First, Some Hard Things
In our last update we shared about completing another large translation check. Just as we were experiencing the excitement of finishing another check we had some hard things come up. One was a massive power surge that destroyed a lot of money’s worth of electronics, another was a large unexpected CA state tax bill and last, and by far the hardest, was the death of a dear Simbari believer named Jeris.
You might remember praying for Gwandambi, the boy with the bone infection in his leg, well Jeris was his mother. Her husband, Rison, was a Bible teacher for many years but had stepped down from Bible teaching earlier in the year to pursue a job in town. Not long afterwards his wife became sick and eventually passed away last month, probably from a brain tumor. This has been very hard on the whole Simbari church but they have done well ministering the love of Christ to Rison’s family. We know from God’s Word that hard times should be expected and that He wants to teach us through them. One positive result was how the church had opportunities to share about their hope in Christ because the community watched them deal with the death without the normal cultural hopelessness. This opened the door for them to share the Gospel. Please still pray for this family who have been through so much and for the whole church.
Baptism
The Simbari church down in Port Moresby continues to grow. They continue to meet in their settlements to hear Bible teaching in their heart language and on Sundays they are part of a larger church made of people from several different tribes using the national language, Pidgin. Last week six of them were baptized because they wanted everyone to know that their identities are joined to Christ in his death, burial and resurrection. Pray for these six people to continue growing towards spiritual maturity. Pray for more laborers to meet new requests for Bible teaching.
Translation Work Continues To Move Ahead
Shari has now finished the initial Back Translation (BT) draft and David has been checking it for equivalency. He is also doing other checks to make sure all the Biblical content is accurately matched and that the Biblical term translations are consistent throughout the whole Simbari translation.
Thank you for praying!
David and Shari