Building a lighthouse

A few weeks ago I was reading a biography of Mary Slessor, a pioneer missionary in what is now Nigeria, and came upon the following quotation:
 

So, she realized, it was not a case where one could say, “Let there be light,” and light would shine.  The work of the Mission was like building a lighthouse stone by stone, layer by layer, with infinite toil and infinite patience.
(Livingstone, WP. 1934. Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary. Hodder and Stoughton: London. 27.)

This quotation was an encouragement to me, realizing that we, too, are building a lighthouse.  As we muddle through verb conjugations, tone, demonstratives, and putting stories together, we are doing more than just linguistics.  We are building a lighthouse.  We are figuring out how the language works so that, one day in the not too distant future (Lord willing!), we’ll be able to take the words of the Father of the heavenly lights (James 1:17) and translate them into this intricate language as the light at the top of our lighthouse.  We want His Word to be accurate and beautiful, and the way to do that is to figure out what accurate and beautiful speech sounds like.  That way, God will not sound like a three-year-old, but can be seen in His glory as the One who created people and created our languages.  He speaks My Language, and I want His Words to come across loud and clear to all of My People so that they can meet Him!

And so we continue on, deciphering this puzzle He’s put before us until we can understand it at least good enough to be able to start translating His Word into it.  Would you pray with us that we would understand it well and be able to start translating soon-ish?