February goes too fast!

Happy March 1st! We can't believe how fast February went - and, as a friend so aptly put it on Facebook - only 5/6ths of 2010 left (for us, that is a somewhat overwhelming commentary ;) )!

It's been a busy first couple months and we are continuing to "charge" ahead with the various tasks we're trying to get done before we head out for the WA banquets in less than 4 weeks now. Jason reminded me to take a breath this last weekend - that data analysis and report writing deserves its full time and we shouldn't think that we need to get them done before is realistic. Or overwork ourselves in an effort to get them done "early" just so they're off our plates before we fly to Orlando for speaker training on March 27th. That said, there are a lot of things we are trying to accomplish...and a lot we are thankful to have gotten done last month.

Are you interested in reading a survey report from our work in Peru? We were glad that it got posted online at the end of last year and also to have the translated version to send back to our Peruvian friends and colleagues last month. You can read the English version at: http://www.sil.org/SILESR/abstract.asp?ref=2009-019. We're also excited that a coworker of ours who is based in Colombia is currently in Lima, Peru, in discussions with local stakeholders in the deaf community about getting a Peruvian Sign Language translation project initiated! Its great to know our hard work in Peru is paying off as she now knows more about the situation she is walking into, the people she needs to contact, and how to find them because of the survey reports we wrote from our fieldwork there a few years ago! Pray for her in her various meetings with deaf associations, deaf leaders, and other organizations serving the Peruvian deaf community.

Other major reports should be online "soon" - the Dominican Republic and Paraguay reports (from fieldwork in 2008) have cleared the copywriters and should soon be posted in the same location as the above Peru Report. Both reports have also been translated and are ready to be distributed back to the local communities as soon as this happens! The public reports for Jamaica and Honduras (from fieldwork Spring 2009) are now at the copy-editors and one step closer to distribution in those countries. And we just submitted first editions of the Panama reports for review, too! We're glad it is all moving forward...

Our biggest task for March are the Chile reports - the survey in Chile was much more involved than some of the more recent surveys and we anticipate it taking longer to get all the data analyzed and into decent first edition reports. If we're lucky, we'll have a bit of time before we leave for Orlando to get the Northern Ireland reports done too...but that will probably require a miracle.

You may be all reported out by this point in the blog - but imagine having to keep all these straight in your mind! Reports are really crucial though because information that we gather and conclusions we come to are worthless unless they get back into the hands of the local communities and organizations that can move the task forward. They're like the baton in a relay race. If we don't write and distribute accessible reports, it's like dropping the baton after the first leg of the race...it doesn't matter how fast or effective the next runner is, they can't move forward or cross the finish line until they find that baton.