Listening a young man reading the new Mende Bible in a Faith Comes By Hearing / Literacy class in a Mende village.

“Hearing and reading the new Mende Bible is very clear and not like English.”

(Story by Rev. Linus W. Otronyi.)

God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that work in us. Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. Eph:3:20-21

It is amazing that God works in the ways that exceed our imagination! A few months ago, some of us were wondering if the Bette language group will be able to meet up with the series of projects (such as the Jesus film, FCBH, etc.) lined up for the Ogoja languages with at least the New Testament. At that point this group did not have a language committee. They were not showing up for some of the preliminary meetings. We were just making contacts with some church leaders and trusting God for the rest. Our fear was heightened when they could not attend the first Jesus film workshop on the first and second days. We had almost given up on them, but suddenly they showed up in good number and with strong interest. They finished the first workshop, returned home, and started thinking of forming a language committee—which they have successfully done. They decided to meet for three days to work on their script. They are now ahead of some of the other groups in their script, demonstrating their commitment. While the main involvement if this work in Bette has been from the Assemblies of God, they have brought a few members of other denominations to join them to work on the script. However, they will need some significant guidance. This is above what we imagined.
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Well, what can I say? First off, a big thank you to all who helped make it possible for me to join David on this trip! A term that might be used to describe my role might be ‘encouragement’. There were a few people I felt drawn to in particular to whom I felt God used me as an encourager. A couple of them were Africans and a few were missionaries – some not even in our organization. There was one person that I was not particularly drawn to and may have more naturally avoided but unbeknownst to me, God intended for me to be an encouragement to them. So, as I purposed to be open and friendly, I was surprised to see how God used me and blessed that relationship.

Isn’t God good? I wonder how many opportunities I’ve missed (wherever I find myself – here in the States or wherever) because I subconsciously closed

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I am now at LBT’s first In Depth Investigation Of Mission (IDIOM) for 2011. Five people are gathered at a hotel to discover if God is leading them to be work in Bible translation under LBT.

Chris Pluger and Jim Kaiser are here as missionaries in residence to answer questions that arise. Peter Slayton has organized this event. The participants will be challenged to feel what it is like to be without God’s Word, to consider their own strengths that they might be able to leverage for the Bibleless people of the world, and get a better understanding what they would need to do next to be involved.

Watch this short video clip that was done by someone who supports  Bible translation. It’s good!

Spotlight on Bible Translation from Dan O’Day on Vimeo.

My mother passed away on July thirty-first. You can find a short obituary here.

This has caused me to reflect quite a bit on death, and on the promises of God. In Psalm 119 King David says, “By your words I can see where I’m going; they throw a beam of light on my dark path.” C.S. Lewis often said that we are living in the shadow lands, the real world awaits us. We know that because God describes it vividly to us in the last chapters of Revelation.

Ruth and I were encouraged to hear my mother calling on God’s mercy, stating her belief in the son of God, last week. He is close to those who call upon him.

(The photo is a Cree Indian grave site.)

“Long before He laid down earth’s foundations, He had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of His love, to be made whole and holy by His love.’” (Ephesians 1:4, The Message).

Some people have asked me how to set up an electronic funds transfer from their bank account to Wycliffe for our ministry. The link to the instructions for that are right here.

If you have any problems with this, let me know.

I’m meeting with an ad hoc group to look into ways to leverage iPhone technology to determine if/how we can develop a mobile learning environment for missionaries.