Imagine you grew up speaking a language only understood by a thousand people and written using extra letters no one else in your country uses...and you open Facebook on your new phone and can immediately type in your language to talk to your brother in the city...or you can find a Bible for your language in the Google or Apple app store! The vision of my group is to make it easy to use such languages on computers and to support Bible translation for the 4,000 languages where translation needs to start or is happening. How do we do this?
Because of my role on our group’s leadership team, I’m more aware of everything my group does. In addition to meeting weekly to discuss management issues, I relate to the software development group that creates programs and web services to support Bible translation, literacy, and language development. This sister group uses the fonts and technologies my group develops, and we hope to collect writing system information (as described above) from their tools. I’ve been on the leadership team for 1.5 years, and I’m still doing some technical work, as I have done for 28 years.
Passion for Families & Teachers
Lynée has been adding useful resources to her group’s website (iched.org) to help families and teachers overseas. She continues to send out regular emails to actively share these helps and to publicize relevant events. One recent email contained links to resources on transition, since summer is a common time for missionary families to travel:
“Thank you very much! Great resources and so relevant for our family right now!”The teacher orientation Lynée helps with starts June 30th. Because only twelve participants are coming, she will not be on staff. However, she will still prepare all printed materials, including the 100-page notebook. The airport simulation, which has been one of the highlights of the last few years, will not happen — the “Emperor’s Pot” will take its place. While it doesn’t accomplish quite the same things, it does give exposure to cross-cultural issues and doesn’t involve recruiting people outside of the orientation. Please pray that the orientation will provide the preparation needed for those going overseas to keep families on the field and that Lynée can provide help from afar.
We are truly thankful for all our partners who have a part in this work through prayer, giving, and other means. Currently, committed giving to our ministry budget is about $515/mon low. About 40% of the giving comes from people who are retired, so we foresee a growing shortfall. Would you please pray that God would raise up more people to partner with us? We could travel in August or October/November. If you would be willing to advocate for us by arranging for us to speak in a small group or Sunday school class, please let us know.
