Enjoying creation… checking out the spring flowers in the nearby Borrego desert
Here’s a quick update to mention some “joint projects” we’re involved with in our ministry.
Joint Project #1: Reaching the World
Seeing the Unreached People Groups of the world reached for Christ will require a lot of effective missionaries being sent out. So that’s our main focus–developing tools and training missionaries (and training those who train missionaries). We want to multiply ourselves, and see thousands more workers go out into God’s harvest field, well-trained and able to clearly communicate God’s truth effectively cross-culturally and in a previously unknown language.
Here are some things Bill and his team have been doing recently:
We’ve been busying continuing to develop the Stages mobile app that missionaries can use to learn language and culture. We’ve been fixing bugs and adding some requested features. Lord willing, we’re hoping for a new release with wider beta-testing in a month or two.
Bill has been working to finalize the instructional materials for the Engage CLA (culture/language acquisition) program to be used globally by our mission and others.
Bill attended the ICLL (International Congress on Language Learning), collaborating with and learning from others who help missionaries learn language and culture.
At ICLL, several other mission agencies and training centers have expressed great interest in using the tools (Engage and the Stages app) that Bill’s team is developing! Some will even help with beta testing the app.
Bill has recently been part of a discussion group working to better coordinate language learning, linguistics (grammar and discourse analysis), worldview discovery, evangelism, and church planting throughout Ethnos360 and all of its 30+ Global Partners worldwide.
We’re thankful for the chance to keep serving God in this phase of life, and that he’s given us an opportunity to have a part in seeing his kingdom expanded until he is worshipped by people of every tongue, tribe, people and nation!
Joint Project #2: Partnering with YOU
Seeing the Unreached People Groups of the world reached for Christ is a team effort.
We’re thankful for your part in this ministry through prayer, giving, and all kinds of encouragement. We couldn’t do this without you!
Joint Project #3: Keeping these old bodies going
The last “joint” project we wanted to mention is that Bill will be getting a total knee replacement at the end of this week, on Friday March 29.
His right knee has been an issue for years, gradually getting worse. Recently it reached a point where a new MRI confirmed that a knee replacement is the answer. Ministry travel has been on hold while he knee has flared up a few times recently, so we’re working remotely through online collaborative technology. We’re looking forward to being able to go up and down stairs easily and to painlessly walk the length and breadth of international airports soon, once he’s past his recovery period and weeks of physical therapy.
We thankful for excellent health care providers, good insurance, and most of all, an all-powerful, loving God who directs our steps, heals our bodies and encourages our hearts.
Please pray with us that the surgery will go well, that the post-op pain will be minimal, and that Bill will be able to resume full activity quickly.
Recently we held a week-long international training event at Ethnos360’s missionary training campus in Missouri. Bill and his team taught about 50 people who came from around the world how to use their newly-developed materials for CLA (Culture and Language Acquisition). It was fun to return to that campus. We lived there in that scenic place for two years back in the 70s (one year as students, one year as teaching staff), and our first child, Elisa, was born during those years.
The Beautiful Lake of the Ozarks, Where Ethnos360’s Campus is Located
Attendees Came from All Around the Globe
What?
After years of development, Bill and his team are thrilled to be able to start making these long-anticipated materials available. They presented Engage, their new, comprehensive guide on how to learn a language and culture step-by-step. And they demonstrated Stages, the brand-new app that will make using Engage easier. This event was the first in a series of “roll-out” events to be held around the globe over the next year or two.
Who?
The 50 attendees represented 7 nationalities, a total of 8 missionary training programs, and 11 countries of service. They will all begin to use Engage and Stages to train new missionaries, and to help missionaries reach fluency in new languages and deep insight into the culture and worldview of the unreached people groups those missionaries minister to.
Five of the attendees were from our Spanish and Portuguese resource teams. They will be translating Engage and Stages into those languages to make them available to missionaries from 8 different countries in Latin and America and SE Africa.
Consultants, Trainers and Translators from our Latin American Fields
Why?
To communicate clearly and effectively evangelize an unreached people group, missionaries need to effective communicators of God’s truth. In order to do this, they must become highly fluent in the language of the people group, and they much gain a deep insight into the people group’s worldview. But learning an unknown language and culture is a challenge, since there are no schools or resources. It has to be a do-it-yourself effort that takes several years. Engage and Stages will help to make this daunting task a little easier and will make the task of training and coaching missionaries much easier, as well.
