Ahhh, Heat

I’m hot. Well, actually I’m warm. But yesterday was a beautiful, glorious, wonderful, very WARM day. Close to 80*. So nice. We have traversed through rain, sleet, snow, wind, and the dark of night to reach this point. Today wasn’t as warm but still very nice. And now, Monday we leave for home!!! What’s wrong with this picture… as soon as it gets warm in Arizona we leave for wet, cold, windy, Oregon? Hmmm?

Here’s my final report on keyboarding. Doreen and I finished the Mixteco Jamiltepec and then corrected it. She and I typed in this entire Old Testament summary. Isn’t that impressive? I guess I have to confess that it is only 95 pages, well, half pages because the bottom half is Spanish and we didn’t do that part. And a lot of the 95 pages were pictures. But it is fun to say, “I did that.”

While we were doing all that, portions of the Nahuatl were being finished by other keyboarders. After which they started a new translation of about 400 pages. I only typed about one page just to see what it was like. So in the 6 weeks I was keyboarding, one translation was finished just as I arrived, we did three, and a fifth one was started.

Wednesday we attended a potluck for the volunteers from Oregon. There are about 20 – I’m not sure of the exact number but Oregon is well represented among the states. There are two couples from Salem and 3 of the keyboarders are from Oregon.

Thursday was the Appreciation Dinner for the volunteers. This is put on by Wycliffe staff (i.e. not volunteers). They did a fantastic job from the decorations, to the food, to the program. We truly felt appreciated. By the way, there are about 150 volunteers here – the last couple weeks we were at the peak. But some leave earlier and some come later so at least 200 volunteers are here sometime during the winter. At chapel they give a little gift bag to those who are leaving. Thursday was the last day for about 35 of us! Big departure day.

Yesterday Jim and I went with about a dozen other Wycliffe people to hike in Oracle State Park. What a beautiful hike! Beautiful day, beautiful scenery. We did the 1.6 mile hike up (noticed I said, UP) to the highest point in the park. A short picnic lunch and Jim and I headed back home because he had a previous engagement for mid-afternoon.

On the way up.

From the top looking at the valley below.

Just to prove we were really there. The beauty of the Arizona desert is certainly different from the beauty of the Oregon mountains.

This old guy had seen better years but now he just stood there and let us enjoy his decaying beauty. I’m speaking of the tree, not Jim.

Here is our group eating lunch. Some of them went on to tour the old ranch house that was home to the man who claimed 50,000 acres of this land. The park is just a small part of that ranch.

Tomorrow we leave for Oregon but it will take us several days to get to Salem. We have some stops along the way to visit family and friends. I suppose the next blog post will be from home but I’m not sure what day. Think of us. Pray for us. And blessings to each of you from Arizona.