April 2025

Dear PRAYing family and friends,

“There is ONE GOD and ONE MEDIATOR who can reconcile God and man—the man Christ Jesus. He gave His life to purchase freedom for everyone. This is THE MESSAGE God gave to the world at just the right time!” 1 Timothy 2:5-6 NLT

There is but One God: The Creator and sustainer of the universe who wants to have a relationship with each one of us! He is our all-knowing and all-powerful God!

There is but One Mediator: Jesus Christ the Righteous who longs to bring us into fellowship with God.

There is but One Message: Jesus Christ came into the world and gave His Life as a substitute for sinners. He died, was buried and rose again on the 3^rd day! Anyone who puts their faith in Him as Savior, is forgiven and given new life.

All of this = FREEDOM & RECONCILIATION available for the world!

At just the right time God the Holy Spirit worked in our hearts, giving us understanding to believe the truth. He continues working in our hearts every day to open our spiritual eyes to new truth and He is working through all of us to build His church around the world.

Each of us are blessed with the privilege and responsibility, as Paul goes on to say in verse 7, that we have been chosen as God’s messengers to share this message about faith and truth from Him with others.

Thanks for praying for our health this month. It really has been a challenge to give our bodies the rest they need to stay healthy. The respiratory infection that was going around came around again and Mom and I succumbed to the second wave. Now we feel like we are again on the road to recovery! We thank the Lord that Dad did not get it.

One of the translation challenges that we’ve been working through this past month are the different geographical descriptions in Joshua, including the locations of cities and tribal land boundaries. A few of the challenges have to do with obscure Hebrew terminology that is used and sometimes the lack of clear knowledge of the location of some of the places. But most of the challenges that my team and I are running across have to do with trying to describe places that are not in any way, shape or form similar to the lush rainforest topography of West Kalimantan. I remember on my trip to Israel in 2018 being so amazed standing at Tel Megiddo and hearing about 26 layers of civilization. In the Borneo jungles we have never even heard about layers of civilization. When a village has been wiped out (or nearly wiped out) due to disease or fire, the village moves to a new location. There are no layers in the jungle. This makes it challenging to translate accurately a verse like Joshua 11:13 that talks about towns built on mounds or ruins.

Also, villages in Borneo/Kalimantan are always located on riverbanks. Fields are developed near water sources like springs or rivers. Translating a phrase that describes a town’s location as being on the border of a valley, especially a river valley, doesn’t make sense to Semandang readers. They have no concept of a dry land where many of the rivers rarely even had water throughout the year. Comprehension can be greatly enhanced by adding footnotes and having a good supplemental book such as “How the Jews Lived” translated into their language.

PRAISE AND PRAYER:

• Pray for wisdom translating Joshua accurately for the Semandang people group
• Pray for clear and natural translation in the Semandang Bible translation project
• Praise God for the salvation that He provided for us through His Son Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross

May we never take for granted the free gift of salvation that Christ’s sacrifice wrought for us! He defeated death and sin and satan’s power and brought us life and relationship with Him!

Rejoicing in the Resurrection,

Darcy, and Ron & Nita Berglund