First Scripture reading in Bakossi

Dear Family and Friends,

Our desire is for translated Scripture to impact people's lives. It's thrilling to hear reports like the one below. After that is our personal update.

Heart-language Scripture brings joy, Cameroon

Joseph Nkwelle, member of the translation team for the Bakossi people, practiced reading a Scripture selection for two weeks. He is an excellent reader, but practiced because it was to be the first public reading in Bakossi. Previously, all Scripture reading had been in English. As soon as he finished reading, spontaneous applause erupted from the congregation, who had never clapped for a Scripture reading before. Old women embraced him, men were smiling and several said the Bakossi Scripture should have come sooner. Pray for the translation team working to finish the New Testament by 2011.

Personal Update

We had a great trip to Georgia and Tennessee in late May and June. In Georgia, we visited with many ministry partners for two weeks and had some special times we will remember for a long time. We also celebrated Lynee's birthday with my family (for the first time in Georgia). In Tennessee, we spent a week with Lynee's family celebrating her parents' 50th anniversary in a beautiful lodge close to the Great Smoky Mountain national park. We made several trips into the park including an 11-mile hike to the top of Mount LeConte. Lynee's mom shared some of their family history most evenings. Some photos of the Smoky Mountains are at this link: picasaweb.google.com/wards777/ScenesOnSmokyMtTrip

When we returned to Dallas, Lynee began working hard on publications needed for orienting teachers who intend to serve missionary kids overseas. The teacher orientation, which was done in Orlando, Florida, went well. Please pray the teachers will receive their needed support to begin serving. She also scheduled the orientation for one Wycliffe leader from central Africa. More recently she has been improving the leadership orientation program and preparing material for her department's website.

I have been working on the next release of our European alphabet fonts (Doulos and Charis). Some of my work has been to improve our own internal processes and some has been to add new capabilities to the fonts. There's still some difficult issues to figure out, so please pray for creativity and good ways forward. Please also pray we can both stay focused on the tasks the Lord has for us.

I've also been setting up a web site for our work. It contains our last e-mail update and newsletter, a summary of our work, and electronic versions of our last several newsletters. It's main purpose is to inform potential new partners and to be an archive. See: rev79.wards777.net