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Monthly Archives: November 2012

The Right Way to Begin a Class

25 Nov

Many Christian schools and colleges begin their daily classes with prayer. Some begin with song and dance.

Ken was in Nigeria last month teaching a very sophisticated Bible translation program to twenty-four Mother

Bible Translation class

Bible Translation class

Tongue Translators (MTT), many of which had received their first computer just the week before. He knew it would be a daunting task for the MTT’s to go from no experience to actually starting their Bible translation in this software in two short weeks, so they began each day asking for God’s help. Rather than a simple prayer of guidance, our Nigerian colleagues took a different approach – song and dance.

Revelation 7:9 says, “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.”

learning how to translate the Bible

The one on the left is a village learning how to translate the Bible in his own language.

Follow this link  (https://vimeo.com/54242680) and you’ll readily see a multitude of Nigerian tribes represented as they stand and dance praising God in song and worship, thankful for new skills to begin typing their New Testament in their own language!

I am thankful that God understands and loves praise and worship from all nations, tribes, and tongues. I know you are too. Your gifts and prayers enabled us to serve our Nigerian brothers and sisters on this trip.

 
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Posted by on November 25, 2012 in Uncategorized

 

On Advocates

16 Nov

ad·vo·cate/ˈadvəkit/

Noun: A person who publicly supports or recommends a particular cause or policy.

Who doesn’t like to be supported? And to be supported publicly is even better! I hope I’m the kind of person that supports others. I love the verses from the Bible that remind us that both Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are our Advocates before our Father in heaven. Some people translate that word in the Bible as “Comforter” which is another aspect of the word.

Ken and Anne with Virginia.

We have so many great advocates in our lives. Just recently we met one for the first time. Her name is Virginia. Virginia is on the missions committee at United Armenian Congregational Church in North Hollywood, California. On November 4, we were able to speak and worship at this church which has been supporting us in our work with Wycliffe Bible Translators for many years.What a great time we had sharing with some of the members in the fireside room! Virginia passes our newsletters on to others in the church, prays for us, and makes sure that we’re not forgotten. What a great Advocate she is to us.

About two weeks ago we discovered another Advocate in Scott. We met Scott and his family almost 30 years ago when we were first married and moved to a distant land called Wyoming (WY-O-Ming!). We lived in the same remote town for two years and worshipped together in a small, country church. We then moved to New York to serve for five-year with Children’s Bible Fellowship before joining Wycliffe in 1990. We lost contact with Scott after we left Wyoming but last week, out of the clear blue sky, he contacted us by phone. What a pleasant surprise! Reminiscing about our Wyoming days with Ken he later said, “I’d like to pass your name on to our church here on Long Island to see if they could take you on as one of our missionaries.” Wow, wouldn’t that be a blessing.

Within two days we received another phone call from Scott asking if we could quickly send to his pastor all the information we had about ourselves and Wycliffe. The pastor, as we discovered, was meeting with the missions committee the next day and wanted to evaluate Wycliffe and ourselves. We gathered our ministry material and sent it off – PRONTO.

Two days later I received a phone call from the church’s pastor. “Where can we send our first gift for you and your husband?”  Wow!  With the ailing economy, our funds have been very tight so what an incredible blessing this will be. And, I simply couldn’t believe how fast this happened.

Just like Virginia, Scott was an Advocate for us. He took the time to hunt us down, gave us a call and then followed through by passing our name on to his church. If he had delayed with any of those steps we probably wouldn’t have this new connection. Isn’t that cool?

Jesus is our advocate to the Father. Where would we be without that? Virginia and Scott have been our advocates to the church. Where would Ken and I be in ministry without advocates to the churches like Virginia, Scott, and yourself?

We cannot thank you enough.

 
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Posted by on November 16, 2012 in Family, Wycliffe

 

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