Just some spare rounds…

Last week has been a tough one for me. I found out that our web designer here at GoodSeed is planing to move on, leaving the direction and implementation of future web projects up for grabs. Since I have been involved with the website from almost the start, I'm the best pick to carry the maintenance aspects. However, the weight of the direction of the site will be carried by 3 of us (2 in Alberta and myself here in Idaho.)

One note on this: Our new website is superbly designed, which makes maintaining it much easier that could be. We have a new store / shopping cart, which is much better than what we have been using. So, with all this in view, we are very blessed to be in the position that we are, and for this we are very thankful.

Needless to say there is a lot to figure out and implement yet. And hopefully that will come in time. While this does add more responsibility to my plate, the basic meaning is that it will take longer to get anything finished.

The Lamb is at the press, and we are expecting them to arrive in early July (English, Luxembourgish, Portuguese & Chinese Simplified.) We have ordered another set of Tabernacle Model kits, scheduled to arrive in June. And we are in the process of ordering another 600 Tabernacle Furniture sets. There are a couple other projects close to finishing - The Portuguese Stranger Ed4, Portuguese WorkBook Ed4, The Interactive Stranger, The Large Print Stranger, The Arabic All that the Prophets have Spoken, A 4 lesson series DVD on Unlocking the Biblical Worldview. And up in Canada, they are working on some of these as well as other projects. And those of you who know some history, some of these projects have been "close to finishing" for quite some time. Herein is the dilemma. But, as with most projects, they often get hung up on something of which you have no control.

Suffice to say, we have enough going on it seems. But there are other things we'd like to do more of, and that takes wisdom to manage / implement / juggle time. Thank all of you who have a part of supporting through prayer and finances to help keep me here, creating tools to help people understand the Message of the Bible and teach it to others.

If you'd like to donate, one way is right here.

Here's a quick synopsis of what it takes to get decent subtitles and captions on a video:

1. Transcribe the video
2. Import text file to CPC
3. Format each caption (CPC does an initial 'dirty' format.)
4. Time each caption
5. Proof / fix
6. Proof again
7. Export Subtitles
8. Build DVD w/ Subtitles for proofreader
9. Correct problems from proofreader
10. Export Subtitles again
11. SaveAs another file for Captions
12. Export Caption data
13. Import them into Scenarist for final DVD Authoring

It is a straight-forward process, just takes a while if it's an hour long message with lots of speaking. This video I'm finishing up has about 3 hours total of video content, or 3,053 subtitles!

I'm not sure if it's me, but time does seem to be going by quicker the older I get. You hear that from time to time, but it does seem just a short while ago when it was the year 2000. I was moving from Ontario to Alberta, before setting up shop there for the next 5 years. Today I looked back, and saw correspondence for the Portuguese Lamb dated in 2007, a book that is now at the printer. Either time is going faster, or projects just take a long time, I'm not sure which is the case.

Mondays I'm usually on phones, which makes it hard to concentrate on any big project. On Tuesdays we have an office meeting between 9:00 and 10:00, which is good, but after it's an hour to lunch time and the afternoon is over way too fast (see above paragraph.) Wednesday's are when I pack orders for Lloyd, so that also throws a wrench in productivity. That leaves Thursday and Friday, provided that those that are scheduled to do phones are around to cover that. I'm not complaining, so please don't read that into this. The things that we do here are very helpful to so many people, and there are many other GoodSeed staff that are able to put their mind / energy to a specific task and see that followed through. However, it doesn't work that way too often for us here in our office, it seems.

It is a different type of work than I'm used to, and these are some things I've been dealing with / going through these past weeks. However, God is able to work through me even in this.

As I traveled through the mountains and valleys this past week, I got to see things that many people have seen, but probably not all in the short time that I had witnessed. Up to 8,200 feet and down to -200, it truly was a trip of diversity. From lush rain forests to the desert plain, from 102 degrees to 30, 360 foot high trees to scrub brush, dry river beds to powerful waterfalls, this trip took my breath away time and time again.

It made me think of what the world was like before the big flood in Noah's day. Were there deep canyons, tall waterfalls, mounds of granite protruding thousands of feet in the air? The earliest records don't say. It seems it was universally tropical. There were rivers but no rain. Mist watered the earth (oh, the Redwoods get around 25% of their moisture from the mist...)

However, the flood did come. Layers of sediment put down in great fashion. Canyons cut in days. Land mass sliding and buckling. Volcanic activity lit the night sky. After the flood, the earth took a new shape. Great amounts of snow causing glacier movement. New maps were needed to navigate these newly arranged land masses.

Yet, after all this violent activity, we, today, look around at the aftermath. Even after this great judgment, the world is left with incredible beauty, diversity, variety, and wonder. Places to climb, hike, and overlook magnificent views. Refreshing mist from a giant, tumbling waterfall. Animal and plant life in such amazing color and attitude.

To me, it goes to show how good and great God is. Even in judgment, he left us with incredible beauty. Had I been the one orchestrating the flood, things today would be rather flat, dull and boring (it was a judgment, remember?) Perhaps this is why I feel small standing next to a granite cliff running 2,000 feet straight up. I remember that these are formed out of God's judgment on man's rebellion. Not a small feat, pointing to the severity of just how bad is sin, and how great and powerful God is.

The last leg home…

Drive through the Redwood National Park

The trip between Vegas and Redwood National Parks

Here’s leaving Yosemite and some trip to Vegas…

The drive from Medford, OR to Yosemite (and a hike up a the Merced River)

The 12 hour drive to Medford.

For quite some time, we’ve been meeting on Saturday mornings (at around 7:30 - 9:00) for a Bible study. We are currently in Acts 8:13-14. Often times we get side-tracked on issues that are stimulated by discussions, but most of the time is a profitable dialogue.

I shipped one skid today to Australia. It was a mixed lot - from Tabernacle Furniture sets to books to DVD’s, it was to help re-stock the GoodSeed AUS office. While it doesn’t sound like much work, I was trying to figure how many hours’ worth of work went into this. I guessed 15, but not really sure about it all. By the time the order gets finalized, paperwork in place, the inventory pulled, packed on a skid, weighed, invoice created, order adjusted, inventory re-organized, skid re-packed, re-weighed, shipment processed (customs, Commercial Invoice, Packing List, Power of Attorney, etc.) I’m still amazed at how much work this is. But we do trust it will be a help in that country—helping people understand and share the message of the Bible.

Drove down through Seattle on the way home, stopping in Issaquah, and climbed Squak Mountain State Park. It was a good climb, about 1,700’ up and 7 miles long. Made it home around 9:30 pm.

After sleeping in a little, breakfast, us guys took off to hike Washington Park. Low on the coast, it was a beautiful day to get out and just roam.
On the way home, we stopped so I could shoot some daffodils in a field. Just a little early for the tulips, they’ll be out soon.