September 2024

Dear PRAYing family and friends,

Thank you so much for your prayers last month! With God’s grace and wisdom, I, Darcy, was able to finish translating the Literacy Manual for our national teams working in A-P. It is good to refocus on Bible translation again with my dear team in Asia-Pacific. Speaking of my team, my co-translator Okerianty has written part of our letter to share with you this month:

Oke writes, “In this letter I want to tell my life story beginning from when I believed the gospel to the present and how I came to be involved in God’s work. When I was born in 1977 in Balai Semandang village, the Good News of Jesus Christ had just come to our tribe. My parents had begun studying with the missionaries who were teaching in my village. But I was still very young and even though my parents always took me along to the meetings, I did not realize that my own heart was sinful and that I would be punished eternally for my sin. My family grew in their faith, and it was about 1990 when I heard a lesson from God’s Word about the fact that every person whose name was not written in the Book of Life, would be thrown into the fire of hell. My heart was very frightened hearing and thinking about that punishment. Since my heart was not at peace, I went to talk to my aunt to ask her how I could be free from that punishment. She answered me, “Just believe in the work of Jesus who died on the cross to pay for your sin debt!” When I heard her words, I made a decision right then in my heart to trust in Jesus’s sacrifice.

From the moment I decided to believe in Jesus as my Savior, my heart and mind were so happy and peaceful. I didn’t have any more fear. Several years after that, Darcy and her translation team were doing Bible translation in Kuala Randau village. In 2002, I went to visit my sister who was working as part of the translation team. At the time I visited, they were doing comprehension testing in Acts with our friends from Sungai Nibung village. I wanted to sit in and listen to them doing that step of the translation process. I was so excited to hear God’s Word read in my heart language for the first time, that I even jumped right in and started helping my friends retell the verses in our own words. Beginning from that time, I was always happy whenever I was asked to help with the translation project. What excited me the most was in doing that comprehension testing, I could really understand God’s Word and it strengthened my faith. I continued helping with comprehension testing on the New Testament until it was finished and then printed in 2017.

Back in 2013, Darcy had asked me to start drafting parts of the Old Testament on my own. I began working on the book of Esther, learning how to make a rough draft in the Semandang language using several major language translations. In April of 2014, I had my first consultant check. We checked Esther and then printed it. Then I translated the book of Ruth and after that Daniel. I had my consultant check on Daniel last September. Now I am drafting the book of Exodus, filling in the verses that we did not translate the first time around.

In addition to the translation work, I’m also involved in Literacy. I oversee our literacy program for all of our Semandang churches. I am praying about and planning to attend a literacy workshop on another island next March if the Lord wills. Thank you so much for your prayers for our ministry.”

Please continue to pray for Oke as she finishes drafting Exodus. Next month she plans to take a break from Bible Translation and read the literacy manual.

Mom and Dad and I are doing well. We celebrated Dad’s 85^th birthday this month. In addition to that, we enjoyed so much having several of our missionary friends come through our area this month and being able to reconnect with them.

PRAISE AND PRAYER:

• Pray for Oke’s health and her plan to attend a literacy workshop next March-April
• Praise that Darcy was able to finish translating the Literacy Manual
• Pray for good communication for our team as we are spread so far apart
• Pray for our elder’s wife who recently had breast cancer surgery and is now having on-going chemotherapy treatments in Malaysia
• Pray for me, Darcy, as I learn a new lesson in living life in the USA: how to work through processing a claim for hail damage on our car.

“Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.” (2 Thess 2:16-17 ESV)

From Darcy Berglund, Okerianty Awet, and Ron & Nita Berglund