Keyboarding at SIL

Last Monday Joyce and I went to work. Well, I probably should put “work” in quotes since it isn’t wage-earning work and is totally voluntary. Let me tell the back story. I know you may already know this but a little review will keep it all straight.

Wycliffe is an organization that recruits, trains, and sends people (think missionary) to other nationalities to translate the New Testament into their “heart” language. I’m sure there are variations around the world so I’m going to focus on Mexico. There are hundreds of indigenous languages and various dialects spoken in Mexico. Many (most) of these are spoken by a local community with the village just over the mountain (or down the road or down the river) speaking a variation of that language – but a vary distinct variation.

Missionaries have been going to those villages, learning the heart language, and then translating the New Testament into that language. Bibles were printed and the people were taught to read. This takes, on average, about 30 years – a career for a missionary couple. Years ago this was all done on paper. Then came the computer which simplified the process.

The agency that sends the missionaries (now think translators) is called SIL – short for Summer Institute of Linguistics. Long story here and I don’t know all of it. Suffice to say that we are at the Mexico Branch Office of SIL – Wycliffe. This is in Catalina, Arizona at the extreme north end of Tucson. There are jobs here for hundreds of volunteers but usually only about 100 to 110 at the peak. These do not all work all the time at the same time. Some only one day a week, or only in the mornings. Some of the jobs are sewing, quilt making, rug making, furniture repair and refinishing, carpentry, simple house repair, yard maintenance, making snacks for everyone, stamps, and keyboarding. There used to be an auto repair but the IRS shut them down because of some obscure law. I’m sure there are other jobs I’m not thinking of. Joyce is working in stamps and we’ll tell about that another time.

There are four computers in this small room but it works out okay. The company is enjoyable.

I am doing keyboarding. When I was here before – can you believe it was 4 years ago? I can’t! – I put into computer some of the New Testaments that were pre-computer. We used the printed Bible as our copy text and keyed in the appropriate characters. It took several years to complete all the New Testaments in all the languages that had been previously translated.

They have now finished this process and we are keyboarding Old Testament Summaries. The OT is not translated in its entirety but rather a summary is written and that is translated into the particular language.

I need to pick up a loose end here. I mentioned heart language. That is the language that belongs to that village. They might speak Spanish but that is an imposed language. It is like an American Indian whose heart language is Navaho. He also speaks English but Navaho is the language that speaks to his heart.

So I (and others) are keyboarding the language of the Seri people. They live along the Gulf of California on the mainland side about half way down the Baja. There are about 650 to 1000 speakers of this language. It was once endangered but is now rebounding. The July 2012 issue of the National Geographic has an article on the “Vanishing Voices.” The Seri language is one they featured. Lots of pictures. Check it out. Ed and Becky Moser went to this area in 1951 to begin the long process of translation. They finished the New Testament, an Old Testament Summary, a dictionary, and some other material. Ed died several years ago and Becky died a month or so ago. Their daughter Cathy and her husband Larry Marlett have been updating and revising these works. Four years ago I edited a book on the Seri language for Larry. Now I get to keyboard the OT summary.

Here Joyce is hard at work sorting stamps:

Our schedule is very “demanding.” We go to chapel at 8:00 (if we want to). Work from about 8:45 to 10:00, take a break, work until noon. Go back to work at 1:00, take a break at 2:30, and quit at 4:00. All of this – if we want to. Monday thru Thursday. Friday is a day off. So for about 5 1/2 to 6 hours a day I type away. Here is a sample. It comes from near the beginning of the Old Testament. Can you recognize a couple of words?

Cmaam tiquij Eva impah. Adán xah Eva xah ziix z iti imaaiha xo ziix z iij cöpahiitax hant z iti tmoiiha. Taax isolca coi ziiz quih imiipe taax isolca coi iti tmahcama taaxah aa itahma aama. Yooz quij cmique quih cöiixi ac hipi isoj quijo yaaiha.

