heart languages

Spreading the Word

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Bill Teaching Missionary Trainers and Consultants

We’re Excited!

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.

If At First You Don’t Succeed…

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…Try, Try Again

We appreciate your prayers. The cardioversion was done without incident… but also without success.

After the maximum number of 3 jolts, Bill’s heart was still in AFib (out of rhythm). He will see his doctor soon to discuss what options to try next.

Stay tuned.

Thanks so much for for standing with us!

They Come in Threes

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Medical Concerns

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.

God at Work Among the Nations

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We trust you had a special Christmas!

Here’s a quick update on our lives and ministry…

50 Years

We must be getting old. In September we attended Donna’s 50th high school reunion, then Bill’s 50th reunion followed in October!

All Dressed Up at Donna’s 50th Reunion

Global Forum

In November we were blessed to attend an international conference in Thailand with nearly 300 delegates from our ministry all over the world.

The Hills of Chiang Mai as Seen from our Hotel Window

It was exciting to get in-person updates about what God is doing through our mission in places no one can talk about openly because it would put missionaries and converts at risk. Christ is building his church!

We also got to personally meet several of Bill’s students from the online missionary training courses he recorded a while back. These 3 students were from the very first graduating class and took his classes in late 2021. They are from closed countries in SE Asia and wanted training to reach unreached people groups in their region. They told Bill he was their “favorite teacher”! One of them even started quoting all Bill’s examples and illustrations, telling us how he is already teaching the same material to others! That really made our day. A second group has already graduated, and the videos are now being watched by the third group who enrolled in the course, with students from 9 different countries.

Engage CLA Program and Stages App

During the forum Bill had a chance to give a presentation to everyone about his team’s project.

Presenting an Overview of CLA for the Main Conference

Then after the forum, Bill and his team spent 3 days presenting their new CLA (Culture and Language Acquisition) materials and app in more detail to over 80 field leaders and language consultants. This was the LONG-AWAITED FIRST STEP in the launch which will make these materials available to missionaries everywhere! Bill is busy getting ready for a big launch event in late May.

Holidays and… Sickness

We got home from Thailand just in time for Thanksgiving and Bill’s birthday, starting our family’s busiest season (8 birthdays and 3 holidays in two and a half months!) Some family members had some sickness in December, but are recovered now.

Looking Ahead with Thankfulness

2023 looks to be a full and excited year. Bill will be leading his team as they finish final details of their CLA materials; there will be lots of travel in the US and internationally, as well as on-line conference meetings, etc., to train consultants how to use them.

Thank you for your interest in our ministry. We appreciate you and value your prayers and partnership!

Here’s a strange thing… we published a ministry update a couple months ago. Our blog’s server was having technical difficulties, but in the end, it seemed to have sent, and we got a copy of it by email. But somehow it is now missing on our blog’s server and we can’t find record of it, so it makes us wonder! We hope you received it. If you did not receive that missing update, we’re sorry for how long it may have been since you heard from us.