Working on new video

Last week the team traveled down south a couple hundred miles to do an interview with a young man who was Buddhist and is now an Baptist pastor. His is a wonderful story of the Grace of God in the life of people. Kelly Billigsmeier is in charge of doing this video. She has been here 3 weeks tomorrow and has hit the ground running and is working hard every day. Her knowledge of the subject matter is so wonderful. She is teaching Tom and I things that will make our videos much better and easier. I can't tell you how good it is not to have to train a new comer, but to have someone come who is already skilled.

Tom and I set up the lighting and camera equipment today to film the opening of the video I am doing on Asim and Tina, our Pakistani translators who are now living in Texas. It took us 7 hours to set up to film 3 sentences. Let me repeat that: THREE SENTENCES!!!!  This happens when you are understaffed, under skilled, and old. Setting up is quite a chore. First we had to move all the furniture out of the living room, then move in the lights, camera, and a few props. It started to pour down rain, which likely would mean a power outage, but instead one of the computer power supplies went down and had to be taken to the repair shop. Anyway, three sentences later, the day is now over and tomorrow we will begin to record the narration for Asim and Tina's video. Both Tom and I will have to do the recording. I was hoping to have this done by the end of this week. Not likely. I am a master at under estimating how long something is going to take. It's not the things that I am actually working on that I underestimate the timing on, but how many interruptions will take place that will push back my work. I can figure out most of the time how long something will take, but when you work an hour here and an hour or two there, in between the many things that just "come up" that have to be dealt with, a one day job turns into a week.

Right now our house looks like a cyclone hit it. I can cook, clean house, do laundry and iron, or I can do video editing, but I can't do both... not any more. This week I worked on editing, therefore tomorrow I will wash, iron, and clean house. Another small glitch that pushes back the video production. Friday I will work on the narration. Yes, Friday. Unless...something comes up.

Wow. A year and a half since my last post! Now, that's Funny

Wow, more than a year and a half has gone by and nary a post from me. Ah well, I am still alive and well on planet earth and have been busy. Right now we have a new short term missionary with us having just arrived only 3 days ago. Her name is Kelly Billigmeier, from one of our supporting churches in Maryland, and she will be with us for several months working with everything involving video and photography. We have several video projects that we would like to be able to complete before we come home on furlough in early February 2014.

Right now Kelly is the only American working with us. Carolyn Chambers, who was with us for 4 years had to leave us to return to the US to help take care of her Dad who suffered a massive heart attack. She is greatly missed and was an incredible help to us for the 4 years she was here. Our Thai office manager, Pookie, started to college this year and is not in the office very much nowadays. For several months it has been just the two Hmong men, Tom and me. In other words…we are severely understaffed. We know that Kelly will be a great help to us and we are so glad that she is here.

Tom’s birthday was last week. He was 62. My birthday will be next week and I will be 61. I feel each and every year. Tom and I are getting old and we can really feel it. My philosophy of age goes like this. Zero - 39 = young. Forty - 69 = middle aged. Seventy to the end = old. After 70 you are living on “borrowed time,” which means…OLD! Our missionary mentor, Bro. Milton Martin, says “it’s not the years, it’s the miles.” On my highway of life counting up the miles, tooling along, at some point I was run over by a Mac truck. So, while maybe not chronologically old yet, my miles have caught up with me and I am very tired. I am looking forward to going back home to Texas, spending time with my church and my church family and watching Duck Dynasty on HD TV. Priorities are very important. I will probably eat crunchy Cheetos while watching the duck people.

Some weird things cross my mind as I think of going home for several months. I don’t have any decent winter clothes having lived in perpetual summer for the last 10 years. I had a really nice purple sweater and a very nice long sleeved shirt, also purple, but I traded those at a market in Africa 2 years ago for some very cool African souvenirs. The thought of having to start wearing panty hose again is also a rather unpleasant thought. Haven’t worn those for 10 years either. I think

I have a pair of “real” shoes in Texas. Hope so, anyway. All I have here are Crocs, which are very casual but comfortable. Casual attire is really the only thing worn here in Thailand unless you go to some formal event and even then most people do not really dress up in the way Americans would recognize. I’ve managed to live here in Thailand for 10 years with only blue jean skirts and a few khaki denim skirts. Oh, yes, I also have some shirts and blouses, in case you were wondering.

When I go home this time, I am taking my good cookware. My pots and pans in Texas are sub-standard, and I am always looking for my stuff that is here when I try to find a pot or pan to make dinner there.

In the meantime, we have a lot of work to do. Hopefully I will post again within the next year. Adios for now and maybe forever. I am finished making promises to write more later. Maybe, maybe not. We’ll see.