hard At Work

We are settled in and hard at work. Well, “hard” is probably an overstatement. In fact, “work” is probably at overstatement also. It’s important you understand the definition of “working” here in volunteer land. Our daily schedule goes like this: Up at 7:00 (yikes, that’s early for a retired guy), get ready for the day and drive to the Wycliffe Center (about 6 miles away). Chapel is at 8:00. This consists of a hymn, announcements, maybe a very short devotional, prayer requests and prayer and a presentation by someone about Bible translation or whatever. It’s usually quite interesting. This morning a fellow explained about Bible translation for deaf people – yes, they really need that. He explained there are about 240 different sign languages in the world.

Ok, now it’s time to go to work – about 9:00. We work until 10:30, take a 30-minute break (coffee and cookies), work until noon, eat lunch, go back to work at 1:00, take another break at 2:30, and quit for the day at 4:00. Tough, huh? Sometimes we shorten the break time and lunch time. And sometimes we knock off for the day at noon or at the afternoon break – like today. We needed to shop at Basha’s Grocery. So while we are grinding away at the treadmill for these hard five hours, what do we do? Excellent question.

Joyce is busy in the stamp room. Right now she is pricing a pile of German stamps. Someone wants to buy them so, of course, the question is, how much? There are books that list the standard prices for all stamps. So she goes through this book, finds the correct stamp and writes downs the price. There are pictures and various numbers to help her. Most are worth less than a dollar but she found a $14 one today. Who decides the value? Who knows! Some stamp-god in the sky and he publishes a book, I guess.

Meanwhile I am installed in front of a computer in a different building. Maybe I better start the story at the beginning. The heart languages of the many indigenous people groups in Mexico have been put into a written language and the Bible has been translated into that language. Think American Indian tribes with all the languages represented. Mexico is kind of like that. This translation work is not complete but many, many languages have been written. These languages are now digitized (on computer) and available on line. The ones translated in recent years were done on computer but older ones were only hard copy. Putting them on computer is what I did during our visit 3 years ago.

Okay, they are on computer and available for someone who understands that language to read it or hear it read on their own computer (some do have computers), or at an internet café, or on their smart phone. As they hear the scripture read it is a lot easier to follow if the verses are highlighted. The process of highlighting each verse as it is read was done “magically” by computer. Except for four or five languages that are not accurate. 

Enter me. And 5 or 6 others.  I sit at a computer, wearing head phones, listening to a man read Zapoteco Yaganiza while I follow along on the screen. Do I know the language? No. Do I understand what he is reading? No. But after a little practice I can pick out enough words to tell if the color of the highlighted verse goes to the next verse the same time he does. If it doesn’t I adjust the timing with either a plus sign or a minus sign in the right margin. After a while it gets pretty easy – mostly. Certain words stand out like the words for Jesus, Christ, God, Spirit, and proper names. So that’s my day. Five hours of that is plenty!

Imagine me hunched over a computer. That’s the picture of me. 

Getting Caught Up

Beginning to blog again after almost 2 years off was not supposed to be this hard. Getting the post which follows this one to work was not easy – at least for me. (Remember, the latest post always appears on top). The internet connection was so poor nothing was working properly and the end result was it didn’t go up until yesterday. Now this brings things up to date.

We retired at Fountain of Youth RV Spa near Niland, CA from Sunday the 3^rd until Sunday the 10^th. It was simply a good time of rest and sitting in their hot mineral pools. We watched movies, took naps, and played in the water. They have lots of activities but we were not there to be active. The RV park is large – over 800 spaces – and many of the people are there for the winter season. Of course most from northern climes. We saw lots of Oregon license plates and plenty of people from Canada.

Sunday we got up early (usually we did NOT do that), prepared the RV for travel and then went to church. They have an interfaith service attended by about 150 people. I thought that was rather impressive. There is also a Lutheran service which I assume is more liturgical plus some meetings for a couple of the cults.

That's us right in the middle

We took two days to get to Tucson traveling down California 111 to I-8 then to I-10. We did a stopover in Gila Bend, Arizona. Boy! There is nothing there. But the rent was cheap. We are now in Catalina. It is north of Tucson (but with a Tucson address). If you look on a map it is north of Oro Valley on highway 77. It is higher than Tucson (elevation 3300 feet) and it is cold. C.O.L.D. Cold. Not down to freezing at night but getting close. Sixty-ish during the day. It better warm up! At least the sun is shining with no rain in sight.

As I reread the last post it seemed like I was saying I was overwhelmed with stress. That was not the case. I usually handle stress pretty well but this was a lot of things building up until we began to wonder if we should really leave. As I mentioned, when we unhooked at the church all the tension melted away. We’re glad to be here.

Tomorrow we start our work with Wycliffe Bible Translators. More about that in the next blog which will probably be Sunday or Monday. Until then, blessings.