This is a tale, a sad tale indeed of the past few days of my life.
Let me begin by listing the first lesson to be learned in life:
1. Never ever EVER attempt to create your own sermon in both English and Norwegian in 24 hours.
It all began one lovely Saturday afternoon, when a girl named Sarah decided it was high time for her to begin in earnest to go over her sermon for the following evening. She set to work with vigour, and began to go through it - slide by slide - looking for about 60 slides that could be discarded. The topic was the Remnant Church; one that she was not overly familiar with in the first place, and the way the program had set it up was quite ridiculous and contained about a million and one tangents, that made it seem as though the point would never be reached. This confused the girl greatly, and after hours of failed attempts, she began to become very frustrated indeed. She set out to seek out some assisstance from a more knowledgable source that could aid her in understanding what was crucial and what was alright to dispose of. Her attempt at finding assisstance also failed, for those capable of this assisstance were involved elsewhere in various other activities that she felt she could not disturb them from. So, in vain, she returned to her place of study and tried again. Once again, her attempts ended in failure and she could not make sense of the topic that was being presented. Finally, one came along to see if there was a chance they could be of assisstance - they were to an extent, and she appreciated it this greatly. After some more time was spent going through the presentation, along came a greater source of help, much to the girls delight. This one looked through the first few slides, whilst listening to the woe's of Sarah, and after those few slides saw what the problem was, and hypothesized that the most logical solution would be to scrap the entire thing altogether and begin from scratch. Sarah liked this idea quite alot, but before this could be carried out she had to ensure that this move was legal and would not cause any problems anywhere. And so another mission began; to seek the approval of her endeavour. This mission did not fail, and the permission was granted with ease. Sarah, feeling rejuvinated by this small step in the right direction, went to share the good news with the one who was helping her, whom we refer to as Lyndsay. She too shared in the jubilation of the matter and proceeded to flourish a different presentation that she had used once upon a time when she had preached on this precise topic. Sarah looked it over and saw that it was good, and just by the different set-up of the presentation, the entire subject began to make much more sense to her. There were only a few catches to this grand scheme.
1. It was only in English
2. It was only Bible verses - no notes.
3. Sarah nor Lyndsay were fluent in the Norwegian language.
4. Sarah did not have a Norwegian keyboard.
5. They only had that night and the next day to prepare an entirely new presentation.
Despite these set-backs, it still seemed very feasible to them, and so with great determination, they set about the great task of making a new presentation, in both English, and Norwegian. They worked for quite some time that night; ironing out the wrinkles with the program, and learning how to import new slides and the texts into it, as well as finding an online Norwegian Bible to aid in the translation of the texts. Eventually, when the hour was late, Lyndsay began to feel quite tired, and retired to her bed chamber. Sarah, still quite awake, carried on long into the night, until she was far too weary to keep her eyes open. She listened to a sermon that Lyndsay had told her about which was on the exact same topic, and this helped her to understand much better what it was that she was supposed to be presenting the following night. Eventually, sleep got the better of her and her weary eyes laid to rest for the remaning hours of the night. Morning came quickly and Sarah awoke again with determination filling her soul, and immediately set to work, editing more on the presentation - inserting slides, texts, and converting them to Norwegian. The process was slow since it had to be done for each slide and text individually, but as the morning hours wore on, she finally accomplished this process around noon that Sunday. Lyndsay came along, ready and willing to help again, which Sarah appreciated beyond all imagination. Lyndsay began to work on inserting the Bible text references in Norwegian, which was also a very slow process, while Sarah listened to the aforementioned sermon a few more times in desperate hope of becoming familiar enough with the topic to be able to speak it with clarity, and also went over the slide presentation which was on Lyndsay's computer as well. Time flew by, and before Sarah knew it, it was 4:30pm which meant that a mere half hour remained before the bus would be leaving, taking Sarah to the inevitable doom of presenting the topic. The issues at this present time were as follows:
1. Sarah still had not added notes to this presentation.
2. Sarah was still not feeling familiar enough with the topic.
3. The presentation had not been gone over by someone who spoke Norwegian to verify that all was according to how it should be.
