My hours this week were:
Thursday 9am-3pm
Friday 9am-1pm
Total for the week is 10 hours
Total hours is 128.5 hours.
WOW- took me a week to get back in the office and I was pretty tired after our Cedar Point trip and then our Bike for Africa trip with JCB. Bike for Africa was awesome, the kids raise money to purchase bicycles for Mozambique pastors by getting sponsors for their 48 mile bike ride and 3 day retreat at the Shunem missionary house. It was a really cool experience for me because I have been submerged in this missionary culture at WGM and have gained a new appreciation for missionaries through the work I am doing there. Before this internships missionaries just existed- now I understand a lot more about what they have to do and go through and how hard it is for them to raise support and how much they care about the field. This summer has shaped the way I view missions and that’s mostly thanks to WGM. I have even started to sponsor the Bowlins, a missionary family with Global Partners who were in New Zealand but are now headed to Papua New Guinea.
This week I worked Thursday and Friday. Just did a lot of writing. I have 2 stories and 4 ministry updates in approval process and editing right now. I am working on another story and still have another ministry update I am waiting on information for. By now everthing is routine and I am just go go go. Hopefully there will be enough work to keep me busy for the next few weeks. I have a full week next week, then have a week off, and then another full week the 2nd week of August, then I will be done. I want to make sure I am not just killing time there, but at the same time it is hard to start projects this close to the end because you might never hear back from the people you need to hear from!
Still learning a lot about the culture at WGM and how important it is to like the people you work with. It is interesting though, because the people at WGM are really nice, but sometimes the conversation is still a little forced, whereas when I am with JCB staff its just like hanging out with friends. It is just interesting, but really cool to get to talk with the people at WGM, because while they are teaching me about missions, I get to tell them about youth ministry and how it is all really similar :D and the cool things that students are capable of- like Bike for Africa!
Friday, July 22, 2011
Friday, July 15, 2011
week 8
My hours this week were:
Monday 9am-2pm
Wednesday 8:30am-12pm
Friday 9am-12pm
Total for the week is 11.5 hours
Total hours is 118.5 hours.
This week I experienced how much it can stink to have your work edited. A few weeks ago I was assigned a task to write e-mail receipts for donations. I wrote about 20 different receipts that were for specific fields and I spent a lot of time researching the fields to write a nice little paragraph for each one about what the donation to that field might be helping (which was in the instruction of the assignment). For example, in the El Salvador donation receipt there was a paragraph that said:
Your donation has been set aside to assist ministries in El Salvador. The Focus of WGM El Salvador is to develop and inspire leaders who will guide the future of the church and to transform communities by inspiring people to be followers of Christ. In addition to church planting, the El Salvador team is working with the David V. King Medical Center and also hopes to start a bilingual trade school. These two ministries will be the key to meeting the physical needs of today and the spiritual and emotional needs of coming generations.
So today I hear back about all these receipts I submitted. I’m told the content was cut in some places to keep the e-mails short. So I was thinking, ok that’s fine. Then I look at the sample receipt for the fields that was sent to get approval, and the entire paragraph about Japan has been cut except one sentence. And it is fine- I understand wanting to keep everything short. But it just stinks when you spend time on something and it gets trashed.
Other than that, still working on field updates and Heroes of the Faith stories.You can read the first one here! I am working on 2 of those stories right now. I am realizing I do not like calling strangers on the phone- I would much rather use e-mail. This is probably because our culture is going to texting and social media, the art of phone conversation will soon be lost. I’m not bad at talking on the phone, I just don’t like it. On Wednesday I interviewed Carol Wonch, a retired missionary to the Mexico-Texas border. So I have that story to write now. I also did an in person interview with Dean and Leta Strong, retired missionaries to Kenya.
Tuesday I was sick with strep throat, but I came in to do the interviews Wednesday anyway because I wasn’t contagious and it is important to get those done. Wednesday afternoon to Thursday night I went to Cedar Point with JCBodyshop- so that rocked. And then worked some from home on Friday, getting another home page focus article written about famine relief. It’s been a busy week!
Monday 9am-2pm
Wednesday 8:30am-12pm
Friday 9am-12pm
Total for the week is 11.5 hours
Total hours is 118.5 hours.
This week I experienced how much it can stink to have your work edited. A few weeks ago I was assigned a task to write e-mail receipts for donations. I wrote about 20 different receipts that were for specific fields and I spent a lot of time researching the fields to write a nice little paragraph for each one about what the donation to that field might be helping (which was in the instruction of the assignment). For example, in the El Salvador donation receipt there was a paragraph that said:
Your donation has been set aside to assist ministries in El Salvador. The Focus of WGM El Salvador is to develop and inspire leaders who will guide the future of the church and to transform communities by inspiring people to be followers of Christ. In addition to church planting, the El Salvador team is working with the David V. King Medical Center and also hopes to start a bilingual trade school. These two ministries will be the key to meeting the physical needs of today and the spiritual and emotional needs of coming generations.
