Dear friends,
We are into count down mode as we look at the next three months of ministry here in the tribe. At the beginning of December we will head to the States to begin a 6 month home assignment/furlough time. We look forward to connecting with many of you and are still in the stage of making plans and getting tickets. We will plan to be in Jacksonville for the majority of our time after a Christmas month in Michigan with my family. If there are ways we can be a blessing to your family when we are in the States we would like to do that.
Right when we got back to the village after our time in town, we had ten days together with a fellow missionary who oversees the literacy efforts here on the field. The goal of all our literacy efforts is that those who believe the gospel will have the skills to read and understand God’s word. Praise the Lord we have a very good start on creating the primers that will be foundational for teaching people to read and write the tribal language. Writing primers sounds like a simple, even elementary kind of project but wow did it take brain power to come up with little stories using just a few letters for the first primer. We’re very thankful for consultants who are willing to help us through these projects, it saves tons of time and effort in not having to reinvent the wheel!
Right now for Tim, his full attention is turned towards getting about 1000 verses ready for checking. The plan is to have a translation consultant come this October. In preparation for that Tim will need to get his translated material worked through with several of our friends here in the village. Pray with us that there would be just the right people to help with this process. Tim has about two weeks to get this material ready and off to the consultant for pre-checking. We would truly appreciate your prayers with us for these things over the next two weeks. Again it seems like a simple thing to just get a few verses checked by the people here but for us this is a big deal as we face the difficulties of not having very many people available to sit with us for hours and hours and work through the material we have. They have busy days and activities they are involved in and to sit and work on something that they don’t have a vision for yet is not easy. But we have to have their involvement so that the translation can be as clear as possible. It’s another step of faith for us as we watch how God provides for us! Thanks for praying for available, willing people.
Dina and Abby are continuing to grow and change. We are truly enjoying seeing their personalities blossom and become more evident. Dina turned 5 this month and is petite but developing beautifully! We have overheard her trying to give her little friends the gospel in her broken English/Indonesian/Tribal language, and her prayers are so precious for us to hear! Abby is getting more silly and expressive with her imagination and pretending and enjoys it when we laugh and smile about her antics. Thanks for continuing to pray for their health and safety in these developmental years!
We want to thank each one of you for your continued giving and caring for us! God is using you to enable us to be here sharing God’s love and message in a thirsty land! Thank you for being a part of His great plan for the nations. Again, we would like to serve you in any ways we can. If it would work out to get together with you during out home assignment we would REALLY like that!
Because of His grace,
Tim & Andrea, Dina & Abby