Stages, an App Like No Other
Attendees Had the Chance to Install and Try Out the Stages App
We presented the Stages app and then let the attendees try it out for themselves. They have been waiting for this tool! Many of the workshop attendees suggested some great new features, and they helped us find a few bugs or issues with specific devices. We really appreciated their help. There is no app that has anything like the features of Stages. It will be a huge blessing to missionaries in our mission and other missions as well.
What’s Next?
Since the roll-out event in Missouri, Bill and his team have been preparing for future events by finalizing and adding to some of their materials and including many of the attendees’ suggested new features to the Stages app.
Over the coming months, Bill and some others will also record online video training courses for both Engage and Stages, making it easier to train more people globally with a little less travel. Bill is also working with the various translation teams. In addition to Spanish and Portuguese, we hope to get Engage and Stages translated into Thai, French, Indonesian, Chinese, and possibly a few other languages.
Posting Training Videos Online Will Make it Easier to Train More Missionaries More Efficiently
Please Pray
Bill and Donna – Expanding the Reach of the Gospel by Training Others to Reach the Unreached
We appreciate your prayers for us, our health, and our ministry as we labor to get many more well-trained missionaries out in the Lord’s harvest fields reaching the Unreached! Health update: since Bill’s ablation, his heart rhythm remains steady and normal, and he has his energy back. We’re so thankful for this!
A Short Update on the Palawanos…
Ispiling Selling Us Some Chickens in 2006
Please continue to pray for the Palawano church. Bill is in communication with several of the believers, including some of the men who lead the church in our old village. They are currently studying through 1 Peter in the Palawano New Testament, and seeking to build unity in the church in the face of Satan’s attacks. Bill was particularly encouraged recently to learn that his old friend Ispiling was now a believer. Ispiling was a fun guy. The whole time we lived among the Palawanos, Ispiling loved to joke and laugh with Bill on our porch, and was always ready to help with any work projects we hd, but he was never open to the Gospel. Now in his old age, God has softened his heart and he is following Christ.
Here’s some news about the Palawano church where we worked for many years.
An brief update about our health concerns is at the bottom of this post.
The Church in our Longtime Palawano Village
The Church on Palawan is Thriving
We’ve received encouraging reports from coworkers (and messages from Palawanos on Facebook!) about how the church continues to meet, studying the Palawano translation and worshipping in song. We’re praising God for how he continues to work among the Palawano people.
We’ll share some pictures here below, but first…
Let Us Tell You a Story…
In 1983 our little family moved to Palawan to live among the Palawanos. We were in our 20s and our kids were young… Elisa was 4 and Bethy was not quite 8 weeks old. Elisa immediately made friends with several girls her age. One was Lini, and the other was Lini’s cousin Nili. Both of those girls grew up to help us with the translation years later.
Nili’s big sister Marlyn was about 8 years old. Marlyn grew up and married a Christian Palawano boy and they had two sons and a daughter. We treated their son Ryan with rabies shots. But we want to tell you about Ryan’s brother Reshal and his sister Melenie. What God did in their lives is beyond our wildest dreams back in 1983.
Here is picture of Melenie (in blue, on the right) when she and a friend brought a pineapple to us years ago.
Who Wouldn’t Buy a Pineapple from These Girls?!
College?!
When we first moved there, the village had no government school, not even an elementary school. But years later, schools were built nearby, and Reshal and Melenie were able to finish grade school… then high school… and they eventually, they went to a Bible college 400 miles away on the island of Luzon, just south of Manila.
They didn’t do this to get lucrative jobs and be able to live in the city. Their dream was to become school teachers and to work back in their home village. They wanted to teach the kids, and to serve in the church, as well. And since the government mandates religion classes in grade school, they knew they could teach the creation-to-Christ stories, sharing the gospel with all those kids!
Reshal and Melenie Graduating from College
Back on Palawan
So now Reshal and Melenie are back on Palawan and have finished their internship (student teaching). Here are a few pictures of the church in our former village.
Reshal Teaching in a Nearby Palawano Church during his Internship
Reshal Teaching and Arnil Playing My Old Guitar in the Church in our Village
Reshal and Melenie’s Grandmother Reading the Palawano New Testament
Abil, One of My Translation Helpers, Teaching in the Church
We’re so thankful for how the Lord continues to build his church among the Palawanos!
HEALTH UPDATE and PRAYER REQUESTS
Donna has healed up and is doing great. After conferring with her doctors, we decided there is no need for further treatment.
Bill will have his heart ablation procedure next Monday, April 10. Finally! Please pray the procedure goes well with no complications, and that his heart will return to normal rhythm quickly and permanently. He’s ready to get back to normal energy and productivity after nearly 4 months of arrhythmia.