4. Sarah was feeling like she was on the point of regurgitation due to the stress and lack of sleep.
5. Sarah was feeling on the verge of lachrymosity.
6. Sarah gave in to lachrymosity.
7. Sarah had not practiced yet.
8. Sarah had to leave in 30 minutes.
Finally, one who spoke Norwegian was called to look over the presentation because the editing had been finished (except for Sarah's notes still...) and thankfully, there was only one minor problem with it, and a new verse had to be added. Sarah was still experiencing some issues with becoming lachrymose, and after some comforting words had been spoken, she was instructed to sit down and go over it to try to pretend she was preaching it, so that she could make the correct bridges between verses, etc. She did so, then shortly after she had begun, she was told that time had come for departure, so with a hopeless aura wrapping her in it's arms, she packed up her computer and traversed to the bus, hoping to be able to finish the note adding over the next half hour of bus travel. She accomplishd some, but discovered more issues with the presentation during that time which were important to fix, so she managed to experience even more setbacks on her note addition. They arrived at the church and approximately 5:30pm, leaving her with an hour and a half before the fateful moment would come where upon she would be called to the front to present the topic of the evening. She set about some more editing and adding notes and fixing the various problems, and began to realize that there were still a great many slides whose verses she did not understand and did not have the capabilities of explaining. So, she summoned the help of one named Eli, who started to go through it with her to see if it was all correlating together. It was lacking some things, and including some things that were difficult to explain due to the set-up of the previous meetings, so they tried to edit it as best they could. Finally, 15 minutes remained, and any confidence that Sarah had previously enjoyed had melted into a small pathetic puddle on the floor at her feet. Eli sensed this and asked her, "Do you feel comfortable with this?" Sarah replied, tears once again coming to her eyes, "Nope. Definitely not." Eli said, "Hmm..well, there are two options. You can just go up there and do your best with what you have, or...someone else can do it. So you can choose which you would prefer and either let it go or do what you can in the next 15 minutes to better prepare." Sarah by this time was once again experiencing the phenomenon of having rivers running from her eyes, and with a pathetic look said, "Well I guess I'm just going to let it go then, because I really do not feel comfortable enough to do this right now, and I really don't want to screw it all up..." She was the picture of misery and frustration. With that Eli said "Alright" and took the computer from her lap and began to theorize about what could be done within the next 15 minutes. He decided to go back to the original program and began the process of eliminating the slides that were more unnessescary, with an air of focus and trust. Sarah, in no state to stay, went from the room and fled to the bathroom where she could attempt to cease her sobbing and could dry her eyes. Meanwhile, word was slowly spreading of the recent events, and people were coming by to condole and hug which caused great difficulty in Sarah's bid to put her crying to an end, but eventually she managed to at least retain a certain sense of composure, although her eyes had the telltale red hue that caused her to appear as though she had been on a few too many drugs in the past day, but that was beside the point. She emerged from the bathroom to meet up with one named Robert, who proceeded to tell her that she was going to do a great job, to which she tried to explain in short version that she was not doing it, but the message did not get across, and at that particular time, the MC of the meeting began to say; "And now I would like to introduce the speaker of this evening..." to which Robert gave her a smile and hug of encouragement, and then heard that the MC was not saying the name of Sarah but rather...Eli?? "You're not speaking? I thought it was you tonight...?" Sarah proceeded to tell the tale of how the cookie had crumbled over the past 15 minutes. It was understood, and the meeting began, so Sarah went in to find a seat.
Before she did though, she was surprised to hear that Eli was rambling on about himself and what he does at EBS, etc...Sarah was slightly confused by this, and then heard that the computer (her computer in fact) was not working, and was in the process of being fixed. After about 10 minutes the problem was resolved and the meeting commenced. Eli did an excellent job of it, or rather God did, and no one would ever have known that the time spent preparing consisted of 15 minutes of looking it over for the very first time. The meeting ended, everyone having received a blessing, and Eli came over to see how Sarah was now that it was over. Sarah responded that she felt absolutely horrid, to which Eli inquired why she felt that way. Sarah proceeded to explain (along with more tears) that she felt absolutley horrid for failing in her responsibility, and for putting it on the shoulders of another with such short notice, and for causing so much trouble. But Eli was most understanding and told her it was quite alright and to not worry about it all, for it had all turned out well regardless. Sarah appreciated it greatly, and purposed in her heart to go on a mission of baking cookies for both him and Lyndsay for all of the amazing help they had given to her over the past 24 hours.
Moral of this story is:
1. Look at the possibility of not speaking about a topic you do not feel overly comfortable with much earlier than 15 minutes prior to the time of speaking.
