TRANSLATION PROGRESS
We are so thankful for the progress this past few weeks. The Palawano translation helpers remained healthy, we had NO electrical outages (none… for three weeks straight!), we burned through massive amounts of translation, exceeding all our goals for the time. And best of all, the translated passages we checked had no major problems at all.

As always, Bill learned a few new words and grammatical tidbits. Stay tuned for a blog on that.

WHAT GETS DONE IN THREE WEEKS?
Donna worked with Susing and did the recording of Romans and 1 John. Bill listened to those recordings (sometimes after dinner in the evening) to be ready to discuss them with the men. Between Romans and 1 John, Donna took three days (yes, three DAYS) to renew the registration on our truck and to finishing changing the title into our name. Three days. Three. There just might be a blog in there somewhere.

Bill went over Romans, 1 John, Galatians and 2 Timothy with the men, comparing the original drafts with the recordings and making revisions. (now these books are ready to check for comprehension…)

Bill went over the first draft of Mark, getting through chapter ten (now those chapters are ready for Donna to record…)

But that’s just the translation!

While the men were up, Bill took them to meet with a local businessman to pass on their thanks for his help. His phone call moved the governor to follow up on building new school buildings down in the village. This meeting led to another with some officials who can help the Palawanos with some trouble regarding their land.

Bill also took the men to meet with a former missionary (Filipino) who had worked in our village. She had recently been involved with a government agency which protects the rights of tribal people. She confirmed that the Palawanos’ application for Ancestral Domain (ownership of their ancestral land) was approved! We put a lot of effort into this application and the survey of the land, etc., a few years back. Then we had been told it was denied, but apparently that was a lie, told by those who stand to lose money if the tribe gains control of their land. We are following up with the government agencies to get the maps and papers to prove this and to find out how the Palawanos can benefit from it.

Bill was also on the phone trying to deal with a situation where one of our Palawanos fell for a phone scam and lost a bunch of money. Another blog coming with details on that. Meanwhile, we have all the information now to turn over to the NBI (the Philippines’ equivalent of the FBI).

UPDATE ON OUR HOUSE IN THE VILLAGE
We sent some termite treatment down with the men, and some money to pay for some repair and replacing two walls (we learned that the previous repair was temporary.) Praise the Lord for a gift that came in designated for house repair which was just the right amount for all this!

PLEASE PRAY WITH US THIS WEEK

• thanks for good progress in the translation
• continued progress in the coming weeks
• health and strength for both of us

Reaching Palawanos with you,

-Bill and Donna

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TRIALS of TERMITES, TRAILS, TV – TRANSLATION…
It’s a week for us where everything seems to start with “T.”

TERMITES…
We noticed some evidence of termites in our house (very common on Palawan!) So we notified the property manager. She looked at it today and is going to schedule some repair by her carpenters, and an exterminator will come and treat the perimeter and parts of the house with termite poison.

This is a concern to us. Bill’s asthma is doing okay lately, but he reacts very severely to the odor of chemicals like bug spray, kerosene and gasoline, etc. (He even avoids the soap aisle of grocery stores.) We will pack up the food and utensils in the kitchen and pack up our bedroom and move to NTM’s Guest Home across town. We will stay out of the house for a week or so. Hopefully the smells will be gone by that time. We don’t want to return to having asthma attacks like he was having a few years ago.

TRANSLATION NEWS
The work with Lini went well. Donna got completely through Galatians with her and they were pushing ahead into Romans. We had planned to have Susing come up next week to finish Romans with Donna. But that is on hold while our life is packed up in plastic bags and boxes and we are living in a single mission home room. We will continue drafting Mark and doing other translation work while we are out of the house and reschedule Susing’s trip as soon as we can.

TRIALS OF TRAIL AND TV
A hardware store is being built on the highway near our house and the unpaved lane which is the only access to and from our property is what the construction crews are using to get to the site. Their heavy equipment is churning up our lane and with all the heavy rain lately, we’re afraid our vehicle will be stuck in the mud one of these days!

The smallest “trial” of all is that our TV died. But we usually prefer to read in the evenings, anyway. Plus our cable provider cancelled the Food Network, which is about the only channel we ever watched, anyway. And it certainly didn’t help our diet to watch that!

PLEASE PRAY WITH US…

• termite problem to be resolved without asthma attacks!
• that we can move back into our house quickly
• rescheduling of Susing’s translation work sessions
• good progress on translation while we are out of our home
• construction to be completed soon (maybe they will gravel the road?)

Reaching Palawanos together with you,

-Bill and Donna

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Bill and Donna on Facebook

(NOTE: this was supposed to post weeks ago)

DONNA IS WELL…
We’re thankful that Donna finally seems to be completely over her bout of dengue fever. She was very sick with a fever for a week and then weak and easily tired for about another week. Whew! Thanks to all who prayed.

