Last Thursday evening (the 3rd), Schmorgan and I left for Bolt’s apartment in Dallas to start what ended up being a crazy, but enjoyable weekend. The primary goal of the trip was to get a tour of the Wycliffe offices in Dallas so that I could see about getting a summer internship. Schmorgan didn’t specifically want to get a job there, but since he’s graduating in May, he wanted to see what the possibilities were.

We woke up Friday morning and headed to Wycliffe, briefly meeting June (one of the many people Bolt works with) on the way. The tour went well and I was very impressed with what goes on there. I had no idea what all was involved with Bible translation; it’s a much more complicated process than I thought it would be. Many of the groups Wycliffe sends people to don’t even have a written language. So, not only do the missionaries have to learn a new language, they have to create a writing system for it, teach the people the new writing system, and translate the Bible into it.

The part where I could come into the process is that there’s software involved every step of the way. Really cool, interesting software too. For example, they showed us one program that was used to analyze audio patterns in speech to get an idea how all the sounds of a language are used. They’ve got programs used to write down observations about the language and cross-reference those observations with just about everything imaginable. Much of the software they develop is to do tasks that no other organization does. There’s no monetary incentive for a large company like Microsoft to create software to display the written language of a group of about 2,000 people, but that’s exactly what the Graphite system can do. Not only that, but it can be used to edit surprisingly complex Non-Roman Scripts, and it’s open source too.

Will I work there for the summer? That’s up to God. The people at Wycliffe still need to determine if there would be a position for me where I could do useful work for them and gain experience for myself. The difficulty in finding that sort of position is I will only be there for a few months, so there it would need to be a project I could get up to speed on very quickly. Assuming that works out, I need to figure out if I would be able to do this financially. At Wycliffe, full-time staff don’t get paid at all, it’s entirely support-based. Interns do get paid, but by the time everything gets taken into account, it would basically be enough for room and board. Please pray for guidance in this area.

After leaving Wycliffe, we stopped by The Seed Company, where Bolt currently works, for a brief tour. Then, it was back to Bolt’s house to change clothes, relax for a few minutes, and leave for Courtney’s house.

The plan was to arrive at Courtney’s house a little after the rest of the group (Andrew, Michaela, and Courtney) got there. But, when we pulled in the driveway, it was obvious that we were the first ones there. We sat in the car for a few awkward minutes, but finally decided that it was pretty weird to just sit in someone’s driveway, and rang the doorbell. After only a few seconds, the door was flung open by a light saber wielding William (one of Courtney’s younger brothers) who excitedly told us he had received the toy as an adoption-day present, he could do amazing things with it, and that there were games involving crashing cars on the computer in the office which he would be more than happy to show us. The only problem with this is that William was completely alone. We couldn’t see any of the rest of Courtney’s family anywhere and didn’t really want to go further into the house without somebody else knowing we were there. We asked William if he could tell his mom we were there. He said she was in the shower. Great! So, we decided to stand there in the entryway. Indefinitely. Finally, Schmorgan spotted someone in the backyard and asked William who it was. William said it was his mom (aha! not in the shower after all), went to get her, and the awkwardness was finally over.

While waiting in the backyard for the second group to arrive, we were further entertained by William. He splashed a cup of water on Bolt, challenged us to a duel (he got the light saber, one of us would have to use a stick), retold the story of the fall of humanity (with surprising accuracy), related the choosing of “the bad tree” to running a red light, and proclaimed that by laughing about his duel challenge, we were going through a red light.

The second group arrived shortly after that and we had a great time talking in the backyard. This was followed by a delicious meal and more hang out time. Even though we were all enjoying just relaxing at Courtney’s house, there were several more destinations for the night, so we left for June’s house where Lynn was waiting for us.

At June’s house we all sat in her living room, listened to stories from June’s travels (tip: throwing coins at lions results in awesome pictures!), and talked about LETU life. We all had a great time, but once again it was time to leave, this time for Bolt’s apartment, our final destination of the night.

Our time at Bolt’s was similar to the other two houses we’d been at that night (including being served desert again). We had another great time just talking about random things, but it was starting to get late, Michaela and Courtney needed to get back to Courtney’s house for the night, Lynn had to get back to June’s house, and the morning would come early because of our birding plans.

The morning came very early. We all converged at Courtney’s house and left for some local parks to see what we could see. Since Bolt is the most experienced birder, he lead the way in his car and I followed. If you’ve never tried to follow Bolt through Dallas, you’re missing out on a very memorable experience. We all managed to survive and even saw a few birds in the process. Here’s the birds I was able to add to my life list:

• American White Pelican
• Great-tailed Grackle
• American Coot
• Double-crested Cormorant
• Ruby-crowned Kinglet
• Pied-billed Grebe
• Ruddy Duck
• Red-winged Blackbird
• Red-tailed Hawk
• Mallard

After birding, we went back to Courtney’s house for lunch and got to play on the awesome tree fort in the backyard. Apparently it’s an LOL tradition to eat at Dairy Queen after birds are added to your life list, so we all had Blizzards after lunch. Then, it was time to head back to LETU.

A busy, tiring, but great weekend.

The weekend in pictures.