All I can tell you is that it is something about Adam and Eve and that the word “Yooz” is God. It occurs many times and is always capitalized. You notice a lot of repetition and a lot of qu and z and x? My left little finger has never had so much work! The computer has a special program in it that lets me enter the two dots over the “o” by pressing the colon (:) and then the oh. To get the glotal like over the “a” I press the back slash (/) and then the a. These are called diacritics and this language has very few. Some have lots and others have LOTS. It took me all week (minus a few of the above mentioned hours to get a haircut and do laundry) to type 30 pages (some with pictures). Generally it takes me about 12-15 minutes to type a page and 20 minutes to check the page for errors. Another person is also entering the same information. Later we will compare our work with a special program that shows any discrepancies. We will correct these using the original book, but I haven’t done that yet.

Why is all this done? For preservation. To make possible the printing of more Bibles or Summaries as “on demand” printing. That means they can have printed only as many as are needed – one or two if desired. Another reason is that these computerized New Testaments are available on the internet. You – yes, you – can find a portion of the Bible in the heart language of your new neighbor, co-worker, friend, whoever. You can print on your printer as much as you want to give to them as you talk to them about spiritual things.

Yesterday we wanted to stay close to “home” so I would have more time to finish the Senior Adult Newsletter and work on this blog post so we went to church nearby – The First Baptist Church of Catalina. It was a good service, very much aimed at older folks. The Pastor’s sermon was “Understanding Imputed Sin.” I won’t comment.

Here is our setup on Jim’s RV pad:

Weather? The first part of last week was fabulous! Highs near 80*. At the end of the week we got a storm from Mexico that dumped rain Thursday and Saturday. Now we are getting a storm from Canada that is bringing cold weather and a little rain. They say it will snow at higher elevations tonight and are warning us about ice on the roads for tomorrow morning. I’ll leave you with this picture I took Saturday late afternoon. It is looking southeast. The mountains are the Santa Catalinas.

We Have Arrived

We are now in Catalina. That is in the extreme north part of Tucson, Arizona. Today we started “work.” More about that later.

We left Newport Beach Friday morning arriving in Quartzite, Arizona about 4:30. It was an uneventful trip except for the very heavy traffic in Riverside. It was stop and go for 2 or 3 miles where one freeway merged into another. This was middle of the day; I’d hate to see it at rush hour!

Sometimes I like to have a radio on when I’m going to sleep and if I wake up (if? if? what I mean is when) …when I wake up in the middle of the night I’ll turn it on to go back to sleep. It is on a timer so it goes off on it’s own. Anyway, we had KNX 1070 tuned in. It is all news, weather, traffic, and a few short features. It was helpful to hear the weather and interesting to hear what was happening on LA freeways – not just the accidents but the debris they would find. Amazing what lands on a freeway. Pretty soon Joyce and I started playing a guessing game: “What will be the next piece of junk?” They reported such things as bumpers (I can understand how bumpers could fall off considering the condition of the freeways), garbage cans, dogs (I know, they are not debris), lumber, ladders, a washing machine, boxes, insulation, and simply “debris” – six cars were damaged but they couldn’t find the offending obstacle.

Which got me thinking (ah oh, here we go!). As we travel through life there is debris out there which can cause us damage. Do we watch out for it? Are we alert to avoid a mishap? Or do we just plow along the freeways of life hitting this thing and running into that thing? The “debris” could be everyday stuff that hits us wrong. Maybe something like an encounter with someone that leaves us angry or a temptation we succumb to. Maybe it’s something bigger like an old habit raising its ugly head. When we are not careful we find ourselves running into the stuff and then having to stop and repair the damage. Much better to avoid it in the first place. The Bible says be alert because your enemy the devil prowls around like a hungry lion waiting to devour (trip) you up. I wonder if he prowls freeways?

Before we left, Jana and the kids came down to Newport Beach and we all went out to the beach. Bee – oot – ti – full day! The kids played in the water  a little and in the sand a lot. This was Jey’s first trip to the beach and she wasn’t too sure about it – especially after getting knocked down by a tiny wave. The local playground was more to her liking.

