Baby Brooks: It's a Boy!

We got our 3rd ultrasound taken of Baby Brooks, and according to the doctora, there is a 99.99% chance that we are having a boy! We were thinking that my extended family was due a girl (I only have a few female cousins on both sides of the family), so now the odds are really stacked.

In the picture, his head is in the top right, and his booty is the bottom left. The length of his body is measured by the + . . . . . . . + symbol.

Special thanks to all of you who gave name suggestions in the first baby post. Some of them were...uh...creative. We'll keep these in mind as we think about what to call him. We'll be sure to let everyone know the name the day he is born in January (or thereabouts).

Team Update: Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship

(You might have heard of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship (OCBF) through their senior pastor Dr. Tony Evans, who speaks regularly at Promise Keepers Conferences.)

Before she passed away a few years ago, a member of OCBF married a Filipino-born SIL translator named Gaspar Makil. A long time ago, SIL asked Gaspar to do translation work in Vietnam. While there, his family was caught in the cross-fire between the Viet-cong and he and one of his children were killed.

In his hometown in the Philippines, a church was built in his memory.

Fast forward a few decades as one of the only African-American translators, Jacqueline, arrives in the Philippines, with the support and encouragement of OCBF. (Here's a GREAT article on Jacqueline.)

Fast forward again to the present. OCBF is now wanting to send a team to the Philippines with a two-fold mission to 1) re-connect and encourage Jacqueline, and 2) to repair the now dilapidated Gaspar T. Makil Church.

On this trip, I got to work with Mark, an old friend from Dallas, and Carol, a new friend and one of Gaspar's daughters. This team was a joy to work with--Ellen and I got to travel with them while they were in Manila, but we were not able to accompany them to the province to work on the church. Maybe next time!

On location at the mayor's office near the church.

Introducing the team during a prayer meeting.

Brookslanding Gets A Facelift

Last Christmas, Ellen got me this great new software package that lets me create some new stuff for the web. I actually used it to create the website for the big 10-ICAL conference last January.

Anyway, I'd been wanting to use it to make some BIG modifications to the Brookslanding website, but it seems that I never had time to get around to it. I'd "geek out" for a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon, but then even Sundays got to be so busy that I couldn't even touch it then. By the time the summer hit, it was maybe 80% completed.

So now, after 9 months, I've finally gotten at least something up on the site! It's not much, but I hope to add some other things to it within the next couple of months. (Like I don't have enough projects already...anyone know how to build a nursery?)

I really wanted to clean up the layout and get rid of that dark pier picture that was hanging out in the background. It really degraded readability and it was just generally messy. So instead I used that pic, along with some others, to create a banner at the top of all of the pages. The banners are randomly chosen, but there are only four right now. If you hit the "Refresh" button, it should pull a different one up.

The main part of the journal is now a bit wider so that we could fit in some bigger, clearer pictures. I hope that I didn't make it too big for some of the smaller screens out there. I checked out some stats and saw that about 15% of worldwide computer users will have a screen resolution that is too narrow for this website. But, if you happen to be in that 15%, there is hope. Microsoft has some instructions to increase your screen resolution. If those don't work, you have my deepest apologies. I didn't mean to leave anyone out!

There are a few broken links out there too, especially when a post is linking to an archived post. I think I'll have to go back and fix those by hand. That can get pretty tedious, and I just don't have enough juice left in me to get started on that tonight. Hopefully soon!

Hope you like our new home!

Intern Update: Steve and Andrew

Recipe for Intern Gumbo

Ingredients:

• One aspiring pilot named Andrew
• One guy named Steve who is interested in cross-cultural relations
• One extroverted SIL member who has a heart for internships (John)

Instructions:

1. Mix thoroughly.
2. Send them all out to learn more about translation work.
3. Stand out of the way.