TRANSLATION MOVING AHEAD…
Bill just finished the first draft of Galatians. What an awesome book. Now he’s starting on Romans and doing some revision of 1-2 Timothy. We’ll have the Palawano men come up in a few weeks and work through all this material. That visit should also finish up a few final details so that we can print and distribute copies of the recently-checked book of Luke.

WEDDING PLANS!
Our daughter Bethy is getting married to Ricky Cobabe in September! Ricky’s a great guy, and were were first able to meet him when they visited here in November (actually they got engaged right here in Puerto in our gazebo.) So we’ll be traveling to California for the wedding. It will be a fairly quick trip, but Donna will go a little ahead, to help with pre-wedding details. Bill will continue working on translation here and fly about a week before the wedding. We’re excited about this special event, and the chance to see Elisa and Chris and our grandson Max, who will be 7 months old by then.

Bill is also planning to participate in the 7th ICLL (International Congress on Language Learning) in Colorado Springs at the end of September, just before we return to the Philippines. Since 2002, he’s been the NTM representative on the steering committee for this event which helps to further the spread of the gospel by training missionary language learning consultants.

Unless another place opens up, it looks like we can stay with Donna’s sister while we’re in the USA. But we need a car to use while we’re there (Aug 22 through Oct 4), so we’re praying about that.

SO PLEASE PRAY WITH US…

• health and strength
• continued progress in the translation
• provision for travel and workshop costs
• a car to use while we’re in the USA
• all the details for the wedding to come together

Reaching Palawanos together with you,

-Bill and Donna

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ON TO SURGERY
A quick update on our little Palawano patient. Lomi’s surgery is scheduled for today (Monday) morning, June 21. The doctor thinks it might take as long as 3 hours as they want to go slowly to minimize blood loss with such a small patient.

Please continue to pray for little Lomi and his parents Malmagan and Salmida.

SO PLEASE PRAY WITH US…

• for Lomi and his family
• wisdom for the doctors
• safe, successful surgery
• for us as we help them
• as we also continue the translation work

Reaching Palawanos together with you,

-Bill and Donna

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Bill and Donna on Facebook

CHECKING LUKE… DAY FOUR

We are grateful for your prayers and the many words of encouragement we have received. God has really been gracious in answering and helping us with the consultant check.

Here are some notes of praise…

After only 3 days of checking, we are more than halfway through the book of Luke. This is way ahead of the projected schedule. It’s actually going so well that the consultant is having Donna change her plane ticket today! She realizes she should be able to go home sooner. Moving quickly through a check like this usually means that the translation is natural in it wording, which is good!

In addition to being able to maintain a fast pace, the check is also finding very little that needs to be changed or adjusted. It is proving to be easily understood, which was our goal in the first place.

We have had no electrical power outages! Well, none during working hours… a couple mornings the power has been out from 4-6 in the morning, etc. So we are able to have power when we need it.

So far everyone is healthy and able to maintain the intense level of concentration hour after hour, day after day.

God is good!

SO PLEASE CONTINUE TO PRAY WITH US…

• for clear thinking
• for energy and good health
• for wisdom from the Lord
• for good electricity with no power outages

We’re starting chapter 12 this morning. Keep praying until we’re done with verse 24:53!

The Palawanos will soon have more of God’s Word in their language.

Reaching Palawanos together with you,

-Bill and Donna

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Bill and Donna on Facebook

PRAYERS ANSWERED… WITH JOY
God provided and opened up airline bookings for us to get to San Diego. Then our healthy, beautiful grandson Max was born last week on Feb 2, weighing 9 lbs 3 oz, and 21″ long. We’re so thankful and can’t get enough of holding him and even just looking at him!

WHILE IN THE USA…
Besides seeing Max and helping Elisa and Chris a bit, we’ve been able to connect with some friends and supporters and churches. Bill has been working on translation in the in-between hours.

We are also using this time to follow-up on Bill’s kidney stones and some other health issues. Praise God he was able to get appointments with top-notch specialists on very short notice. Now the doctors are all working together to try and get the necessary labs, CT scans, etc., done with time to do the kidney stone procedure. It will be an endoscopic laser technique this time, which should be more effective that the “sound wave blasting” that did not work back in early 2008.

All this will be expensive. We have good insurance with the mission, but our plan has a high deductible/copay. One church has already provided $1,000, which is half of our out-of-pocket share of the total. So we are asking the Lord to provide the rest (another $1,000).

PLEASE PRAY WITH US…
We are thankful for all that God has done:

• a healthy delivery of our grandson Max
• good visits with family, friends and supporters
• provision of half of our $2,000 medical copay
• appointments with top doctors on short notice

Please pray with us about scheduling all the test and procedures, provision of the remaining copay and that we would be able to get everything scheduled in our few remaining weeks, or that God would give us wisdom as to whether we should delay our return to the Philippines by a few weeks in order to get it all done

Reaching Palawanos together with you,

-Bill and Donna

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Bill and Donna on Facebook