They came late in the day as you can tell by the shadows. This is the same pier Joyce and I walked out on a few day earlier – pictures below somewhere.

Later in the evening we used the hot tub for one last time. No one else was there so the kids had fun in both the pool and the hot tub. Then they left for home. Sad. The next day we left for Arizona.

That is Catalina Island in the background. Now we are in Catalina, Arizona. Odd, isn’t it?

Today we went to the Wycliffe center for chapel and then “work.” I'm keyboarding and Joyce is working in the stamp department. More about this next time.

By the way the weather is about 75 in the daytime and 46 at night. However, a change is coming they say.

Final California Pics

These are random pictures from our 4 weeks in southern California and more specifically, with the kids in and around Los Angeles.

I love this one. It is cropped from a larger one taken at the marine museum a couple weeks ago. In a lot of her pictures she does the “cheese” thing and her smile is not really natural. This is a natural smile.

I like this one too. We set him adrift in a stormy sea but his tenacity as a helmsman brought him through. As you can guess, it is in front of a poster in the marine museum.

I think I’ll crop this and put it as the picture at the top of my blog. We are standing on the pier at Newport Beach.

At Jey’s birthday party with Korak’s parents. They are Juanita and Toby Taylor.

This is the business district on Balboa Island I mention in one of the posts below. A fun place to visit.

Our end of the RV Park. Look very carefully and you can see Joyce  standing in front of the white car on the right side of the street nearly at the top of the  picture. You can’t see our RV because it is tucked in between two others. The white car is our neighbor’s. My pickup is behind it. The houses on the bluff are on the other side of the water (I  guess it would be called the inlet to the back bay – everything in this area is called back bay).

This is a VERY boat oriented part of the world. It would be interesting to know the value of all the boat in this area. I know it would be in the several billions of dollars. This picture is taken from the bridge to Balboa Island.

Ok, this is it for now. How about encouraging me with some comments in the comment section!!! It is supposed to be easy to do. It’s okay to use anonymous – but identify yourself somehow so I know who anonymous is.

Nice Place… and Cold

One day last week Joyce and I drove to Balboa Island and walked the main street. It’s hard to describe Balboa Island. It is part of Newport Beach, a man-modified and man-made island in the harbor. Actually it is three islands. It is mostly residences which are mostly small and mostly in the 2 to 3 million dollar range. There is a two block business district with chic shops, a few eateries, and 4 or 5 real estate offices! Go figure. From the island you can ride the 3-car ferry over to Balboa Peninsula. It has a small Fun Zone, boat tours for whale watching, and lots of really up-scale homes.

Anyway, we walked both sides of the business district, ate lunch and took the ferry over to the peninsula ($3.00 for pickup and two adults). Let me emphasize it was a beautiful, sunny day and not very cold.

I copied this picture from Wikipedia. In the foreground is the mainland of Newport Beach. You can see Balboa Island in the center and the peninsula in the background. Notice the pier at the top. I will post some pictures taken from the pier but I’m not sure if they will be in this post or at the top in another post.

The last time we went up to the kid’s house we drove up Highway 1, known at PCH (Pacific Coast Highway). It was about the same distance as going the freeway but of course took a lot longer. It was an interesting trip going thru all the cities – Huntington Beach, Seal Beach, Long Beach, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach (notice a theme here?). Some of the way we could actually see the beach, but mostly not. We had lunch at an In-N-Out Burger.

Here is an interesting observation and object lesson. Those of you who have driven the freeways in the Los Angeles area can relate to this. Let me paint a word picture for you if I can. When they built the freeways they poured concrete in “lanes” or “strips” about 12 feet wide. Then, next to that they would pour another lane, then another, and so on. Of course there was a seam or crack where the lanes adjoined each other. The direction of these lanes probably followed where the freeway was going to go – back then. But over time the actual driving lanes were often shifted a little to the left or right and sometimes shifted a lot. The driving lanes are designated by white strips and those little buttons that make your tires go “thump-thump-thump.”