So today I hear back about all these receipts I submitted. I’m told the content was cut in some places to keep the e-mails short. So I was thinking, ok that’s fine. Then I look at the sample receipt for the fields that was sent to get approval, and the entire paragraph about Japan has been cut except one sentence. And it is fine- I understand wanting to keep everything short. But it just stinks when you spend time on something and it gets trashed.
Other than that, still working on field updates and Heroes of the Faith stories.You can read the first one here! I am working on 2 of those stories right now. I am realizing I do not like calling strangers on the phone- I would much rather use e-mail. This is probably because our culture is going to texting and social media, the art of phone conversation will soon be lost. I’m not bad at talking on the phone, I just don’t like it. On Wednesday I interviewed Carol Wonch, a retired missionary to the Mexico-Texas border. So I have that story to write now. I also did an in person interview with Dean and Leta Strong, retired missionaries to Kenya.
Tuesday I was sick with strep throat, but I came in to do the interviews Wednesday anyway because I wasn’t contagious and it is important to get those done. Wednesday afternoon to Thursday night I went to Cedar Point with JCBodyshop- so that rocked. And then worked some from home on Friday, getting another home page focus article written about famine relief. It’s been a busy week!
Thursday, July 7, 2011
week 7
My hours this week were:
Tuesday 9am-2pm
Wednesday 9am-2pm
Thursday 8am-2pm
Total for the week is 16 hours
Total hours is 107 hours.
Back to work after 2 weeks at camp. Those 2 weeks were great to be with my kids! Fairmount, although disgusting, is a place where God consistently shows up and moves. So many good times had there!
This week I jumped back into WGM. I was really tired and a bit stressed this week, so I felt like I was slower at work getting things done. But I guess that is ok, because right now there isn’t a whole lot to be doing. I am still waiting to hear back from people or the editor to move forward on most projects.
I have been working on about 5 different ministry updates for the website, the longer ones are still in editing (our editor was out of the office all week so that didn’t help much.) But you can click here to see one of the shorter updates I got done.
The other article I wrote is still up, you can read it here.
My Heroes of the Faith story finally got through the approval process and will soon be online. I have started 2 more of those stories.
This week I got to do some fact checking and researching about countries for the statistics pages for each of our ministry fields. That was monotonous. I would much rather be writing than researching, but I understand it is important and good practice!
It is interesting to be in the pace of an organization. Some days you can tell everyone is busy and stressed- and some days are long because you don’t have much to do, but those days you get to have a bit more fun talking with people. Overall, I am still enjoying my time here, just need to remember that just because there may be a lull in work, I am still doing ok!
Tuesday 9am-2pm
Wednesday 9am-2pm
Thursday 8am-2pm
Total for the week is 16 hours
Total hours is 107 hours.
Back to work after 2 weeks at camp. Those 2 weeks were great to be with my kids! Fairmount, although disgusting, is a place where God consistently shows up and moves. So many good times had there!
This week I jumped back into WGM. I was really tired and a bit stressed this week, so I felt like I was slower at work getting things done. But I guess that is ok, because right now there isn’t a whole lot to be doing. I am still waiting to hear back from people or the editor to move forward on most projects.
I have been working on about 5 different ministry updates for the website, the longer ones are still in editing (our editor was out of the office all week so that didn’t help much.) But you can click here to see one of the shorter updates I got done.
The other article I wrote is still up, you can read it here.
My Heroes of the Faith story finally got through the approval process and will soon be online. I have started 2 more of those stories.
This week I got to do some fact checking and researching about countries for the statistics pages for each of our ministry fields. That was monotonous. I would much rather be writing than researching, but I understand it is important and good practice!
It is interesting to be in the pace of an organization. Some days you can tell everyone is busy and stressed- and some days are long because you don’t have much to do, but those days you get to have a bit more fun talking with people. Overall, I am still enjoying my time here, just need to remember that just because there may be a lull in work, I am still doing ok!
Thursday, June 16, 2011
week 6
My hours this week were:
Monday 9am-2pm
Wednesday 9am-12:30pm
Thursday 8:30am-2pm
Total for the week is 14 hours
Total hours is 91 hours.
