We don't know what to do, but our eyes are on Yahweh

Every year on November 11 we pause our busy schedules for the Wycliffe World Day of Prayer. It's a day to gather together with other believers and focus our prayers on the work of Bible translation all over the world. This year Jeannette and I organized the event for the office here in Musoma.

We gathered with about 50 people including Tanzanian staff and missionaries from England, Germany, Australia, the Netherlands, and the U.S.

We prayed for specific needs in each of the departments in our office: Translation, Linguistics, Literacy, Scripture Use, Operations, Partnership, and Lake Victoria Learning Center.

Then we prayed for the work of Bible translation all around the world.

• We prayed for the translation work on a tiny island in the South Pacific called Niuafo'ou. The Niuafo'ou people are becoming excited about their language and they are preparing to print the Gospel of Luke.
• We prayed for Deaf people who use over 400 sign languages in the world. We prayed that God would make a way for Deaf people to have the Bible in their own language.
• We prayed for Bible translation projects in Muslim countries. In one country in central Asia, a young Christian woman named Hanna was being persecuted by her Muslim in-laws. They rejected her faith and called her "unclean" and cast her out of the family. Eventually her husband divorced her. After this persecution, Hanna came in contact with a translation team translating the Bible into her language. They asked her to read a draft of the book of Job and check it for naturalness. Hanna was deeply impacted by the Word of God. She felt like she could identify with Job in his sufferings and this gave her great comfort and hope. She is now waiting for the rest of the Bible to be translated into her language.

I shared an encouragement from the Word (in Swahili!!) to focus our prayer time. We looked at the story of King Jehoshaphat from 2 Chronicles 20. God's people were threatened with invasion and destruction by three foreign armies. The Bible says King Jehoshaphat "turned his face to seek the LORD" (20:3). In Jehoshaphat's prayer he said, "We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you" (20:12). Such a good reminder in times of fear and uncertainty and threats and trials. Our God is all-powerful and all-knowing and all-wise and always good and always with us. We can turn to him and trust him.

Our kids really enjoyed the prayer time as well. They said, "It was so good to pray with other people outside of our family," and "I liked reading Scriptures about God and then praising him for those things."

The Holy Spirit Brings the Treasure of the Gospel Home to our Hearts

Martin Luther as an Augustinian Monk by Lucas Cranach the Elder 1520

On this Happy Reformation Day, here's a little gospel-saturated truth about the Holy Spirit from Martin Luther in his Larger Catechism:

The Spirit of God alone is called Holy Ghost, that is, He who has sanctified and still sanctifies us. For as the Father is called Creator, the Son Redeemer, so the Holy Ghost, from His work, must be called Sanctifier, or One that makes holy.

For neither you nor I could ever know anything of Christ, or believe on Him, and obtain Him for our Lord, unless it were offered to us and granted to our hearts by the Holy Ghost through the preaching of the Gospel. The work is done and accomplished; for Christ has acquired and gained the treasure for us by His suffering, death, resurrection, etc. But if the work remained concealed so that no one knew of it, then it would be in vain and lost. That this treasure, therefore, might not lie buried, but be appropriated and enjoyed, God has caused the Word to go forth and be proclaimed, in which He gives the Holy Ghost to bring this treasure home and appropriate it to us. Therefore sanctifying is nothing else than bringing us to Christ to receive this good, to which we could not attain of ourselves.

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. -- 

Ezekiel 36:26–27

But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. -- 1 Corinthians 6:11

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. -- 2 Corinthians 3:18

Text from https://www.ccel.org/ccel/luther/largecatechism.iv_2.html
Image from http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/20.64.21

finished Revelation but it's not the end

We finished the book of Revelation in the Jita language! After meeting with a Consultant for two weeks and examining every single verse of the book, Revelation is now approved!

We're so excited that now the Jita people can know Jesus as
Jesus Christ (1:1)
the Son of God (2:18)
the Lion of the tribe of Judah (5:5)
the Root of David (5:5)
the Lamb who was slain (5:12)
Faithful and True (19:11)
the Word of God (19:13)
King of kings and Lord of lords (19:16)
the Alpha and the Omega (22:13).

