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.
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.
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
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.
Please Pray
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…
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.
