When Boring Is a Blessing

“What comes to mind as you think of desk work?” wrote Jerry and Joyce McDaniels, Ethnos360 International Literacy Coordinators. “Boring, behind-the-scenes work while staring at a computer? Well, we are using adjectives like blessed, wonderful, impacting, joyful.”

Boring has become a blessing.

When the Trips Slow Down

After committing themselves to several years of long and frequent trips, boring really does feel like a blessing.

During those trips, Jerry and Joyce trained consultants to use a new literacy software called Literacy Starter. In the process, they helped write literacy curriculums in 28 languages. Imagine, 28 more language groups being able to read!

“That thrills our hearts since people will have full access to God’s written Word in their languages because they can read,” wrote the McDaniels. “Imagine the effects of God’s Word on the church, families and communities!”

That training won’t stop, but it will slow down. Their focus will be redirected to projects that could be considered boring, but they are projects that the McDaniels call “blessed desk work.”

Blessed Desk Work

Jerry and Joyce are seeing the fruit of their labour. But the work is not done.

“Those we have been training are beginning to do their own first literacy projects,” wrote Jerry and Joyce. That means there are many questions to answer. Also, the Literacy Starter software has been refined and developed further since its debut, and now the instructions need to be revised and finalized.

But the changes don’t stop there. Though the heartbeat behind literacy remains the same with the advent of Literacy Starter, the methodology is quite different. This means the literacy manual used in our training centres and by missionary teams must also be revised. It also means that Jerry and Joyce have a lot of boring — I mean, blessed! — desk work ahead of them.

Pray for the McDaniels as they work through the revisions and for literacy programs across the globe.