It’s COMING…
Rejoice with us!

Yesterday we learned that the Bible Society has delivered the “print proof copy” of the Palawano New Testament to the SIL/Wycliffe office in Manila. We’re so excited.

This copy will be sent to us in the coming week, and we will have to get busy combing through it for typos, mistakes, pages out of order, etc. Once all the issues are resolved, it goes to print.

ICLL…
We asked for prayer concerning the upcoming ICLL (International Congress on Language Learning) in Colorado Springs in early October, and the Lord has answered.

God has provided several generous gifts and we were able to register and purchase tickets to Colorado. We have what we need for basic registration and travel. Continue to pray with us that God would provide the additional costs involved in attending the conference (approx $800). We know he is able!

NT Dedications and Distribution…
We are closer than ever, but once again, all we can say at this point is: Stay Tuned!

Praise the Lord with us…
– that the mock-up of the Palawano New Testament is on its way
– for provision for much of the cost of attending ICLL

Pray with us…
– that there would be minimal errors (or none!) in the proof copy
– for God’s provision of the remaining costs of attending the ICLL
– that we would be a blessing to those around us

Reaching Palawanos (and the world!) together with you,

– Bill and Donna

We’re waiting…
For now, that’s all we can say when people ask us about the Palawano New Testament. The files for the translation have been at PBS (the Philippine Bible Society) for two months already. PBS will assign the NT to a print shop in Manila. We’re waiting for the printer to send us a mock-up copy of the printed NT so we can check for any errors in set-up and page orientation, etc. Once that mock-up gets here, we will have several weeks of full-time, intensive proofreading and checking to do. In the meantime, we wait.

While we wait…
One of the projects Bill has been working on in this interim is to prepare several sessions to present at the ICLL (International Congress on Language Learning) in Colorado Springs in early October.

The ICLL happens every three years. It’s an important conference for those who help missionaries learn language. Missionary consultants, language coaches, teachers, program directors and others from all over the world come to ICLL network, to be encouraged, to learn, to share ideas, and to return home better able to turn new missionaries into skilled communicators who can effectively disciple and plant churches cross-culturally.

Bill has been serving on the steering committee of the ICLL since 2001, and he has enjoyed and appreciated the many like-minded language learning facilitators he has met and worked with. After his first ICLL in 2001, he and others working in Asia started a recurring conference for helping language learners in Asia.

Right now we are checking into travel options for the ICLL. It seems like it might be cheaper to fly there than to drive at today’s gasoline prices, not to mention saving time and eliminating four hotel overnights going and coming while on the road. Whether we fly or travel by land, we’re asking God to provide what we need for travel and registration expenses for the conference.

We appreciate each one of you who partner with us in prayer, and we’ll keep you updated during this time of waiting for the New Testament to be printed. Once we have an approximate date for printing, we can being preliminary planning for dedication services and distribution teams on Palawan.

Pray with us…
– that we would would quickly receive the mock-up of the Palawano New Testament
        so that we can review it and initiate actual printing as soon as possible.
– that there would be minimal errors (or none!)
– for God’s provision of the travel and registration costs for the ICLL.
– that we would be a blessing to those around us.

Reaching Palawanos—and the world—together with you,

-Bill and Donna

TRANSLATION UPDATE
The translation is done! And the audio recording is completed. So now we are waiting for the Palawano New Testaments to be printed in Manila. Once the books are printed, we’ll be taking a trip or two to the Philippines to check the books for quality, to host dedication services, and to launch distribution.

We won’t know the dates for that until we hear from the printers. So please pray and stay tuned.

MEANWHILE
We’re enjoying this time with our kids, grandkids, family, friends and supporters. God is refreshing us after the intense final months of translation and recording.

In May, we were blessed to host Gracia Burnham here in San Diego. She spoke in our church and at a missions training program called Radius in Tijuana. We also showed her around beautiful San Diego: La Jolla, Mount Soledad, and the famous Hotel Del Coronado.

Not long after Gracia’s visit, Bill was invited to spend a couple days at Radius, speaking to their students about language learning. We were excited to have even a small part in training these young people who are headed out into the unreached areas of the world to share Christ!