If your eyes get focused on the concrete cracks you can easily wander into someone else’s driving lane and get sideswiped. You always see someone almost do that when the white lines and the concrete cracks have been together for a ways and then suddenly shift away from each other. I have to be very diligent to watch the right thing or I hear “thump-thump-thump” and maybe a car horn.

Here’s the lesson. As you go through life you need to keep your focus on the correct thing or you will find yourself getting sideswiped and maybe disaster will result. You can go along for a long time following the white line but if you aren’t careful your focus slowly goes to the crack. Then the crack takes you away from the white line – “thump-thump-thump.” HONK. Be careful where your focus is.

Here is an interesting PS to this. At night the cracks don’t show up as much but the white line and little bumps reflect your car’s headlights. So it is easier to drive at night. Now, you work that into the object lesson.

Friday was Jeyanthi’s second birthday so her big party was Saturday. I mean BIG party. I think it is really an excuse for the family and friends to get together. We had cupcakes, pizza, salad, pop, a jump house, games, presents, and beautiful weather. Jey held up pretty well, loved the attention and learned to blow out her candles. I think there were 19 children and about that many adults at the party. Full house and yard.

We used this picture in Jey’s invitations.

If you live on the west coast you know about the cold weather. It is cold here, too. Just not as cold as up north. It has been getting down to about 40 at night and up to low 60s or high 50s in the daytime. As soon as the sun goes down, the cold creeps in. It is supposed to warm up by the middle of the week.

Did you hear about the robbery and hostage situation at Nordstrom’s Rack in the Howard Hughes Center? That is about 2 miles from Jana’s house. Friday morning we were going to take a shortcut through the center but police had it all blocked off. It is a Taylor “tradition” to go to Johnny Rockets on a person’s birthday. Since Friday was Jey’s, our plan was to go to the one in the Howard Hughes Center. Nope. The place was still shut down Friday evening. So parents, brother, sister, grandma, grandpa, and Jey ended up at the one in Manhattan Beach.

We brought Lilly back to the RV with us Saturday evening. This was her “special” time with grandma and grandpa. Sunday we attended church at Mariners. It is very large – they claim 9,000 members. They have one Saturday evening service and two Sunday morning services plus a Sunday evening service that is different from the others. I’m not good at judging crowds but I would guess there were 2,000+ at the 11:00 worship we attended. It was a very good worship experience.

In the afternoon we drove to Monrovia to have lunch with Korak, Jana, and Korak’s parents at the Old Spaghetti Factory. We used to occasion to give Lilly back to her parents.

This is our last week in Newport Beach. My next post will be from Tucson – hopefully on time. Blessings

Added Pictures

These pictures go with the blogs below but if I put too much in a post it will not upload at the RV Park. So here are a few random pictures from last couple weeks.

Jeyanthi (Jey for short) at the playground in the RV park.

Evening stroll on the beach with lights reflecting on the water. Some of them are Christmas lights. Notice the full moon! Yes, it was bit chilly!

Walk along the estuary at the Conservation Center.

Eating with the wildlife at the Rainforest Resturant.

Sailor… or maybe a Navy pilot.

Enjoy!

All Smiles

Most of the Christmas decorations are down and the lights are packed away. I guess Christmas is gone and the new year has arrived. So here we go parading off into the future like we know what we are doing.

See. I’m smiling. Actually I have two smiles. Let me tell you about this one first. This is the surprise I mentioned last week.

Do you recognize this place?

Well, Korak called me last Saturday and asked if I wanted to go to the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl Game. Because he works for the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board he can sometimes land complementary tickets to special events. He had two tickets to each of the above. I thought about it. I’ve been to a couple Rose Parades, I knew it meant getting up at about zero dark thirty, and I knew it would be cold, very cold. But I had never been to a Rose Bowl game and even thought I didn’t really care about Stanford nor Wisconsin, I opted for the latter experience.

