Viña says good-bye to summer volunteer

SOLOLÁ — We celebrated the pending exit of another Viña Studios volunteer Friday morning.

Kaye has been a great addition to our team at Viña these past few months, a rose among thorns. Her official role was to review Viña’s entire video library and produce a catalog for distribution. Her second role was to keep us entertained and to inject social levity and cohesion to this bunch of guys.

All of the employees at Viña are men, which explains why the men’s restroom is about three times larger than the women’s. Marcia Wellser, the wife of Matt Wellser, who works in administration, is the only other woman here at Viña; Marcia works in scripture-use programs. Matt and Marcia knew Kaye from their years working together at SIL International’s Dallas offices.

Kaye told me she was happy to work among so many men here. “Kati,” as she was known to us here, often added more flavor to the social mix than we usually achieve here with her frequent exclamations of surprise, joy or welcome. Kaye formerly worked in SIL’s offices in Colombia so she is quite comfortable speaking Spanish. During our morning devotionals or the morning coffee break, Kaye often added welcome words of encouragement, advice or humor.

It’s easy to surprise Kaye. So easy, in fact, that we knew it would be no disappointment for her to check ahead of time and ask if she could come in a little earlier Friday for a “surprise” breakfast at a local restaurant. Sure enough, Kaye was just as enthusiastic as ever when we “surprised” her with a few going away gifts. She seemed to especially enjoy the empty box and the Dedito soldier from our upcoming episode about Joshua and the fall of Jericho.

Kaye’s usual exclamation of surprise is a loud, “What?!!!!” A few weeks ago, while I was still on my raw-garlic-prevents-stomach-bugs health kick, I decided to shave my beard. That morning, Kaye arrived late for the start of the devotional and she snuck in, head down, taking an open seat beside me. After the reading, I made a comment and Kaye looked up at me. “What?!!!!!” she exclaimed at seeing the stranger with the clean-shaven face. Kaye said she knew it was me because of the garlic odor, but otherwise I guess I shocked her.

For the last few months, Kaye has reviewed Viña’s dubbed Christian videos, such as the “Jesus” film and dozens more, in all the different languages of Guatemala that we have on hand. Over three months, Kaye viewed hundreds of VHS videos, noting the content and the master tape’s quality — whether they are good enough to digitize on a DVD. We knew it was a big job, and it turned out to be a bigger project than anyone imagined, I think. It’s not over, but we hope to build on Kaye’s work and eventually have Viña’s entire catalog available online and in print to help us better promote and distribute all the materials Viña has produced over the past 25 years.

On Tuesday, Kaye flies to the states for a month and then back to Guyana, just north of Brazil, where she assists a Bible translator. The Lord bless you and keep you, Kaye. We’ll miss you. It’s going to be a lot quieter and duller around here without you.

*****

Note: I called Kaye a summer volunteer. Actually, it's summer where most of my blog's readers are (the U.S.), but here it's rainy season. It's usually sunny in the mornings and often rainy in the afternoon and evenings, today included.