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Category Archives: Bible Translation

Celebrating arrivals, birthdays and another day of Life

 

George teaching in SE Asia.

George teaching in SE Asia.

 

 

Ken has arrived safely in SE Asia. He’s settled in and has been working alongside his team leader, George, introducing new BT software to the group. They get a new group for next week’s classes. Getting information about the class is a bit difficult, but we’d appreciate your prayers that all that God desires would be accomplished these next two weeks. Thank you!

 

 

 

Ken with his brothers and grandson.

Ken with his brothers and grandson.

 

The day before Ken departed, we celebrated his birthday with a number of friends and family. He was especially thrilled when three of his brothers surprised him and arrived two days early to spend time with him. What a blessing! Thank you to all who wrote in and sent special messages to Ken via our daughter Christine. He absolutely loves his book!

 

 

 

Like many of you, I can’t help but feel saddened by the early and untimely death of the actor Robin Williams. It reminds me that we don’t know how people are really doing unless we engage with them in a meaningful way. Depression is a rough illness to fight and one in which the majority of the world doesn’t understand. Here’s to having intentional relationships this week and really listening to people.

Thanks again for standing with us in prayer.

 

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Miles to walk for email and no electricity to boot

Can you imagine having to drive to a town miles away every time you needed to send an email? It’s hard to imagine with the wonderful technology choices we have here in the USA. Our computers, tablets and mobile phones can immediately send and receive our emails mostly 24/7. In fact, if you live in a “dead spot” where Internet connectivity is spotty or the local fast food restaurant doesn’t provide free Wi-Fi, we can get a little crabby.

Video via Phillip Harms

Kathleen Spence (Video via Phillip Harms)

Kathleen Spence is a linguist who works in Central Africa Republic (CAR). She works with the Bhogoto Language Project.

Bhogoto…you’ve heard of it, right? Maybe you studied it in school when your friends were taking Spanish or German courses, no?

Of course not. But for the 200,000 speakers of this language, it’s important to them! While French is spoken in many places across CAR, most people cannot understand it hardly at all.

So having a Bible in French just doesn’t do the job for them. It’s about as helpful as you or I having only a Bhogoto Bible to read.

Click here to watch a very short video on some of the challenges that face translators in this region. I’m so excited that we are part of a group that provided them with Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) as well as a solar set up to help since there is no electricity in the region.

Oh, yeah, there’s that too. No electricity.

Boy, do I have an easy life. Thanks for praying for us and projects like this.

 
 

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Like Drinking from a Fire Hydrant!

Source: crownheights.info

Source: crownheights.info

It’s wonderful when you know your job. You walk into work, confident in your abilities. You’ve already planned out how your day will look, scheduling your meetings, breaks and how to organize your day. If you’re like me, you do the work you dislike first. What is that for you? For me, it’s phone calls. (I’m not sure why, but I hate using the phone.)

But if you have a new job, or new responsibilities in your role, your day doesn’t usually go quite as you planned. In fact, it’s difficult to plan your day because you can feel so uncertain in your work.

This is how Ken’s days are playing out. A month or so ago, Ken’s boss called him. “Ken, I’d like you to consider teaching some different software for our team. With your teaching abilities, we really need you to take on this new role.”

Naturally, Ken was interested because if you know Ken, he loves learning new software, especially software that expedites Bible translation. (For other “Strange, but true” stories click here.) But with one new piece of software came the responsibility to learn two other programs. Each program was needed in order for the next to work.

Ken and George

Ken with George working together.

Earlier this month, Ken (and I) ended up flying to Seattle, Washington so that Ken could have several days to work with his new team lead, George. He got a better idea of his responsibilities and started making plans for his first teaching trip with George.

I asked Ken how his work was going recently.

“I feel like I’m drinking out of a fire hydrant!” It’s a bit overwhelming!

But with perseverance, comes success.

Yesterday, he came in and said, “I got something to work!” Yay! Progress.

Thanks for keeping us in your prayers. We’ll keep you updated!

 

 

 

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