May 2015 newsletter (pg 1)

Alan giving an introductory talk
at the workshop

Workshop in Thailand
In January I enjoyed a fruitful two-week trip to Chiang Mai, Thailand, with my team. In addition to our annual team meetings, we hosted a week-long workshop to help with complex South and Southeast Asian alphabets. Fourteen IT people from seven organization involved in Bible translation joined us to receive training and get help with specific problems. Since the workshop, we’ve been facilitating an online writing system support community starting with these participants. Below are quotes from two people who came to the workshop. (My team is named the Non-Roman Script Initiative - NRSI. More photos at bit.ly/Thai15Trip. )

"J" listening to one of the workshops

Impact in India
“I work with an organization called NLCI, stands for New Life Computer Institute. We work in Bible translation in India, and also we help other like-minded organizations technically. We are grateful to the Lord for getting software support from NRSI, not only in this week, but for a long time. And they have contributed so much in Indian Bible translation … It is really impacting many communities in India, that they may not know directly, but I know that I could really stand here and testify that it is very helpful for us through this team. We are thankful to the Lord for this particular team. Yes.” — “J”

Learning “really important things”
“I’m really excited to be here in Chiang Mai this week with my NRSI colleagues. They’ve really rolled out the red carpet for us and taught us some really important things. We have lots of different Bible Society projects in Southeast Asia and India, and all of them have very challenging font situations. For instance, in India they have 11 or 12 different scripts that they have to write in, and in Myanmar they have a very complicated script. So we’ve been learning about techniques to allow us to produce fonts and to fix problems. A lot of people are going to end up being able to read the Bible in their own script, that they wouldn’t be able to without this help we’re getting from the NRSI. So a big thanks to NRSI for putting on this week.” — “N”

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May 2015 newsletter (pg 2)

The lovely bluebonnets of Texas

Alan’s Heart & Lynée’s World
In 2009, we learned that my heart beat had occasional irregularities, but my cardiologist didn’t think any treatment was needed then. During a follow-up exam last December, we learned that these irregular beats had increased and that they could weaken my heart in the long term, though there was no immediate danger. I began a beta blocker medication. At the end of April, my cardiologist determined that the medication wasn’t working well enough, so he doubled the dosage. Please pray the medicine would be effective and that the side effect of insomnia would be minimal. The next step would be seeing an arrhythmia specialist.

In March, Lynée helped with her group’s online orientation for educators. The five participants got off to a slow start but ended well. The next face-to-face orientation will be at the end of June in Orlando. Fourteen people are currently registered. Please pray for more.

photo by Marc Ewell

Pwo Kayin: Myanmar
Pwo Kayin speakers have had the entire Bible in their own language since 1885. However, much of the terminology is archaic and the written script is hard to read. For those reasons the Bible Society of Myanmar began a “common language” translation project. Praise God for a specific answer to prayer: a computer programmer designed a special font for the script of the language ... The Bible is now being printed. Pray for the printing process and for protection as the Bibles are shipped back to Myanmar. Pray for this translation to impact many Pwo Kayin and draw them into the Kingdom of God.

Thank you for your part in supporting Bible translation. Whether you pray for us, give financially, or encourage us through e-mails or phone calls, we appreciate you!

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