Monday, July 3 - Preparation for Rapid Word Collection in Djimini

I have just added pictures to Saturday's blog entry. If you read that entry earlier, you may want to revisit it now for the pictures.

Today was spent preparing for the workshop, which is due to begin on Wednesday with three days of training. I met with the team of organizers shortly after 8:00 in the translation office about a half-mile from where I'm staying, and we spent some time on introductions and then in prayer before beginning our discussion of the workshop. During the time of prayer, Matthieu presented the two new laptops that we had brought along with us from Abidjan, thanks to funding through the Wycliffe organization in Germany.

Matthieu and Justin with the new laptops

First on the business portion of my agenda for the day was an overview of how the workshop is run. This was helpful to the organizational team, as they realized that they had imagined some of the details a bit differently than the way I described them. This led to a reworking of the list of who would play which role during the workshop. That took up a significant part of the afternoon, but was an important step toward being ready for next week.

We talked about the various supplies that would be needed, then made a list of things to purchase. We rode motorcycles to the church property, where the workshop will be held, so that I could see the rooms available for our use. I was reassured to see that there is ample room for our needs, and we were able to decide where each of the different activities involved in this sort of workshop would happen.

By the end of the day, a great deal had been accomplished. The primary preparatory tasks remaining involve printing and organizing the various documents used in the workshop. We'll tackle those tomorrow.

Health update: Keep praying for me as my cold runs through its cycle. I'm now in the coughing stage, and it is very important that the expectorant in my cough syrup works effectively, in order to avoid a prolonged, check-racking cough that otherwise develops. Pray specifically that the cough will be under control by Wednesday, when I will need to teach all day long. Pray that I will not pass the cold on to everyone else I'm interacting with.