Yes it is - Christmas (and all that comes with it) is entering full swing over here in Canada!
The (not so distant) past
Sunday was our annual office outing to the Samaritan’s Purse headquarters in Calgary to give a hand to Operation Christmas Child. It was plenty of work! Hundreds of shoeboxes shifted and a great time had by all. (If you’ve not come across OCC before, you should check it out - it’s a great opportunity to give a truly meaningful present)
Andy shifting those shoeboxes
The present
Of course, one of the many things that Christmas brings with it is the winter weather - especially if you are over in Canada. It hasn’t risen above -25C (-13F) for the last few days. The snow is deep and crisp and very uneven, which makes getting around… challenging. Expect some photos soon…
The future
Looking past Christmas, and well into next year, I’m now starting to think about where my life is leading. I’m faced with many decisions right now, not least of which is “England or Canada?”. If I wish to remain in Canada, then a work permit will have to be sorted out well ahead of time - so these are quite immediate choices. Please pray that God will lead me into making the right choice.
Last week I had the chance to come back to Britain for a week and a half, which was fantastic. It was great to see everyone there, both friends and family.
I’m back in Canada now; it feels slightly strange to leave home in the UK and come back to home in Canada. It’s good to feel at home and have friends in both places, though.
And here are a few of the congregation!
Working at Wycliffe has been good for the past couple of days, however Neil and Brent from our office have both been away from work since I came back due to illness. (In Neil’s case, longer). Please keep them in your prayers.
Edit: Brent and Neil are now both back work and back to health (95% at least!). Thankyou for your prayers.
Coming home:
As many of you back home will already know - I will be coming home soon. Very soon, in fact. All things being well, I will be heading over on Friday / Saturday of this week.
However, my tickets have not yet been booked. (It’s not me who is doing the booking) So there is still room for complications.
Mum and Dad:
Last week, I was on holiday! My parents came to visit Canada. We had a great time out in the Rockies. Visiting Banff, Canmore and of course, Calgary.
They were lucky people – There was snow just before they came and just after they left, but good weather for the whole holiday.
Snow:
Winter has struck here with a vengeance. Yesterday we had several inches of snow overnight. It’s incredible snow here as well, like powder - I’m sure you could ski down our street!
This morning I woke up to a cool temperature of -13C. Quite a new experience, but not a fun wait for the bus.
Work
I got moved out of IT and back into software development where I belong near the start of this month. My work on the low power computers for the developing world is over for now, and I have transitioned over to the main ‘meat’ of my placement here at Wycliffe. The Fieldworks port.
The what port?
Fieldworks is a set of software tools used by translators in Wycliffe. It covers gathering cultural information, exploring new languages, and of course – writing translations in many different scripts. You can find out more details at the Fieldworks website.
The Fieldworks what?
One issue with Fieldworks, however – is that it is only available for Microsoft Windows, which is an expensive piece of software, and has tight restrictions on copying and distribution. ‘Porting’ means moving computer programs from one system to another. In this case, we are moving Fieldworks from Windows to the free operating system called Linux.
Linux has virtually no restrictions on copying, so Wycliffe will be able to, for example, make a special edition of Linux with all the translation tools already installed and send it to all the translators for free. Or to anyone we wish to demonstrate the software to. In fact, anyone who gets a copy will be able to make copies of the whole system themselves and send them to whoever they want to. Cool eh?
(As a side note, Wycliffe has already done something similar with a ‘Complex Scripts’ enabled word processor for Linux)
Play
I’ve had a chance to see some more of the sights and sounds from in and around Calgary.
Last weekend, myself and a couple of guys I met through Wycliffe took a canoe from Banff to Canmore, Northwest of Calgary. It was some kind of ecological mission, involving stopping every so often to eliminate patches of invasive foreign weeds threatening to take over this corner of the ‘frozen north’. But just gazing at the scenery was the main event of the expedition.
The Bow River running through Banff National Park
Also, I’ve had a chance to visit the world famous (?) landmark of Calgary - the imaginatively named Calgary Tower. Another little adventure that yielded some fantastic vistas.
Shanon in the Calgary Tower - What a view!
Work
This week I have been loaned to the IT department (seeing as the rest of my department (software development not IT) ) have gone off on their hols).
As such, I have taken on a few of the small projects that have yet to be taken care of in the web and IT departments. This doesn’t make them any less valuable, mind you, there just are always more projects that need doing than there is time to do them in.
So I have been fixing and polishing up bits on the Wycliffe Canada website, and writing a little program to keep an eye on the temperature of our server room so that we know if it is likely to catch on fire (which is never a good thing).
Oh, and also adding a bit of ‘flavor’ to the Wycliffe website’s error messages.
Error 9012: Something has gone terribly wrong with Andy!
Stampede
Last week was Calgary’s “Stampede” week. Which of course meant lots of stampeding around, or something like that… Anyway, We (the international students group) spent the weekend taking it all in – or as much of it as possible – it’s a huge event.
Let me just show you some photos:
Parades!
Dancing horses!
Dancing people!
And fairgrounds, and military exhibitions, and all sorts of stuff. Most of which involves hundreds of horses – I guess that’s why they call it Stampede.