Here are Donna’s reflections on her surgery yesterday…
Would you like to know what God did in answer to the prayers of the saints yesterday, the day of my breast cancer surgery? This is long, so if it is TL:DR (too long: don’t read) for you, the short answer to that question is: A LOT.
WHAT GOD DID
The Perfect Psalm for Someone Going Into Surgery
It “just so happened” that my Psalms for the day were 117 and 118. Psalm 117 is that short but sweet one, only two powerful verses: Praise the Lord, all you nations. Praise him, all you people of the earth. For his unfailing love for us is powerful; the Lord’s faithfulness endures forever.
Can’t argue with those promises!
Psalm 118 should be sub-titled as “The Perfect Psalm for Someone Going Into Surgery.” Here are some highlights and my reactions in parentheses.
1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever.
2 Let all Israel repeat: “His faithful love endures forever.” 3 Let Aaron’s descendants, the priests, repeat: “His faithful love endures forever.” 4 Let all who fear the Lord repeat: “His faithful love endures forever.”
(I think the Lord wants to emphasize something here, like, perhaps, His faithful love endures forever!)
5 In my distress I prayed to the Lord, and the Lord answered me and set me free. 6 The Lord is for me, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me? 7 Yes, the Lord is for me; he will help me.
(I’m having a bit of a pride issue here with the “distress” part. My cancer is very small, very early stage, I have excellent medical care, and so on. I have three dear long-time friends who are struggling right now with much more serious health issues than mine. I have other dear long-time friends who have gone through much more serious breast cancer journeys. I feel like I shouldn’t be worried or distressed. And most of the time I’m not, but sometimes fears rise up. And that part about what can mere people do to me? Well, they can poke me and prod me and stick needles in me and compress me into uncomfortable machines and put potentially dangerous drugs into my veins and cut me open and … you get the gist. So to be reassured that the Lord is for me and he will help me was just plain wonderful!)
15 Songs of joy and victory are sung in the camp of the godly. The strong right arm of the Lord has done glorious things! 16 The strong right arm of the Lord is raised in triumph. The strong right arm of the Lord has done glorious things!
(I was reading this Psalm to Bill on our way to the hospital via my newly installed Bible app, The Bible Hub. Side note – I don’t know why I hadn’t put a Bible app on my phone until recently. I love this one. Easy to use, lots of versions to compare, and plenty of other features. Highly recommend if you are poky like me and haven’t downloaded a Bible app yet. Back to the verses. I had to laugh out loud reading them. God really wanted me to get that picture of his strong right arm! Three times in two verses. Okay, okay, I get it.)
17 I will not die; instead, I will live to tell what the Lord has done.
(Busted! How did the Lord know that I had entertained the thought I could die? Remember, early stage, very small, excellent care? But part of that excellent care was having me watch a series of videos to prepare me. When one of the videos talked about going under general anesthesia, it did manage to mention that some things can go wrong, and one of them is that you could die! I hadn’t really considered that. Oh, boy, one more thing to fear. Sheesh. Well, apparently, I didn’t die, so here I am living to tell what the Lord has done!)
24 This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.
(Really? God makes surgery days? I laughed when I saw this one, too. I used to remind myself that God knows all my days when I would be sick on Palawan. He knew my malaria days, and He knew my dengue fever days. Today is a surgery day, and He made it, so I need to rejoice and be glad in it!)
28 You are my God, and I will praise you! You are my God, and I will exalt you!
29 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever.
(There are other great verses in this Psalm, including some Messianic prophecies. But these are the last two verses and they sum up the theme – the Lord is good and his faithful love endures forever. But just in case I couldn’t really absorb that, He sent me a sign ->)
Celestial Signs
I’m going to admit something. I have a special relationship with the moon. I don’t worship it, but I worship the One who created it and keeps it in the sky. It started back a few years ago when we were going through a contentious presidential election. One night, after a particularly disheartening event in that pre-election cycle, I was full of despair. I remember looking out our back window and seeing the full moon shining in all its glory. It was huge and bright and beautiful. And I thought about the moon – how many elections it had shone over, how many wars, how many millennia of world events good, bad, and ugly. And suddenly it all came into perspective for me. Yes, this was a messy time for the United States. But the US is less than 250 years old. This isn’t the end of the world yet. No matter what happens, God is still alive, still working, still reaching out to His broken world. And later I came across the verse in Psalms where God says just that. The context is talking about the dynasty of King David:
“…It will be as eternal as the moon, my faithful witness in the sky!”