2. Try to avoid so much lachrymosity in life.
3. Be thankful that there are people who are understanding and willing to help, regardless of the circumstances.
4. Have an ever-present supply of cookie baking supplies.
Let me begin by listing the first lesson to be learned in life:
1. Never ever EVER attempt to create your own sermon in both English and Norwegian in 24 hours.
It all began one lovely Saturday afternoon, when a girl named Sarah decided it was high time for her to begin in earnest to go over her sermon for the following evening. She set to work with vigour, and began to go through it - slide by slide - looking for about 60 slides that could be discarded. The topic was the Remnant Church; one that she was not overly familiar with in the first place, and the way the program had set it up was quite ridiculous and contained about a million and one tangents, that made it seem as though the point would never be reached. This confused the girl greatly, and after hours of failed attempts, she began to become very frustrated indeed. She set out to seek out some assisstance from a more knowledgable source that could aid her in understanding what was crucial and what was alright to dispose of. Her attempt at finding assisstance also failed, for those capable of this assisstance were involved elsewhere in various other activities that she felt she could not disturb them from. So, in vain, she returned to her place of study and tried again. Once again, her attempts ended in failure and she could not make sense of the topic that was being presented. Finally, one came along to see if there was a chance they could be of assisstance - they were to an extent, and she appreciated it this greatly. After some more time was spent going through the presentation, along came a greater source of help, much to the girls delight. This one looked through the first few slides, whilst listening to the woe's of Sarah, and after those few slides saw what the problem was, and hypothesized that the most logical solution would be to scrap the entire thing altogether and begin from scratch. Sarah liked this idea quite alot, but before this could be carried out she had to ensure that this move was legal and would not cause any problems anywhere. And so another mission began; to seek the approval of her endeavour. This mission did not fail, and the permission was granted with ease. Sarah, feeling rejuvinated by this small step in the right direction, went to share the good news with the one who was helping her, whom we refer to as Lyndsay. She too shared in the jubilation of the matter and proceeded to flourish a different presentation that she had used once upon a time when she had preached on this precise topic. Sarah looked it over and saw that it was good, and just by the different set-up of the presentation, the entire subject began to make much more sense to her. There were only a few catches to this grand scheme.
1. It was only in English
2. It was only Bible verses - no notes.
3. Sarah nor Lyndsay were fluent in the Norwegian language.
4. Sarah did not have a Norwegian keyboard.
5. They only had that night and the next day to prepare an entirely new presentation.
Despite these set-backs, it still seemed very feasible to them, and so with great determination, they set about the great task of making a new presentation, in both English, and Norwegian. They worked for quite some time that night; ironing out the wrinkles with the program, and learning how to import new slides and the texts into it, as well as finding an online Norwegian Bible to aid in the translation of the texts. Eventually, when the hour was late, Lyndsay began to feel quite tired, and retired to her bed chamber. Sarah, still quite awake, carried on long into the night, until she was far too weary to keep her eyes open. She listened to a sermon that Lyndsay had told her about which was on the exact same topic, and this helped her to understand much better what it was that she was supposed to be presenting the following night. Eventually, sleep got the better of her and her weary eyes laid to rest for the remaning hours of the night. Morning came quickly and Sarah awoke again with determination filling her soul, and immediately set to work, editing more on the presentation - inserting slides, texts, and converting them to Norwegian. The process was slow since it had to be done for each slide and text individually, but as the morning hours wore on, she finally accomplished this process around noon that Sunday. Lyndsay came along, ready and willing to help again, which Sarah appreciated beyond all imagination. Lyndsay began to work on inserting the Bible text references in Norwegian, which was also a very slow process, while Sarah listened to the aforementioned sermon a few more times in desperate hope of becoming familiar enough with the topic to be able to speak it with clarity, and also went over the slide presentation which was on Lyndsay's computer as well. Time flew by, and before Sarah knew it, it was 4:30pm which meant that a mere half hour remained before the bus would be leaving, taking Sarah to the inevitable doom of presenting the topic. The issues at this present time were as follows:
1. Sarah still had not added notes to this presentation.
2. Sarah was still not feeling familiar enough with the topic.
3. The presentation had not been gone over by someone who spoke Norwegian to verify that all was according to how it should be.
