Just a couple of items for prayer. Pulding, our primary translation helper, is the one who checks out our Bible lessons and scripture translation (now it will be Old Testament 🙂 ) with Manubu’ in the lowland dialect. Because he doesn’t have a license to drive a motorcycle it has meant that Mahan or Telmon has to drive him there about every 10 days. It is a 50 mile round trip over mud hole roads. Therefore, Mahan has been teaching Pulding how to drive a motorcycle, and this coming week Pulding plans to try for his license. It will probably involve a seminar and test which is not in their language, although they know the language used somewhat.
In our last update (just a couple of days ago) we mentioned Telmon and his wife planning to move to the lowlands to teach the word of God (a different part of the lowlands from where Pulding goes to work with translations helpers). Telmon will be using the Bible teacher motorcycle to go between the various places he teaches. It would be a big help if he could carry fare paying passengers as the fares will help to pay the expenses of running the motorcycle and also perhaps give him and his wife a little income. However, Telmon’s class of driver’s license doesn’t cover carrying passengers for hire. So he will go to the Land Transportation Office (more than 3 hrs from here) with Pulding to see if he can upgrade his license to a professional one. It also may involve a seminar and test.
Gene has started teaching Mahan to drive our 4×4 mud truck. Presently, when we fly out to town Gene drives the truck to the airstrip 5 miles away, Carol drives the truck back to our village, and then Mahan drives her back to the airstrip on a motorcycle. The motorcycle trip is hard on Carol’s back. When we fly back to our airstrip from town, the whole process is reversed. It will be much easier if Mahan can return the truck to the village when we fly out and also come and pick us up when we fly back in. Mahan’s driver’s license covers his driving the truck, he just has to learn how to do it. In our western culture we grow up watching our parents drive so by the time we are ready to learn we have some idea of how it all works. But, Mahan hasn’t had that experience. So going from a motorcycle to a truck is quite a step. He’s not always sure which way to turn the wheel, especially when backing around in order to turn around. Fortunately, we have a long, fairly wide, smooth airstrip for him to learn on before trying the mud hole road and river crossing.
So, please PRAY for these three guys. Pulding to get his license, Telmon to upgrade his license, and Mahan to learn to drive the truck – and for Gene not to panic when Mahan gets the pedals confused and the truck heads for the jungle at full throttle =-O. (Gene does for sure keep his hand close to the ignition switch :-)).