Psalm 89:37
Well, there “just happens” to be a full moon going on right now. And it’s not setting until after dawn at this time of year. So that gorgeous full moon was in our view all the way to the hospital early yesterday morning. A symbol to me, very vibrant, very personal, of God’s faithfulness.
God put that gorgeous moon up there to remind us nightly of His faithfulness. On a side note, the moon is really useful, too. We don’t need it too much in our modern culture, but the Palawanos take advantage of the different moon phases. Full moon is great for doing work at night when it’s really hot during the day. Before we had a lawnmower, they used to clear our airstrip with their machetes under the full moon and make a party out of it. New moon they use for low-tide fishing. They hike out to the coast and spend the night there. They shine their torches or flashlights over the water and the fish are drawn to them when it’s otherwise dark.
My Beloved Bill
I’ll admit something else here. I’ve got the most fantastic husband. I don’t like to brag, because I don’t want you all to get jealous or convicted, but he is just the best. He loves taking care of me. And he’s a gourmet cook. He didn’t complain when my surgery arrival time got scheduled at 7 am, which meant leaving the house at around 6:30 am, which meant getting up at 5 am. And a day or two before, he pleaded with me, made me promise, to let him take care of me. I’m not always good at that. But I promised this time. I came home from the hospital to a bouquet of red roses and a bouquet of get well balloons that he’d hidden in the garage, then snuck into the house while I was getting into the car before heading out yesterday. And my job for the next few days is to focus on rest. I love him!
No Fainting
Here’s one I’m really thankful for. I’ve told several of you at church and in our home fellowship that I have a problem with fainting. It happened during pre-op when I broke my wrist almost two years ago and messed up the surgery time while they had to get me stabilized again. It happened during my breast MRI and the MRI had to be stopped early. I was so afraid it would happen again yesterday. But thank you, Lord! I didn’t faint yesterday. And thank you for your prayers whether you knew to pray specifically for that or not.
A Droll Distraction
One of the things that helped me weather that scary-looking clinical pre-op room with all its needles and machines and equipment and hospital smells was reading a great book. The day before the surgery my special long-term friend Anita was texting me back and forth from Colorado Springs. She’s one who had a more serious cancer surgery and treatment, so she’s been through it. She suggested I bring along some light reading for the long pre-op period. So the night before I loaded up my Kindle, adding seven books in a variety of genres. Yesterday morning the one I choose was a Dave Barry book, Lessons From Lucy: The Simple Joys of an Old, Happy Dog. The grizzled muzzle on the dog on the cover reminded me of Anita’s recently departed old Murphy. Bill and I are Dave Barry fans from way back. This book didn’t disappoint, in fact, this time he was vulnerable as well as funny. Laughing and smiling from the first paragraph, time passed quickly, and I could ignore all the scary medical stuff around me. Here’s a part of the book’s description:
As Dave Barry turns seventy—not happily—he realizes that his dog, Lucy, is dealing with old age far better than he is. She has more friends, fewer worries, and way more fun. So Dave decides to figure out how Lucy manages to stay so happy, to see if he can make his own life happier by doing the things she does (except for drinking from the toilet).
Head’s up for those in San Diego County, if you don’t already know about this – you can check out e-books from the San Diego County Library straight onto your Kindle. For some reason, the San Diego City Library doesn’t work the same way. Maybe you geniuses know how to do it, but I haven’t figured it out. The San Diego County Library, on the other hand, makes it easy. Just need to get a library card, then off you go to sdcl.org. You’re welcome!
And Then I Was Out for the Count
This part is where we’ll have to wait to hear the answers to what God was doing. I was unconscious. The reports from the care team is that it went well. But no details are available until my follow-up appointment with my surgeon in ten days or so when she’ll go over the results, and the pathology reports will be available then. So it’s like the curtain closed here for a bit, but then the curtain started opening again in the recovery room.
Spacey Scene Between Two Worlds
This is a Tale of Two Cities: Recovery Room Version. At some point yesterday I started realizing I was waking up from the anesthesia. There’s a period of time where one goes sort of in and out of consciousness. And during that time, I remembered another time where I was in that same spacey state. It was back in June of 1981.
We’d arrived in Manila only a few weeks before and were staying at our mission guest home. Bill had flown down to Palawan, to see the island for the first time, and meet some of the Palawano people for the first time, as we’d just recently learned there was a possibility that language group needed a New Testament translation.
While he was gone, I stared miscarrying. This was my fifth miscarriage. An ob/gyn doctor across town was highly recommended to me, so off I went. But I had to leave little Elisa, age 2 ½, with a family who we’d just met, get in a taxi by myself and go to the hospital where the doctor’s office was. He put me right into surgery for a D&C. Bill wasn’t scheduled to come back to Manila until Sunday, and this was Friday.
