THANKFUL
This week, as usual we are focusing on many things we have to be thankful for. During this stressful time of being moved out of our house, we are particularly thankful for a nice guest house where we can stay, helpful friends, God’s many provisions and blessings, and especially all of you who are praying and sending us encouraging words.

Here’s an update.

BUGS
The work is done at the house, but it still smells like termite poison. A little less than yesterday, though. So it’ll be after Thanksgiving (at the earliest) before we can move back in. We’re hoping that in a few more days the smell will be gone.

MUD
A big problem is our access road. It’s an unpaved dirt lane, and it’s the only way for us to get to the street or from the street to our house. The construction crews have totally trashed it recently with heavy equipment, softening the road and creating big holes. It’s WORSE than when we left the house. So far their answer has been to pile a foot-thick layer of soft dirt on it! It’s already a mess and there is a risk of our vehicle getting stuck. With another hard rain like we’ve been having nearly every day, it will be totally impassable. We’ve talked to our landlord and she will complain to the engineers overseeing the construction again.

Culture note: Not only is it the landlord’s responsibility, but it’s the Filipino way to file a complaint indirectly through an intermediary. It might cause shame or seem overly confrontational if either of us spoke to the crews directly.

What would really fix the problem is for them to scrape it back down to the hard undersurface and to spread crushed rock on it. Please pray that they will do this, and respond without taking offense, so that neighborly relationships can be maintained. We can’t really move back home very easily until the road is fixed.

MEANWHILE
Just to keep us flexible and to show his sense of humor, the Lord allowed the bathroom plumbing in our guest home room to disintegrate last night, so we had to pack up and move to another room this morning, including all our translation set-up, food in the cabinets, a full fridge, etc. Thanks to our partner who tried so hard to fix it without us having to move!

Yes, we’re still smiling (in between sighs), but pray for us. We’re feeling a little borderline overwhelmed here.

PLEASE PRAY WITH US…

• termite poison smell to dissipate quickly
• for our road to be fixed without incident
• that we can move back into our house soon
• rescheduling of Susing’s translation work sessions
• good progress on translation while we are out of our home

Thanks for praying!

Reaching Palawanos together with you (just from a different location this week),

-Bill and Donna

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Bill and Donna on Facebook

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

LINI IS IN TOWN…
Donna is busy this week working with Lini on the recording step of translating Galatians and Romans. Lini was Elisa’s childhood best friend in the tribe. So it’s a joy to work with her now that she’s a young mother of three, since we’ve known her for her entire life. She brought two of her children (our Palawano “grandchildren”) to Puerto with her.

RECORDING TRANSLATION…
The recording step is an important part of getting the Palawano Scriptures to sound natural and to flow smoothly. It is also a very intense task, mentally taxing with lots of speaking out loud. So Donna and Lini need extra energy to keep going all week.

KEEPING IT GOING!
Pray with us that the electricity will stay on every day, so the computers, lights and fans, etc., keep working while Lini is here. We are also asking the Lord to keep the technology (the aging Mac and iPod used for recording) cooperative. These tools are a huge help in the translation process compared to the typewriters and cassette players we used in years past. Now we’re really dependent upon them!

SO PLEASE PRAY WITH US…

• strength and wisdom for Donna and Lini
• successful recording of Galatians and Romans
• electricity to stay on; computers and iPod to work
• Bill as he drafts Mark and works on other books

Reaching Palawanos together with you,

-Bill and Donna

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Bill and Donna on Facebook

Translation… and a wedding. Where have you heard that before?

No, we’re not translating John chapter 2 with the story about the miracle at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. We’re talking about what’s been going on in our lives lately…

WEDDING…
We just got back from a quick trip to the USA for our daughter Bethy’s wedding. Everything came together nicely and the wedding was a fun time for everyone. Bethy and Ricky said it was “perfect.” We’re so grateful for the friends and family and Bethy’s coworkers at Habitat who all pitched in to make it a special day. We enjoyed spending some time with Elisa, Chris and our grandson Max, too.

TRANSLATION…
In recent weeks, Bill was able to complete the first drafts of some really important books: Romans, Galatians and 1 John. We really want to get these books into the hands of the Palawano Christians. Can you imagine not having the book of Romans? …or Galatians or 1 John?! So much vital truth there.

Then, just before flying to California, his Palawano translation helpers came to town and they were able to go over those three drafts and to do some work on 1-2 Timothy. Bill never expected to get all that done in the time they had together, but we were pleasantly surprised at how quickly they were able to progress through the material. They were also able to completely finish all the final details remaining from the consultant check of the gospel of Luke! So we can print some preliminary copies of that soon! We’re excited about that.

Now Bill is pushing ahead with drafting some new books, and Donna is getting ready to do the steps of recording and checking all that previous material.

SO PLEASE PRAY WITH US…

• as we continue with the translation work
  
• for our health and stamina day by day
  
• for Bethy and Ricky in their new married life
• for God’s continued provision for this ministry

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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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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Bill and Donna on Facebook