We’re sorry to have to be offline for such a long stretch and unable to post updates due to email problems. But God is good, and he is working. Here’s a brief synopsis of things since late August.

Donna is going full-tilt in her ongoing CLA (“Culture/Language Acquisition”) as she pursues her goal of increased fluency in Palawano. This will give her an expanded role in the translation project, which in turn, will mean a sooner completion of the Palawano New Testament. She’s having fun along the way visiting Palawano women (many of them are young moms who were our daughters’ childhood friends), and working with several language helpers in her office.

Bill is VERY glad to let go of the title “construction supervisor” and go full time with ministry related activity (although the construction work itself allowed many good hours of reconnection, conversation, language re-immersion, and relationship building.) He is adding to what we already know about Palawano by doing further discourse analysis… i.e. figuring out how large sections of the language (longer narratives, rebukes, preaching, etc.) are organized, how themes are stressed, and so on. He’s having fun at this (it’s his thing, for sure!) He is also beginning to work on the book of Acts, which is in the final stages of translation before preliminary printing. Then he will resume translation full-time, most likely starting with Luke.

Bill’s asthma has also taken a rather significant surge for the better!! We are thankful for this… keep praying.

The Palawano church is steady and the men God has raised up are taking the initiative in leadership, teaching and shepherding the flock. Please pray for them. They are under many pressures and face dangers as well as potential of spiritual attacks.

Well time flies and soon, so do we. But first, to catch you up a bit.

Donna arrived back in the Philippines on Mother’s Day. We had a little time away together and then headed down to Palawan. Since then we’ve been shopping like mad, getting ready to move (at last?) into the tribe again, gathering months of supplies and any additional building supplies we will need to finish off the work on the house.

Somewhere in there Donna has been working on recovery from jet lag, the loss of her mom and the whirlwind of her frenetically busy last days in the USA.

Donna’s mom passed away Wednesday afternoon, passing peacefully in her sleep after two nights in the hospital hospice suite.

The funeral is tentatively set for Tuesday April 25. Donna will remain in Iowa for another week or so before heading to San Diego, getting back to the Philippines about a week later.

Pray for Donna, her sister, our girls and the rest of the family during this time, and for Donna and I during these final weeks of separation.

Meanwhile, Bill is in the final days of the Bible Translation Workshop in Manila. This has been an enjoyable and profitable time… thanks for praying! He plans to return to Palawan at the end of the month, getting into our village in early May to finish repairs on our house before Donna’s return.

However, his asthma has been very severe while being in Manila. He saw a doctor who has resolved some issues (including medications canceling each other out!) has put him on a new, more aggressive treatment regimen, and is monitoring his condition.

Pray for Bill’s breathing to improve, and for wisdom in adjusting or following through with plans for returning to Palawan. The doctor has advised against his going to remote areas until the asthma is showing signs of improving.

A WORD FROM OUR SPONSORS…

So Giyang should hear over the air that he’s supposed to get to town to read a letter from me (which will tell him all about the workshop.) And if he doesn’t hear it personally, anyone within an hour or two’s hike who was listening to the radio will tell him about the announcement.

So we pray this will work and things will work out for some guys to come to Manila and help us with the translation workshop.

In our latest Prayer Request update, you will see see a mention of a Translation Workshop coming up in April. Here, where I have a little more room to write, I will try to describe in a little more detail what that’s all about, and explain that prayer request in a little more detail.

Translating the Word of God is not only an enormous undertaking, it is a humbling and sobering task! There is always more to learn about how to determine the meaning and how to communicate it well. Experienced translators and consultants can teach others a great deal, and good dialogue between those of us who are involved in the same ministry is both interesting and helpful. Often, there are new reference works and software for us to learn about together. To communicate so much to dozens of translators, it is more efficient to gather everyone together for a workshop… traveling to each tribal allocation to cover the same material one-on-one with each translator would take too long and run up huge travel bills.

That explains why I need to communicate with my Palawano translation helpers. I need to let them know about the workshop, and find out which of them (how many guys and which ones, specifically) can come to the workshop. They in turn need to know in time to make provision for their families during the time they will be gone, etc. But all this is difficult since they are all on Palawan in the village and I have no way to contact them! My main helper Giyang comes out to town from time to time to buy supplies since he is also our village clinic medical worker. I have left word with people in town which they will pass to him if they see him.

So if you think of it, please pray that Giyang will come out to town and get my letter. Pray, too, that two or three of the translation helpers I need will be willing and available to come to the workshop.

Pray most of all that we will learn to translate better… and faster, and thus to make good progress to quickly get the Word of God into the hands of the Palawano church.