Birthdays and Board meetings

Greetings all-I really haven't dropped off the face of the earth, March just took off out of the starting gate like a race horse and I've been trying to keep hold of the reins for the last ten days! February proved very productive for getting the French children's lessons brought up to speed. Most of them were old Quark files which needed to be converted into InDesign files. For a while I suspected my computer had an aversion to French because my software (and some days the entire system) kept crashing- thankfully it was a pesky little broken font file. Bet you didn't know fonts could break, did you?

Also EXTREMELY exciting for me was the arrival of the new iMac I'm now working on! We made the decision to upgrade Mac operating systems to the more network-friendly Leopard OS. That combined with the size of my files and the constant jumping between programs I do while fixing images and placing them in the text, it was decided I would benefit from the Intel chip in the new computer. Basically this means my design software gets along better with my computer now so it behaves and works more efficiently than before on the Power PC chip set. I can also find old image files better now thanks to an album flip view in the OS, which has come in handy this week as I started piecing together French New Life course 1. Also I should note, God worked out my time schedule for scanning beautifully! I had just gotten to the point where I needed to scan the old French lessons when the new computer arrived, which meant while we were running updates and transferring files over, I could go scan and not waste any time. Equally well timed was the fact that our Alternative Media department was at a conference in Virginia the entire week which meant I had free access to the scanner attached to the computer with the special OCR software! It's the second time God has granted free access when large quantities of scanning has been required so that no one from either party is inconvenienced. I realize this shouldn't surprise me, but for some reason it is always delightfully surprising when He reaches down and tweaks human schedules like that.

We also had our spring board meeting the past two days and everyone was in a flurry of activity starting last Wednesday getting all the details together for the banquet last night, the ladies' tea this morning, and the board lunch at noon. The banquet and tea, which I attended, proved to be a blessing, but I'm quite content to relax and listen to the frogs chirping in the pond tonight. I gave my testimony to the women today at the tea along with my new friend Bridget. Our testimonies could not be more polar opposite save that key ingredient of God's saving, redeeming grace. For me that grace saved me FROM a painful, sinful road, for her, God reached down and redeemed her OUT of it. It was such a huge encouragement to testify together before the other women at the mission and the board wives to how God has led us each in His unique way for His specific purpose to that place of surrendering to Him.

And just so you all know, I am now 23- yes, I know, it sounds terribly strange! But I had a very fun, memorable, exhausting birthday. Actually, I think everyone set out to make up for me not being home, because I've never been so "birthday-ed" in all my life! But anyhow, on the 27th, Karis, Bridget, and I headed into Atlanta to see the King Tut exhibit at the cultural center. It was done very well and I especially enjoyed their jewelry, which is not nearly so clunky as it appears on wall paintings. The only thing I must warn you of is that King Tut was not actually there, we got to the end of the exhibit and said, "where's the mummy?!" Evidently he's been shuffled around so much in the last century that they've finally decided to let the poor old guy stay in Egypt. However it was still a beautiful, memorable experience I will not soon forget. I also got to see the Georgia cyclorama- a massive 3 story, circular painting depicting the campaign for Atlanta. As an artist you can imagine I enjoyed looking at that! Trying to comprehend even the 9 or so artists who worked on it completing such a feat is awe-inspiring! I think 20"x 30" is large enough for me, thank you. Even getting back OUT of Atlanta was memorable, since by the time we finished eating dinner we found ourselves in Friday rush hour traffic navigating the city with a GPS in an old minivan. It took about half an hour.

And then God granted me a personal birthday present just from Him! On March first we got a legitimate snow storm! I got to take a walk in the large, fluffy snowflakes and build a small snowman in the backyard, so my winter is now complete. Though I must say my child-like glee concerning the snow definitely has me pegged as a Yankee with the folks at church down here ;)

Well, that about covers it from the balmy south. (And I do mean balmy- it's been about 80 for the last 3 days, my brain is having trouble comprehending that it's only March.) I'll catch ya'll later ;)