We are half way through the first month already and this year looks interesting. Before I get to that, I will fill you in on what I have been up too these past few months.
After my trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo, I returned to Orlando for about three and a half days before heading to Boise Idaho. Air France lost my luggage going to Congo, but just two days ago I was able to retrieve one of the lost bags. The other bag is in Paris France and I am still working on getting that one back here.
I had a wonderful time meeting my friends in Idaho. I was allowed to set up my computer in a room above the maintenance hanger. I attended the MAF Christmas chapel and was able to share my work and vision with some of my MAF friends. I even was able to go bowling with Ian Rask.
I then headed up to Spokane WA for Christmas. It has been a year since I last saw my brother and almost the same with my parents. I have been away for many years with just a couple short visits so it was nice to get back.
I began January with a week of meetings here in Orlando FL. There is a lot of exciting work going on around the world and plenty to come. One of the main points I took away from the meetings was concerning the difficulty of work. Lets compare all the Bible translations in the world to a tree. Of the 7,000-8,000 languages in the world around 6,000 have starts and around 1900 have yet to be started. Basically, the low fruit of translations on the tree has been picked. The remaining languages are in places harder to reach or in countries much less open to Bible translation. A couple good examples are countries in the middle east. The goal most of the world translation groups are focusing is vision 2025. This goal is to have a translation started in every language in the world by 2025. This goal is possible but it will be harder to finish than it was to start.
Another take away I had was that there are multiple exciting ways the gospel is reaching those who do not have it. BILD is a group dedicated to training Christians from layman to Doctor. The idea is to educate the church so that it can be more effective in teaching and preaching. BILD has a huge curriculum that is being translated into many different languages so that Christians can be educated to preach and teach. India is a real focus of BILD at the moment, but eventually they should reach China as well. They also have a presence in many other countries of the world.
Distant Shores Media is another really cool group. They have created a platform somewhat similar to Wikipedia where Bible materials can be stored and translated all around the world. The Distant Shores platform shares the strengths of Wikipedia but not its weaknesses. It has means of making sure the content on its site are Biblically correct.
Tying together the training material from BILD and Distant shores with the Bible itself will create a library and education system for churches all over the world. The end result is a people who have more resources than ever before to understand and teach the Bible in more languages than ever.
So what is coming up for me? I am hoping to get back to Angola soon to install the equipment the national translation teams strongly need there. The delay has been getting permission from the local wireless company to install the repeaters we need. Hopefully we can get this soon. But we are also looking at alternative options.
I have been working on setting up equipment that national translators will be using oversees in the office here. We have quite a few teams who will be needing computers and other equipment and in the short term, that will be my focus.
I have been blessed by the work I have been able to do this last year and look forward to what is next.
I will leave you with a few pictures from my last few weeks.
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