Post-op, as I was in that spacey world between consciousness and unconsciousness, all of a sudden, there was Bill, leaning over my bed in the recovery room. I’ll never forget it. I’m sort of in dreamland and he was so excited about all he’d just experienced. He was talking about the tiny fabric-covered plane, a grass airstrip going straight up a hill, Palawanos seeming to just appear out of the jungle to meet the plane. He was as enthusiastic as I’d ever seen him. I just knew this was it. The place he was talking about was where we were going to be heading after all those years of training.
As I was in that spacey state again yesterday, I felt like I’d come full circle, from that naïve young missionary just starting out, to forty years later seeing the children of the children we knew becoming leaders in the Palawano church, using the New Testament God helped us complete.
There are a lot more chapters to this part of the story, but I’ll leave it there for now.
But two more things… First, that family we’d just met who were taking care of my little girl? Their names were Jody and Barb Crain. They worked on Palawan, too, in the Tagbanwa tribe. Jody and Bill have worked together on many projects over the years and now they are working together on the CLA Development team. Jody is Bill’s good friend and his right hand man. Their gifts are really different, but they complement each other so well. We never would have guessed back then where we’d be 42 years later.
And second, that lovely ob/gyn in Manila was named Dr. Del Rosario. He took an interest in my case and said, “We’re going to get to the bottom of why you are having all these miscarriages.” He was the first doctor to really care. I had to go to the Philippines to meet him! So the next time I got pregnant, I went to see him and he walked me through what was a kind of tough pregnancy, where I almost miscarried again, and had to be really, really careful at the end. But that pregnancy went through, and in January of 1983 the world welcomed Bethy! For some miraculous reason, the pregnancy with Elisa was problem free, even though it was between miscarriages two and three. God is good and both our amazing daughters are miracles.
So when the recovery room nurse came in and asked me how I was doing, I told her I’d just been seeing the Philippines and palm trees in my mind.
The Nurse Who’d Been to Palawan
And of all things, that nurse had visited Palawan! And she wasn’t even a Filipina. We had a nice little chat about the Philippines. She asked what we were doing in the Philippines, so of course we told her. Bill came into the recovery room at that point. He said I repeated myself a few times, so I guess the anesthesia wasn’t fully out of my system yet. And sadly, I don’t remember the nurse’s name. But it was so much fun to talk about Palawan and the Philippines. Who would have anticipated that?
Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jig
Pretty soon I was sent home. I’m not in too much pain and being well cared for by the aforementioned sweet husband.
So thank you to all who sent prayers and expressions of care! God took good care of me with the help of skilled doctors, nurses, anesthesiologist, a friend who recommended light reading, a gorgeous full moon, His precious Word, and my amazing husband.
We have three health concerns that have come up recently that we’d like to ask you to pray with us about…
The Heart of the Matter
About two and a half weeks ago Bill’s heart went out back of its normal rhythm into AFib (atrial fibrillation). So his cardiologist ordered a procedure called cardioversion to reset the rhythm.
Bill will have the procedure tomorrow (Wednesday January 4th), around 2 p.m. PST. He’s had cardioversion twice before and it has worked both times without incident. He will be briefly sedated while the doctor shocks his heart with low-energy jolts from a defibrillator. The whole thing takes only about 3-5 minutes, but is sandwiched between 2 hours of check-in and prep and and hour or two of observation before they will let him go home.
Ugly is Only Skin Deep
At the same time, we’re waiting for results on two biopsies which were taken from moles on Bill’s chest last Thursday. The doctor says that they are skin cancer. Neither one seems to be melanoma, but she wanted to make sure. Once we get the pathology results, we will schedule surgical removal of both.
Yes, They Come in Threes
We also recently learned that Donna has very early-stage breast cancer. It was discovered during her routine annual scan, and we’re thankful it was caught early. It’s very small, and in situ, meaning it hasn’t grown or spread at all. Several other factors are also positive and point to the likelihood of good results. We’ll be meeting with the surgeon next week to discuss the initial surgery and what might follow as far as treatment.
Please Pray
This is where you come in! We’re thankful for having a prayer team like you to stand with us. We really appreciate each of you. Please pray for us and for healing and successful results from all these procedures and treatments coming up!
Our hearts are encouraged in all this. We’re truly grateful for our excellent doctors and medical care team. And even more, we’re trusting our gracious heavenly Father to continue to care for us.