Where has the time gone? This week flew by and the next 2 weeks I will be out of the office due to church camp at Fairmount! This week I just kept trucking. Sometimes it seems like I am not doing a whole lot- but really, its just that everything takes FOREVER to finish because it has to go through editing, get approval, ect ect and so I am always waiting on someone else for information, editing, or the go ahead. I did get some of my field updates done this week! I did some edits on the LeRoy story and started another Heroes of the Faith article. I finished the Hungary Home English Clubs and English Camps update. I made progress on the update for Kenya Highlands Evangelical University, but am still waiting on hearing from the university for more information.
This week I got to sit in on a production meeting for my department. Other than myself and the other intern, our department has had 2 staffing changes since I arrived. Joe was hired as the office manager and Adam as the graphic designer. They talked through a lot of protocol and discussed the best way to do things. It was interesting because there was a little tension between Adam, a young new professional, and Joyce, an older lady who is one of our editors. I think when it comes to technology; you have to be careful about where everyone is at in the learning process. Overall, they handled their differences well and Kristi did a good job facilitating. It was good she brought everyone together for a meeting to get it out instead of people all talking one on one.
I’m still loving the people I am around. I am learning a lot about office work and just making it fun while still being productive. They are a fun bunch of people and it is fun getting to know them all.
Monday 9am-2pm
Wednesday 9am-12:30pm
Thursday 8:30am-2pm
Total for the week is 14 hours
Total hours is 91 hours.
Where has the time gone? This week flew by and the next 2 weeks I will be out of the office due to church camp at Fairmount! This week I just kept trucking. Sometimes it seems like I am not doing a whole lot- but really, its just that everything takes FOREVER to finish because it has to go through editing, get approval, ect ect and so I am always waiting on someone else for information, editing, or the go ahead. I did get some of my field updates done this week! I did some edits on the LeRoy story and started another Heroes of the Faith article. I finished the Hungary Home English Clubs and English Camps update. I made progress on the update for Kenya Highlands Evangelical University, but am still waiting on hearing from the university for more information.
This week I got to sit in on a production meeting for my department. Other than myself and the other intern, our department has had 2 staffing changes since I arrived. Joe was hired as the office manager and Adam as the graphic designer. They talked through a lot of protocol and discussed the best way to do things. It was interesting because there was a little tension between Adam, a young new professional, and Joyce, an older lady who is one of our editors. I think when it comes to technology; you have to be careful about where everyone is at in the learning process. Overall, they handled their differences well and Kristi did a good job facilitating. It was good she brought everyone together for a meeting to get it out instead of people all talking one on one.
I’m still loving the people I am around. I am learning a lot about office work and just making it fun while still being productive. They are a fun bunch of people and it is fun getting to know them all.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
week 5
My hours this week were:
Monday 9am-2pm
Wednesday 9am-2pm
Thursday 8:30am-2pm
Total for the week is 15.5 hours
Total hours is 77 hours.
This week I worked Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday due to a church trip to Pokagon on Tuesday. Monday I was very productive. I heard back from LeRoy which was exciting, but I couldn’t stop to work on that story until after I did a lot of other work. I got a lot of the final editing done on the internship material. The editing process is pretty drawn out- but it is good to get used to waiting on other people because no matter what our jobs are in the future we will have things going on that we can’t keep doing until we hear back from someone. After the internship stuff I worked very diligently on the e-mail receipts to the donors. Over all there were 3 regular receipts and 20 receipts specified to certain countries. This took a lot of time because I had to research each country to know what was going on there with WGM and then summarize it into a short and concise paragraph.
Wednesday I did some odd and end things but mostly worked on writing the rough draft of the LeRoy story for Heroes of the Faith. I felt a lot of pressure writing the story because I want to do justice to this man’s life because it has definitely been lived serving God. I finished the draft and it was WAAAYYY over my word count, so I have done a lot of edits on it myself already.
Thursday was slow. I am just waiting a lot. I edited the LeRoy story again and sent it to him for approval. I wrote the content for the brochure for the internship material, but that really didn’t take long. But mostly everything I am doing right now is pending on other people. The missionaries in Hungary who I contacted 5 weeks ago, FINALLY responded to me. So with that new information I was able to update the material for the website. I am still waiting to hear from the other missionaries I have contacted. But waiting I guess is good. I will start another Heroes of the Faith story as I wait for my stories to get edited and what not. I also am working on some WGM fact sheet papers for this cute little packet thing.
I’m still really enjoying myself and enjoying the people I work with! Liz and I decided everything Thursday we should get milkshakes…..that’s either a fantastic idea- or a terrible one. I’ll let you know!
Monday 9am-2pm
Wednesday 9am-2pm
Thursday 8:30am-2pm
Total for the week is 15.5 hours
Total hours is 77 hours.