It turned out to be a good game and Stanford won. I guess I cheered for them. They had beaten Oregon and if they lost it would make Oregon look worse. Well, having tickets to the game and actually being there are two different things. Here’s what it takes to get there: leave the house at 11:30, drive my pickup to a commuter train station, ride a train to union station, ride another train to another station, ride a third train to close to the Rose Bowl, ride a shuttle bus to the stadium, then walk half way around the stadium to find our seats. As you can see from the picture we were on the 20 yard line and 60 rows up! Not too bad for free seats.

Korak had taken Lilly to the parade (which required the same three trains) and by the time they got back we were running late. We left the house at 11:30 and got to our seats in the stadium at 2:10 – just in time for the kick off! Count the minutes – 160 of them just to get there. Oh sure, we could have driven to the Rose Bowl, been stuck in traffic for hours and paid $40 to park. That didn’t seem like a good idea.

Now to get home. The game is over. We got out of our seats at 5:00. Twenty minutes later we were out of the stadium, looking for the end of the shuttle line. It was miiiiiilllles long. Maybe not quite that far, but it was very long. We opted to skip the shuttle and walk to the train station. I don’t know how long that took but it was a two mile walk. I was proud of myself. I kept up with Korak and made it okay. But it sure was good to sit down. Three more trains, one pickup ride and we were back home -- 8:30. Tired but happy. I got to go to a Rose Bowl game. ☺

Here is the second smile. The University of Oregon Ducks beat the Kansas State Wildcats in the Fiesta Bowl!!! That is football for the uninitiated. It was a great game and Oregon domineered all the way. They played their game, didn’t have any turnovers, made very few mistakes, and simply outplayed Kansas. They made Oregon proud. Can you guess who I was rooting for? I was elated. I was happy. I was smiling.

Later I reflected, but what if they had lost? How would I have felt? I admit I would have been bummed. That led me to wondering, “Am I too emotionally invested in the outcome of a football game?” It is just a game. In reality the results do not really effect my life at all. The outcome has no bearing on how I live. In fact, the University of Oregon could suddenly disappear from the planet and it would not effect me at all. Sure, it’s fun to have a favorite team and to root for them but I must be careful of the emotional investment.

This, then, led me to reflect… what is worth a deep emotional attachment? Good question. What would you answer? I’m sure family – at least close family – rate deep emotions with us. I’m more emotionally attached to my wife, children, and grandchildren than I am to, say, a second or third cousin (sorry cousins!). Some people are deeply attached to pets. Some to treasured heirlooms. Some to ______________ (you fill in the blank).

But what is proper? And to what degree is it proper? Then another question… do spiritual things have a place here? What things? I’m interested in your opinion. Leave me a comment.

Here’s one of the next sailors. I’m trying to indoctrinate him with a tour of the USS Midway.

I served on the Midway from March 1960 to February 1962. It is now a museum in San Diego. I toured it about 6 years ago but they have opened up so much more since then. Josiah and I were there for 4 hours and still didn’t see all of it. Note: the whole ship is NOT open to the public but they keep opening more and more each year.

I think this picture is kind of cool because this in the same mess deck where I ate. Probably the same tables, too!! I might have sat where Josiah is sitting.

I would like to put more pictures on but I am in the RV park now and I’m not even sure I will get this to upload. So, until next time. Blessings.

Cold and Wet

I guess a lot of words and phrases could be used to title this entry. We could say that grandkids are made to tire out grandparents. We could say this has been a fun and busy week. We could say Souplantation is my favorite place to eat. All these are true.

In reverse order, we ate again at Souplantation (known in some places as Sweet Tomatoes). We went there for my birthday right after we got here. And then again yesterday after church. It is a salad and soup place set up buffet style. They also have baked potatoes, muffins, and a few things like that.

