EAA AirVenture Oshkosh

Jon recently had the privilege of representing Wycliffe Bible Translators at the world’s greatest aviation celebration in Oshkosh, WI.  A team from JAARS (an organization committed to providing technical support services and resources to Wycliffe) had a booth at the air-show and brought a couple of their aircraft for display.

Jon was on hand to answer questions about the aircraft, but his favorite part of the experience was being able to talk to so many people about the ministry of Wycliffe and explain how the aircraft help make Bible translation possible.

Just the Right Bible

We’ve been doing a lot of traveling lately so my access to the internet has been sporadic, but I’ve been meaning to post a video that a friend brought to my attention a few months ago.  It was made by some colleagues in Papua New Guinea and is a great reminder how blessed we English speakers are to have the Bible in our own language—a gift we too easily take for granted.

Flower Girl and Ring-bearer

Our good friends from Discover Church—Nick and Carrie tied the knot yesterday.  It was a beautiful wedding and our family was honored to be asked to participate.  Claire and Isaiah acted as flower girl and ring-bearer respectively.

For Claire, the chance to dress like a princess was a dream come true.  Isaiah, on the other hand, usually just wants to do what Claire is doing until he finds out it involves lots of people watching him.  During the rehearsal we had a couple of false starts, but Isaiah eventually made it down the aisle hiding behind his hands.  Ominously, Saturday morning dawned with Isaiah’s announcement that he didn’t want to “carry a pillow”.  Mom and Dad were forced to pull out some positive reinforcement.

2:00 PM couldn’t come fast enough.  I was almost a nervous wreck trying to keep a white shirt, and a white dress WHITE till then!  I have to ask, who’s idea was it to leave chocolate chip cookies in the church lobby for my four and six year old to find?  <wink>  We did enjoy them though….

In the end, both kids played their parts wonderfully, and were pretty adorable if I do say so myself.  When Isaiah reached Jon who was waiting for them at the front of the auditorium, he whispered, “Do I get my remote controlled car now?”  Nothing like “positive reinforcement” to get a boy to smile while dressed up in a shirt and tie!

We Don’t Ever Want to Forget

We recently received this encouraging story from the president of Wycliffe Bible Translators and thought you might enjoy it as well.  As a side note…we met Andrew Sims at JAARS about 6 weeks ago.

The single-engine plane circled and landed in a remote village in Southeast Asia. As translators Andrew and Anne Sims stepped out, they were immediately surrounded by several hundred Ketengban men and women—all dressed in full celebratory dress with feathered headdresses, and even some with bones in their noses, and plugs in their earlobes. Brandishing bows and arrows, hooting, chanting and dancing, they swirled in and around Andrew and Anne, honoring them by draping net bags around their necks.

Andrew and Anne were caught completely off-guard. Even though they were responsible for the Ketengban translation project and this was Anne’s first visit since the New Testament dedication 11 years earlier, they hadn’t expected such an exuberant welcome. They were further baffled when they noticed that not everyone was celebrating.

Off to the edge of the crowd stood a somber group of about eight young men. Like everyone else, they were dressed in full traditional regalia, but they were also covered in white mud from head to toe. They stood expressionless and silent, never moving, never joining in the celebration.

The elders explained:  “Today we celebrate your return, Andrew and Anne, you who brought God’s words to us in our own language. But we don’t want to forget what life was like before we had the Word, so we asked these young men to cover themselves with mud and to stand apart, silent and somber. They represent the lives of all of us before we understood God’s words to us. We were like dead men walking. We didn’t know God or His Son. We lived in guilt and fear and constant warfare, always under the power of the evil spirits, who terrified us and caused us to fear one another as well.

“Now we are alive in Christ and free from our dark past. We are insiders, part of God’s family—no longer outsiders silently watching from afar. But our children don’t remember what it was like to be outsiders and walk as dead men, because they were born after the coming of God’s words. We want them to understand our past so they will fully value what they have with Jesus and will always give thanks to God. We older people don’t want to forget how much God has changed us either!”