This week I worked Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday due to a church trip to Pokagon on Tuesday. Monday I was very productive. I heard back from LeRoy which was exciting, but I couldn’t stop to work on that story until after I did a lot of other work. I got a lot of the final editing done on the internship material. The editing process is pretty drawn out- but it is good to get used to waiting on other people because no matter what our jobs are in the future we will have things going on that we can’t keep doing until we hear back from someone. After the internship stuff I worked very diligently on the e-mail receipts to the donors. Over all there were 3 regular receipts and 20 receipts specified to certain countries. This took a lot of time because I had to research each country to know what was going on there with WGM and then summarize it into a short and concise paragraph.
Wednesday I did some odd and end things but mostly worked on writing the rough draft of the LeRoy story for Heroes of the Faith. I felt a lot of pressure writing the story because I want to do justice to this man’s life because it has definitely been lived serving God. I finished the draft and it was WAAAYYY over my word count, so I have done a lot of edits on it myself already.
Thursday was slow. I am just waiting a lot. I edited the LeRoy story again and sent it to him for approval. I wrote the content for the brochure for the internship material, but that really didn’t take long. But mostly everything I am doing right now is pending on other people. The missionaries in Hungary who I contacted 5 weeks ago, FINALLY responded to me. So with that new information I was able to update the material for the website. I am still waiting to hear from the other missionaries I have contacted. But waiting I guess is good. I will start another Heroes of the Faith story as I wait for my stories to get edited and what not. I also am working on some WGM fact sheet papers for this cute little packet thing.
I’m still really enjoying myself and enjoying the people I work with! Liz and I decided everything Thursday we should get milkshakes…..that’s either a fantastic idea- or a terrible one. I’ll let you know!
Friday, June 3, 2011
week 4 article
Oh here is the link to one of my short articles I have done!
http://www.wgm.org/page.aspx?pid=6871
http://www.wgm.org/page.aspx?pid=6871
Thursday, June 2, 2011
week 4
My hours this week were:
Tuesday 9am-2pm
Wednesday 9am-2pm
Thursday 8:30am-2pm
Total for the week is 15.5 hours
Total hours is 61.5 hours.
How am I already in week 4 of this internship?! It has flown by and I am still enjoying it very much! This week centered around quite a few projects. I am still working on my Heroes of the Faith article (that’s the one you work on every time everything else slows down because it doesn’t have a due date). So I finished my research and contacted LeRoy and were in the process of an e-mail interview about his experiences in Bolivia.
The internship packets are still rolling. Can I just say the Desktop Publishing DID NOT prepare me to actually use indesign and photoshop in a professional manner? It has been a pain- but luckily online tutorials are easy to find and follow. So a goal for this summer on my own time has become to practice indesign, photoshop, and illustrator. The packets and papers have gone in for initial content edit. Editing is a long process but I think I have been pretty efficient so far in getting things done in a timely manner.
A new project this week has been writing e-mail receipt templates for people who donate money to WGM. Where the internship packets are more promotional, these e-mail receipt letters are a great pr tool for maintaining positive relationships between WGM and donors. I had to write the e-mails so they were thankful, encouraging, promotional, and functional. There were 4 different letter templates. I finished 3. The fourth is one for each different country people might donate to, so there are actually about 15 or so I have to do, but its just a paragraph different for each one. So that is what I am currently working on.
All in all I have been researching, promoting, and maintaining relationships- which is great experience for me!
Tuesday 9am-2pm
Wednesday 9am-2pm
Thursday 8:30am-2pm
Total for the week is 15.5 hours
Total hours is 61.5 hours.
How am I already in week 4 of this internship?! It has flown by and I am still enjoying it very much! This week centered around quite a few projects. I am still working on my Heroes of the Faith article (that’s the one you work on every time everything else slows down because it doesn’t have a due date). So I finished my research and contacted LeRoy and were in the process of an e-mail interview about his experiences in Bolivia.
The internship packets are still rolling. Can I just say the Desktop Publishing DID NOT prepare me to actually use indesign and photoshop in a professional manner? It has been a pain- but luckily online tutorials are easy to find and follow. So a goal for this summer on my own time has become to practice indesign, photoshop, and illustrator. The packets and papers have gone in for initial content edit. Editing is a long process but I think I have been pretty efficient so far in getting things done in a timely manner.
A new project this week has been writing e-mail receipt templates for people who donate money to WGM. Where the internship packets are more promotional, these e-mail receipt letters are a great pr tool for maintaining positive relationships between WGM and donors. I had to write the e-mails so they were thankful, encouraging, promotional, and functional. There were 4 different letter templates. I finished 3. The fourth is one for each different country people might donate to, so there are actually about 15 or so I have to do, but its just a paragraph different for each one. So that is what I am currently working on.
All in all I have been researching, promoting, and maintaining relationships- which is great experience for me!
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