One of the challenges was the word "seal" like the scroll that was sealed with seven seals (5:1) and the 144,000 servants of God who were sealed on their foreheads (7:4). The Jita have one word for seal which is a mark used to show ownership of a cow or a mark that fishermen would use to identify their catch of fish. So that word works fine to communicate the idea of heaving a seal on the forehead, but it would definitely not work in the context of opening the seals on the scroll. Therefore, the team found another way to talk about the seals on the scroll.

Another challenge was the word "Abyss" in chapter 9. Is it the place of the dead? Is it Sheol? Is it Hades? Is it Hell? Finally we decided to simply translate "the unending pit."

And we still don't know how to translate "sulfur" in 9:17. The team plans to go out to Jita villages and do some community checking next week so hopefully they can discover a good way to communicate the meaning.

Thank you for all your prayers!! Here's a little sample of the Jita translation for you. Enjoy!

Nibheembira Omwana wa Inaama orwimbo oruyaaya runu rwayikaga ati,
"Awe wiiyire okugega echitabho echo
na okusuruumura jimboyero jaacho eja obhurimbo.
Okubha awe :waatemerwe-ko omutwe
na ku‑maanyinga gaawo, nuugurira Nyamuwanga
abhaanu bha jing'anda joone, jinyaayika joone,
jinyaami joone na abha amaanga goone."

Revelation 5:9

Then they sang a new song to the Lamb saying,

"You are worthy to take that book

and the open the seals.

For you were slaughtered

and by your blood, you purchased for God

people of all tribes, all languages,

all family groups and all nations."

Now on to the next book...

the sun and moon are fighting

We experienced a solar eclipse!

I captured this photo accidentally. I pointed my camera straight at the sun (yes, Mom, I know you told me NEVER to look directly at an eclipse) and of course I saw nothing. But then when I turned the camera at a slight angle I caught this flare. Check out the white crescent inside the flare. I guess that's what the eclipse looked like.

Jeannette was outside hanging laundry and she saw all these strange crescent shapes on the ground. I guess it's like when you do the old pin-hole-in-the-paper-to-see-the-eclipse experiment. But the trees above worked like the hole in the paper. Cool!!!

We had a blast with our Tanzanian colleagues. They wanted me to take this photo of them pretending like they were staring at the eclipse. Tanzanians say that the sun and moon are fighting. I wonder who won...

Earthquake!

Jeannette texted me saying, "Totally just felt like the earth was shaking. I think I'm going crazy!" I gave a cute reply because I had no idea what had happened, "The earth quakes under the intense volcano of my love for you."

After a couple minutes we started seeing reports that we had indeed experienced an earthquake! About 145 miles away, across Lake Victoria, there was a 5.7 magnitude earthquake. Sadly, 13 people have died and hundreds were wounded. Many houses here are poorly built out of mud bricks. One of our Tanzanian friends here in Musoma is thankful that he was not home at the time because the wall of his bedroom cracked and he was afraid it would fall down. Pray for the people of Uganda and Tanzania who were affected by this tragedy. Pray that people would hope in God.

Psalm 18
      The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, 
      my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge

Resources:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us10006nkx#executive
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-37330418

Six kilos of pig leg

I (Ben) woke up early on Saturday morning and went to the local slaughterhouse (some guy's backyard). Men with knives were already working on the second pig that morning. All that was left of the first pig were two legs. I said, "I'll take one of those." They weighed it and it came to 6 kilos (13 lbs.). It still had the skin on it and the bones in it.

Then I went to work. I tried three different knives until I found one that could cut the skin away from the meat. I won't gross you out with the rest of the details but after a few hours we had both the crockpot and the oven full of meat.

Finally it was time to enjoy the fruit of our hard work. Jeannette made this amazing pork pie. Question: If a shepherd's pie has lamb and a cottage pie has beef, what do you call it if it has pork? We don't know but it was delicious!

Then Jeannette made pulled pork with thyme and paprika and other magical ingredients. Yum!!! And of course, we savored a little pork BBQ also. So was it worth the effort? YES!!!

A centipede, a snake and a mongoose

Luke found this scary guy in our backyard hiding under some rocks. Yes, he's highly venomous!

Then as Ben was hanging a picture in our hallway he felt something brush past his heel...

He brushed Ben's heel so Ben crushed his head. It's poetic.

And you might be wondering, where was this guy when we really needed him?

Mr. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi here showed up the morning after the snake incident. Sure, some fierce cobra-killer he is.

Welcome to wild Tanzania!