We’ve also had opportunities to teach Bible studies and to share at missions conferences and visit some of our supporting churches. Coming up in October, Bill will be helping to lead an inter-mission language learning conference in Colorado.

On a personal note, spending time with our daughters, and getting to know our two delightful grandchildren and being a part of their lives has been the highlight of these past couple months.

PLEASE PRAY WITH US
– Refreshment and good health
– Opportunities to share about this ministry
– Reconnection with supporters & friends
– Prompt, accurate printing of Palawano NT
– Provision for Oct travel & workshop costs

We appreciate everyone’s prayers, support and encouragement as we anticipate the printing of the Palawano New Testament!

Reaching Palawanos with you,

– Bill and Donna Bill and Donna Davis

…WE FINISHED!!
Praise and thanks to the Lord for how he answered all who prayed. He gave strength and endurance, and the final days of the Palawano New Testament recording project went smoothly, beyond our wildest imagination!

Luke still has some technical editing to do, and he needs to save each chapter as a separate file so they can be loaded on the players.

But we are done with recording, listening and re-recording!

PICKING UP SPEED
We put in some long days of proof listening Monday through Wednesday and made great progress. Thursday morning, we re-recording about 20 mistakes found in Matthew through Acts 10.

Then…

HOME STRETCH…ed
We’re about to begin the final week of recording the audio version of the Palawano New Testament and we really need your prayers.

Yes, it’s the Home Stretch, and we are being stretched, as well!

The whole NT has been recorded from Matthew to Revelation and the initial checking and corrections (rerecording short passages) has been completed. Praise the Lord for this! We’re thankful for this milestone, good progress, and the great team God has sent to help with this project.

RUNNING OUT OF TIME?
Now we are doing the final edit which involves listening to the entire NT once again, checking for any errors that may have slipped through, deleting unnatural pauses, etc.

The challenge we face is that it takes about 2 hours to do the final edit on each hour of recorded material, and there don’t seem to be enough hours in the week to get it done.

The Palawano New Testament is significantly longer than the normal 18-hour New Testaments Luke and Kristen have been recording in Africa. In hindsight, we see that we should have budgeted a few extra weeks to get the Palawano project done, but we didn’t realize this until it was too late.

So we have about 50 hours of listening and checking to get done… all in the next 5 days, plus rerecording any errors we might find.

HOME STRETCH…ed
We’re about to begin the final week of recording the audio version of the Palawano New Testament and we really need your prayers.

Yes, it’s the Home Stretch, and we are being stretched, as well!

The whole NT has been recorded from Matthew to Revelation and the initial checking and corrections (rerecording short passages) has been completed. Praise the Lord for this! We’re thankful for this milestone, good progress, and the great team God has sent to help with this project.

RUNNING OUT OF TIME?
Now we are doing the final edit which involves listening to the entire NT once again, checking for any errors that may have slipped through, deleting unnatural pauses, etc.

The challenge we face is that it takes about 2 hours to do the final edit on each hour of recorded material, and there don’t seem to be enough hours in the week to get it done.

The Palawano New Testament is significantly longer than the normal 18-hour New Testaments Luke and Kristen have been recording in Africa. In hindsight, we see that we should have budgeted a few extra weeks to get the Palawano project done, but we didn’t realize this until it was too late.

So we have about 50 hours of listening and checking to get done… all in the next 5 days, plus rerecording any errors we might find.

Also, narrative discourse adds what is called head-tail links like this:

Those connections seem repetitious and unnecessary to us, but they are how Palawano tracks people and events throughout a story. Without them, the reader or listener would be lost. And you can imagine how those extra sentences would add up, time-wise, as Susing reads all the gospels and Acts!

SO PLEASE KEEP PRAYING
So as we enter this final week, we ask you to pray with us that the project can be completed–done, and done well!

Please pray:

• for stamina as we listen through long hours of checking
• for any remaining mistakes to be found
• that we can finish within the time remaining before we all fly back to the USA on March 24.

Thank you for your part in this ministry!

Reaching Palawanos together with you,

-Bill and Donna

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