It’s easy… tell them that their Bible translation is being used and that people’s lives are being changed by it!

A pastor from Australia teaches Palawano young people how to study their Palawano New Testaments more deeply, using 1 Corinthians 15 as the text.

A Good Report

We keep hearing good reports about the Palawano church back in our village. People are reading and teaching the Word of God, using their Palawano New Testaments and the Talking Bible audio players. This thrills our hearts.

Recently, we received news about how a number of Palawano young people (late teens or early 20s) are being impacted by the Word of God. These kids were not even born when we arrived on Palawan on 1982. They are the children of our daughters’ childhood friends. Through the ministry of another NTM coworker, these young people are finishing grade school and going to high school; some are even starting college! They are studying the Bible because they want to teach other Palawanos. Some want to go back and be school teachers in their home village; others feel called to the ministry.

Lord willing, whenever our ministry travel takes us to the Philippines or that part of the world, we want to get to Palawan to teach these young people, as well as the Palawano church leaders.

We’re so excited to share how the translation is bearing fruit! Meanwhile, pray with us about Bill’s upcoming trip to SE Asia in October. He will work with the consultants there to train both Indonesian and Western missionaries who are right on the verge of sharing Christ with several Unreached People Groups.

There is still so much of the world to be reached.

Every Picture Tells a Story

Risyal’s aunt Nili was our daughter’s friend at age four. His mother worked for us in her teens so her parents could avoid the pressure to marry her off too young. We gave Risyal rabies shots when he was about six. Now he wants to become a teacher among his own people, and he feels called to the ministry.

Teresa (in green) and Melanie (Risyal’s baby sister, in purple) are among the first Palawanos from our area to have a chance to finish high school. We knew both Teresa and Melanie as babes in arms and then toddlers in the Palawano church. Now they are sweet Christian young women who want to learn God’s Word and help others.

Tato (in the foreground) has had a lot of heartache in his life due to poor choices. Now he is walking with the Lord, going to college and excited to share God’s Word with others. Tato’s real name is Brazil; his parents saw that on a missions magazine about South America and liked the sound of it! His father Abil was one of Bill’s main translation helpers and is a leader in the church. Risa is the girl in the back. Her father Karding was the ten-year-old boy who learned to change the cassette tapes while Bill and others were building our first house in 1982. Bill helped to “officiate” at Karding’s wedding years later. Now Karding’s daughter is finishing school and studying the Bible for herself.

Yes, it’s all because of this book, the Word of God, which is now in the Palawano language. By God’s grace and through so many who partnered together over so many years, the Palawanos now have God’s Word, and it is changing lives!

The world is a big place. And Christ’s command to make disciples of all nations is a big task. We can easily feel overwhelmed by it.

Can we do it? Yes!

We have his command, and his promises. The church can move forward with confidence; undaunted, and full of hope.

How can we do it?

First of all, someone needs to go. And they need training. Our mandate is to “make disciples.” That requires a high level of competency in the language. It requires deep relationships built on trust and cultural sensitivity. We are excited in our new ministry phase to be working to provide training for the wave of non-Western missionaries God is raising up to reach the Unreached.

We are often asked: “How can you teach people a language you don’t know?”

That’s a good question. Answer: we don’t!

Bill teaches missionaries language learning principles and techniques they can used to learn ANY language, anywhere in the world. There are challenges involved in this kind of training, but it’s not as hard as you might think.

But there is another aspect of our ministry which is actually more difficult, and harder to explain: Language assessment.

Good enough?

Missionaries need to know when they are “good enough” in their language proficiency to begin a ministry of evangelism and discipling, teaching deep spiritual truths. How can they know? And how can their mission leaders and consultants evaluate their progress?

If you speak Spanish, you could evaluate how well I speak Spanish. But when missionaries are learning unknown languages, we face a problem!

For example, an Indian missionary is learning Kannada, the language of the Adi Karnataka, an unreached Hindu group with a population of nearly 3.5 million. How can her mission leaders evaluate her fluency when they themselves do not speak Kannada?

There are ways to do this. Back in 2004, Bill worked with others in NTM to develop a whole system of techniques for doing this kind of evaluation. It takes time. And patience. And diligence. And the consultants must first be well-trained to do this kind of “assessing the unknown.”

Help is needed

Some ministry opportunities are coming out of our recent Training Forum in Manila. (We attended this forum last March) Right now Bill has been invited to help some consultants in Southeast Asia learn to do this kind of evaluation. (the dates are not yet definite, and because of sensitive political issues we cannot name the country or region at this time.) He would be training both Europeans and some Asians, guiding them in how to evaluate both Western and non-Western missionaries who are learning the as-yet unknown languages of unreached people groups.

Please pray with us as work through the details of this ministry trip, and as Bill develops training materials in simple English which might be more easily translated into the language of the Asian consultants. When this trip gets confirmed, we will try to plan some other ministry travel and events since we’ll already be in S.E. Asia. Lord willing, we’d also want to get to Palawan to teach the Palawano church leaders.

Everyone deserves to hear in their Heart Language…

…and we want to help the messengers communicate clearly!

*image used by permission of IMB (Intl Mission Board), imb.org

Packing our bags…

…Again.

Yep, we’re headed to Manila next week for a forum on developing and providing training for Asian missionaries.

This is exciting for us, as it is moving us toward our vision of seeing an army of well-trained, effective communicators taking the Gospel to Unreached Peoples throughout Asia and all the world!

Training many nations to reach all nations

There will be attendees from the Philippines (both Filipinos and expats). We’ll have people from Thailand, Singapore, and a few other Asian nations we can’t mention by name for security reasons. Some will be coming from Africa. And trainers and consultants will also be coming in from the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Many nations and Unreached People Groups need to hear. It’s going to take missionaries from every part of the Globe to get the job done. And that means training. You cannot evangelize and disciple unreached people if you don’t know how to learn their language. Those language barriers are often the main reason they are still unreached.

Training, languages and writing systems

We’ll be talking about how to create the best training materials and contexts for missionaries coming from so many countries. Many of these missionaries don’t speak English. Most won’t have computers (*gasp* can you even be a missionary without a Macbook Pro?!)

Knowing our ABCs is not enough.  Their languages may use a different script/alphabet.

They have different cultural styles of teaching and learning. Where should each training be based or conducted? How can we train teachers who will be able to conduct training in all these languages?

There are many challenges to work through.

Old friends and new generations

We’re looking forward to seeing old friends and coworkers. And we’re seeing how this kind of training passes from one generation to the next. A prefield trainer coming from England was our student in phonetics back in 1979 before we left for the Philippines; after serving in Africa, he and his wife teach missionary trainees in the UK.

A New Zealander that we trained in 2004 is coming; we had some input into his language-learning know-how, and now he’s training Asians to reach others.

We’ll be spending time with the director of training for the foreign missionaries who arrive in the Philippines; he was a grade schooler on Palawan when we met him in 1981.

And we’re looking forward to meeting others that God has raised up to be a part of seeing Asians become highly effective in reaching Unreached Peoples.

You…

Yes, you!

Each of you is a part of this and we appreciate your prayers as we work through all these challenges. Your partnership in this ministry makes a huge difference as we work together to see all peoples reached in their Heart Languages.