While this page has lain dormant, I have been making plans for the upcoming year that will take me many miles from Winnipeg. For the potential few who learn about the happenings in my life from this blog, here is the official announcement: I’m going to Vietnam.

I will be participating in the SALT program of the Mennonite Central Committee for one year, from mid-August 2007 until the same time next year. SALT is a cross-cultural service program run by the relief and development arm of the Mennonite church that involves not proselytizing, but working within local communities and living within the cultural bounds of a foreign country. I’m not out to change the world, but to be changed by it. Please pardon the flagrantly lame cliché.

More specifically, I will be working with the Gioi Publishing House in Hanoi, editing first-draft English translations of Vietnamese documents. The job will not require knowledge of Vietnamese, but I’m optimistic that I’ll be able to gain a passable understanding of the tonal, largely mono- or di-syllabic language. Early efforts are proving that I have some capacity to pick up on the subtleties of tone and new vowel sounds, but lack the self-discipline to apply myself to studying.

Stay tuned for (hopefully) more frequent posts and regular picture updates here…