4. Sarah was feeling like she was on the point of regurgitation due to the stress and lack of sleep.
5. Sarah was feeling on the verge of lachrymosity.
6. Sarah gave in to lachrymosity.
7. Sarah had not practiced yet.
8. Sarah had to leave in 30 minutes.
Finally, one who spoke Norwegian was called to look over the presentation because the editing had been finished (except for Sarah's notes still...) and thankfully, there was only one minor problem with it, and a new verse had to be added. Sarah was still experiencing some issues with becoming lachrymose, and after some comforting words had been spoken, she was instructed to sit down and go over it to try to pretend she was preaching it, so that she could make the correct bridges between verses, etc. She did so, then shortly after she had begun, she was told that time had come for departure, so with a hopeless aura wrapping her in it's arms, she packed up her computer and traversed to the bus, hoping to be able to finish the note adding over the next half hour of bus travel. She accomplishd some, but discovered more issues with the presentation during that time which were important to fix, so she managed to experience even more setbacks on her note addition. They arrived at the church and approximately 5:30pm, leaving her with an hour and a half before the fateful moment would come where upon she would be called to the front to present the topic of the evening. She set about some more editing and adding notes and fixing the various problems, and began to realize that there were still a great many slides whose verses she did not understand and did not have the capabilities of explaining. So, she summoned the help of one named Eli, who started to go through it with her to see if it was all correlating together. It was lacking some things, and including some things that were difficult to explain due to the set-up of the previous meetings, so they tried to edit it as best they could. Finally, 15 minutes remained, and any confidence that Sarah had previously enjoyed had melted into a small pathetic puddle on the floor at her feet. Eli sensed this and asked her, "Do you feel comfortable with this?" Sarah replied, tears once again coming to her eyes, "Nope. Definitely not." Eli said, "Hmm..well, there are two options. You can just go up there and do your best with what you have, or...someone else can do it. So you can choose which you would prefer and either let it go or do what you can in the next 15 minutes to better prepare." Sarah by this time was once again experiencing the phenomenon of having rivers running from her eyes, and with a pathetic look said, "Well I guess I'm just going to let it go then, because I really do not feel comfortable enough to do this right now, and I really don't want to screw it all up..." She was the picture of misery and frustration. With that Eli said "Alright" and took the computer from her lap and began to theorize about what could be done within the next 15 minutes. He decided to go back to the original program and began the process of eliminating the slides that were more unnessescary, with an air of focus and trust. Sarah, in no state to stay, went from the room and fled to the bathroom where she could attempt to cease her sobbing and could dry her eyes. Meanwhile, word was slowly spreading of the recent events, and people were coming by to condole and hug which caused great difficulty in Sarah's bid to put her crying to an end, but eventually she managed to at least retain a certain sense of composure, although her eyes had the telltale red hue that caused her to appear as though she had been on a few too many drugs in the past day, but that was beside the point. She emerged from the bathroom to meet up with one named Robert, who proceeded to tell her that she was going to do a great job, to which she tried to explain in short version that she was not doing it, but the message did not get across, and at that particular time, the MC of the meeting began to say; "And now I would like to introduce the speaker of this evening..." to which Robert gave her a smile and hug of encouragement, and then heard that the MC was not saying the name of Sarah but rather...Eli?? "You're not speaking? I thought it was you tonight...?" Sarah proceeded to tell the tale of how the cookie had crumbled over the past 15 minutes. It was understood, and the meeting began, so Sarah went in to find a seat.
Before she did though, she was surprised to hear that Eli was rambling on about himself and what he does at EBS, etc...Sarah was slightly confused by this, and then heard that the computer (her computer in fact) was not working, and was in the process of being fixed. After about 10 minutes the problem was resolved and the meeting commenced. Eli did an excellent job of it, or rather God did, and no one would ever have known that the time spent preparing consisted of 15 minutes of looking it over for the very first time. The meeting ended, everyone having received a blessing, and Eli came over to see how Sarah was now that it was over. Sarah responded that she felt absolutely horrid, to which Eli inquired why she felt that way. Sarah proceeded to explain (along with more tears) that she felt absolutley horrid for failing in her responsibility, and for putting it on the shoulders of another with such short notice, and for causing so much trouble. But Eli was most understanding and told her it was quite alright and to not worry about it all, for it had all turned out well regardless. Sarah appreciated it greatly, and purposed in her heart to go on a mission of baking cookies for both him and Lyndsay for all of the amazing help they had given to her over the past 24 hours.
Moral of this story is:
1. Look at the possibility of not speaking about a topic you do not feel overly comfortable with much earlier than 15 minutes prior to the time of speaking.
2. Try to avoid so much lachrymosity in life.
3. Be thankful that there are people who are understanding and willing to help, regardless of the circumstances.
4. Have an ever-present supply of cookie baking supplies.
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