Valuing Things for Eternity in Cambodia

Dear Friends & Family,

Thank you for your prayers! Last weekend, we celebrated our 22nd anniversary. We are staying busy here in Dallas where it’s hot and dry -- it makes us very thankful for air conditioning! We hope most of you are staying cooler.

Things of Value for Eternity
Nod didn’t understand the point of the Bunong Bible translation. Why were people spending years of their lives translating the Scriptures into the local language when a translation was already available in Cambodian, the national language?

Having studied until Year 9 in the Cambodian national education system, Nod was proud of his national language skills and felt confident that he understood the Cambodian Bible clearly. But eventually curiosity got the better of him and he began to read the recently translated Bunong Scriptures.

As he did, he found he was able to understand the Bible much more clearly in his own language, making it more relevant and applicable to his life. In fact, Nod felt so convicted by what he read that he vowed to begin teaching others in the community using only the Bunong Scriptures.

Nod’s new passion for seeing God’s Word read, spoken, understood and applied in his language was so strong that he accepted a position as a Scripture engager — one who disciples others in the Word — even though it meant taking a salary cut. With a wife to provide for, why would Nod agree to this?

“What is a dip in wages compared to things of value for eternity?” Nod said. “My reward is to see believers read and listen to Scriptures they can understand the meaning of in order to grow in their faith more and more and deeper and deeper.”

Excerpted from: http://www.wycliffe.org/blog/posts/things-of-value-for-eternity

Our Personal Update
Alan is working on converting a part of their Roman fonts to a more industry-standard form -- the rules that position accent marks over letters or allow for selecting regional forms of letters. Currently a programmer is needed to add or change certain things, but after the conversion, it should be simpler for anyone to work on. The conversion work is complex and detailed though, so please pray for him.

Our annual teacher orientation is coming up in just two weeks -- we have 19 participating! I am busy preparing all the printed matter. The presenters had their material to me on time (a first :-) and things have come together nicely -- in fact I’m further along in the process than I usually am! But things can still go wrong, so please pray that the layout and production of the materials and all the logistics will come together well. We are not doing the airport simulation we’ve done in previous years, so that relieves a lot of stress since I don’t have to find volunteers for it.

I have the opportunity to do something new this year. I’ll be doing childcare at our U.S. headquarters in Orlando for two weeks (June 24 - July 7) -- the first week for a Wycliffe orientation for new members (caring for preschool-aged kids) and the second week for our teacher orientation (with 5 kids aged 1.5 - 10). Please pray that I do well with the kids; I have a lot of experience with children, but I don’t usually have preschoolers in a structured situation. I’d like to be flexible and do a good job of communicating love to the kids, as well as being a support to the director of our teacher orientation. Pray for Alan for the time I’m gone.

We thank you for supporting our ministry in various ways. We couldn’t do this work and have a part in Bible translation without you! Please let us know how we can pray for you!