They haven’t forgotten, and they haven’t kept the good news to themselves. They’ve reached out to half a dozen neighboring language groups—bringing people to Christ and planting churches. They’ve also committed themselves to getting more of the Word into their own language. The New Testament, dedicated in 1998, was not enough for them. Two teams of passionate, highly motivated mother tongue translators are working on a shortened version (45%) of the Old Testament, with the careful guidance of Andrew, who now works as a translation consultant with The Seed Company.

Through computer assisted adaptation, the Ketengban are also sharing their New Testament with the speakers of Lik, a closely related language. Andrew is working with mother tongue translators of that language, using the Adapt It software program to go from the Ketengban New Testament to the Lik. They will polish the resulting draft until God’s Word is as clear to the Lik people as it is to the Ketengban.

The Ketengban have it right:  Against a background of darkness, light shines more brightly. If you don’t have your own memories of the darkness and fear outside of God’s family, I’d encourage you to tuck away the Ketengbans’ story for those occasions when you need a fresh appreciation for all that God has done.

In Deuteronomy 4:9 (NLT) Moses says to the Israelites: “But watch out! Be careful never to forget what you yourself have seen. Do not let these memories escape from your mind as long as you live! And be sure to pass them on to your children and grandchildren.”

Hang on to those memories. Pass them on to your children and your grandchildren, your colleagues and your partners. Let the memories enrich your personal walk with Christ, and let them give you a renewed passion for sharing the Good News with those still struggling in darkness outside the family of God.  --Bob Creson

Caneadea, NY

Our current road trip took us to Stevens, PA to see some good friends, and then on to the Damon homestead in Western New York.  We'll be speaking a couple of times while we're up here, but in the meantime, there’s always lots to do at Grandpa and Grandma’s house!    

The Un-burnt Bible

You can be sure that wherever God is at work, Satan is setting up resistance. In Papua New Guinea (PNG), opposition to the work of Bible translation often seems to take the form of squabbles and clashes between language groups or villages. Such has been the situation among the villages near the Ukarumpa center where we lived. Although, none of our expatriate co-workers have been in any real danger, our local friends and their families have suffered greatly. “Raskols” (trouble-makers) have destroyed their crops, burned their homes and threatened their lives.

Despite the grim news from PNG, we know God is not just idly sitting by while his people flounder in despair! A co-worker recently sent us this encouraging story.

“The most amazing testimony came from Pastor Karl who held a bilum [string bag] with a Bible inside. The house had burned, but the bilum and the Bible were intact. The bilum had only one small burn spot. He referenced Jesus' words in Matthew 24:35, ‘Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.’ And he said, ‘This is what we're doing in translating the Bible in our language, giving the people something that will not be destroyed.’ This is such an encouragement...a local Pastor who has seen God's hand, has caught the vision and is saying ‘we’ in regards to Bible translation. Is God not blessing His work in this valley? There isn't a raskol around who can stop what God is doing. This was so evident by the hope expressed in the hearts of the people today.”

God is at work in the hearts and lives of the people of Papua New Guinea through his written Word. Amen! Testimonies like the one above fuel our desire to return to PNG and support the work of Bible translation there.

(This story is an excerpt from our June 2010 newsletter.  Please contact us if you would like to receive this newsletter by email.)

Black and Blue

For weeks my calendar has alerted me to the fact that June 19 was the day Morris Orchard opened for blueberry picking.  My family and I have already consumed several quarts of the store-bought version this summer, but everyone knows they can’t compare to the “pick-your-own” variety.  <smile>

We learned last summer that if you want good berries, you’ve got to get there before the “jam-makers” sweep the bushes clean.  So armed with hats, sunscreen and bug repellent we journeyed to my favorite spot in Virginia.  Really, the drive is beautiful!  Morris Orchard sits at the base of High Peak Mountain in a perfectly pastoral valley.

It was a pleasant surprise to learn that blackberries were ripe as well.  It’s so cool that they’re on thorn-less vines.  Makes it easy for the kids to help pick.

We quickly filled our quota and our cravings—although the blackberries are addicting.  Fortunately, the owners recognize that children of all ages are by default going to get purple fingers and mouths while picking.  We took our black and blue plunder home to be baked and frozen if they didn’t get eaten first.  My only regret is that we missed the day’s supply of soft peaches.  I’m telling you—you’ve got to get there when the doors open at 9:00 AM!