What a fun week this has been. Jana came with the kids and their bikes last Thursday and stayed two nights. The bigger RV sure was nice. Everyone had a bed!!! Oh, an explanation here… the couch is a hide-a-bed and the table breaks down to be a bed. Anyway, we rode bikes (I rented one because I didn’t bring mine), and toured a Conservation Center. We didn’t know if this would be kid friendly but it turned out to be great. Also the weather was nice. It promotes the conservation of the estuary that eventually becomes the harbor.

Then we went to the Fun Center on Balboa Peninsula. Not much there except a Ferris wheel, arcades, gift shops, and restaurants. The kids were interested in the first two. Now, as if we hadn’t had enough, we decided to go the Rain Forest Restaurant a few miles away. What a place. It is built like a jungle with vines hanging from the ceiling, wild animals posted here and there, rain dripping down, and lots of screechy jungle sounds. About every ten minutes or so the elephants go into a frenzy and yell and scream, then the gorillas do the same. We were seated next to the gorillas. These are animated of course and the vines are plastic. The rain drops into designated troughs. Jeyanthi doesn’t like loud noises so she wasn’t too fond of the gorillas. But she can imitate their noises and chest pounding.

The next day it rained so we did some inside things and looked at a nautical museum. It wasn’t all that great. The next day it was back to the Taylor house. Joyce and I spent the night there and went to church with them Sunday morning – Marina Christian Fellowship in Culver City.

Saturday afternoon I watched the Alamo Bowl. For the uninitiated this was a football game between the Oregon State Beavers and the Texas Longhorns. OSU should have won it easily – they led (or tied) for 58 of the 60 minutes. Unfortunately is was the last two minutes when they did not lead. Texas came back from a 20 to 10 deficit to win 27 to 31.

I think there is a couple moral lessons here. On the Texas side of the picture the lesson is never give up. Keep going. Keep on keeping on. Keep doing what got you there. Or to put it in common slang, “dance with what brung ya.” They did and it paid off. I canNOT imagine the talk among the players was, “we’re beat,” “they’re better than us,” and “I’m tired; I just want to go home.” Oh no. I think it was just the opposite: “we can do this,” keep your heads up,” stay focused.” The point is that to come out on top you don’t give up. Texas made mistakes early in the game but they kept coming back.

From the Beaver’s side of things the moral is don’t give up a big play. OSU did. Especially the one that let Texas score the go-ahead touchdown. OSU did really well early in the game, they led most of the time. But one little mistake, one miscalculation, one oversight and the pass was over the defender’s head and into the arms of a Texas Longhorn. The previous 58 minutes were good but ended up being all for naught.

Let’s merge these two in what really matters – everyday life. It comes out like this. When the going is rough keep your focus and keep on truckin’. Be careful to prevent one mistake from being your downfall. Lose focus for one minute and it could be bad. Now, you can take this and put spiritual implications on it. You might use Philippians 3:13-14 if you want. Or find your own applications.

It has been off and on rainy – mostly at night but some daytime stuff. It is also cold. By cold, I mean in the low 60s daytime and low 40s at night. We keep a little electric space heater going all the time. In some parts of the greater LA area it is below freezing – east and higher elevation. The ground around our RV is some kind of sand – kind of like decomposed granite. It isn’t really muddy but kind of messy with lots of rain on it. I’ll be glad when this blows over.

This RV park is huge – 362 spaces plus cabins. This map is kind of small but here is an explanation. The entrance is on the right. You will notice there are three sections labeled Premium, Deluxe, and Standard. We are in Standard – less expensive. So are a lot of other people. Our spot is a red one on the far left – sort of across from the “t” in Standard. The lagoon is off the harbor and the ocean is to the left. See the little bridge at the top of the lagoon? There is a walkway that goes all the way around and crosses that bridge – about a mile or so. Joyce and I walked it the first day and Jana, kids and I biked it. The Back Bay Bistro at the top right is a nice place to eat – spendy!

Well, happy New Year to you all. Enjoy. Until next time. I’ll have a surprise to share with you.

(I tried to send this Monday but our WiFi at the park was way too slow to upload it. Sorry)