Merry Christmas from Nashville

 Dear Friends & Family,

"Merry Christmas!” In the midst of such a difficult year for so many, we can still say, “Merry Christmas!” for our joy is rooted in something or Someone beyond the struggles and challenges of this world. In the midst of all the busyness of our move to Nashville, Lynee and I are trying to slow down during this season to remember and recapture the joy we find in the love of God, which He showed in sending His Son into the world.

We are now living with Lynee’s parents, having moved here from her brother’s home a few days before Thanksgiving. After that move, we took a week of vacation at a cabin in the mountains. It was a welcome respite from all the busyness of packing and moving since March. Shortly afterwards, we closed on our townhouse. Since arriving here, we’ve had several confirmations that we’re in the right place. We are continuing our work with Wycliffe from Nashville. 

We are sorry we were not able to visit friends and family in Georgia in the fall as we’ve done for many years. Of course, with COVID, it would’ve been more complicated anyway, but with our move, there just wasn’t time. Thankfully, our ministry budget was fully funded in 2020. We think our current committed giving is about $600/month short (which was covered in 2020 by some one-time gifts).

Despite the challenges of this year, Bible translation is moving forward. We wanted to share these Christmas greetings from Wycliffe USA with you. Thank you so much for your partnership with us! Without the prayers, giving, and help of many people, this work couldn’t go forward.

We are in Nashville!

Dear Friends and Family,

We made it to Nashville! We are here safely after a 12-hour drive on October 27 and are settling in temporarily at my brother Don’s home. (Please contact us privately for our new postal address.) He and my sister-in-law Ginger have done a great job of making us feel welcome. I’ve started going over to my parents’ home a few hours each day to make extra space for us there. 

Here are some ways we have seen God work:

• God supplied the right help at the right time -- people too numerous to list here. We got everything packed in time, and my sister-in-law Kim cleaned the house while we loaded the boxes from storage, so we didn’t even have to worry about cleaning when we got back.
• It was supposed to rain both on the day we loaded the truck and on the day we unloaded it, and while it was cool and chilly, we didn’t get any real rain while we were working.
• We all made it safely, including the moving truck towing Alan’s car. While Simon cried almost continually for the first part of the trip, he slept for the last part of the trip, which revived us. I was very thankful Alan was with me to weather that.
• I have gotten my office set up, and Alan is already working remotely while he orders a desk.

We would greatly value prayer for the following:

• We still need to sell our house. We reached an agreement with a buyer today, but we still need to replace the roof (using insurance coverage) and complete the deal.
• We need wisdom as we make room in my parents’ home. This will involve storing some things and getting rid of other things. Having just gone through that ourselves, I know it will be hard for my parents.
• We are praying that God will supply just the right house at the right time -- one that we and my parents can share more comfortably than their current home.
• The move doesn’t seem real in some ways, but I have a feeling it will hit hard eventually. We need wisdom to know when to pull away more from our life in Dallas and get plugged in here -- something that will not be easy to do in the midst of Covid.

While we may have moved, our work with Wycliffe and our passion for Bible translation continues. We wanted to share this new video from Wycliffe with you: A Vast Crowd

Thank you so much for your partnership with us and your prayers for us. We could not have done this without you!

Lynee (& Alan) Ward

Moving to Nashville Oct. 27!

Dear friends and family,

We hope this finds you well and staying healthy. We are thankful that we can still walk at nice parks nearby and that the cooler weather makes it easier to visit with friends outside. Something we can do whether we are with others or alone is pray. And prayer continues to be needed for Bible translation around the world. We recently saw a beautiful video about translation work in Indonesia that might inspire your prayers.

In our last newsletter, we talked about our moving to Nashville to help my parents. We can now say we believe God has clarified certain details, led us to a plan, and confirmed this move. We hope to finish packing this week and travel to Nashville on Tuesday, October 27. Praise God with us for the ways He has worked in the midst of this time:

• We have a friend, a retired truck driver, who is willing to drive the truck for us, including towing one of our cars behind it.
• Another friend is willing to oversee some work on our house after we move.
• Someone is considering buying our townhouse, though she is at an early stage.
• Alan’s sister is planning to come on Thursday night (10/22) to help us at the end.

Please pray with us for the following:

• that we can get everything packed and be ready to leave by our departure date
• for safety on the road and good travels with Simon, our cat
• that our potential buyer will get financing or that God will send someone else
• for settling in and a smooth transition into working remotely in a new location

We are looking forward to what God has for us ahead, but it will be hard to say good-bye in the next week to the place and friends we’ve known for the last 30 years. God will continue to see us through this time, and we are looking forward to being near family.

We won’t be making our usual trip to Georgia in the fall this year, but we would love to hear from you (wherever you live :-). Please let us know how you are doing and how we can pray together.

In the Goodness and Greatness of God

Ward newsletter - Aug 2020 (pg 1)

Move to Nashville

We hope you are doing well as we move through this strangest of summers. It’s been too long since we sent an update. Keeping our normal life going while also dealing with the following news and changes has been hard.

In March, Lynée went to Nashville to help her mom recover from a hospital stay. We realized then that her parents will soon reach a stage in life where they could use help handling some of their daily tasks. They both have medical challenges, though none of their conditions are life threatening. While waiting for the Lord to make certain details clear and to give final confirmation, Lynée and I are moving in the direction of selling our townhouse in Dallas, helping her parents sell their house in Nashville, and buying a larger house for all four of us there. Lynée and I both plan to continue our work with Wycliffe from there. I can work remotely since only four of our sixteen team members are in Dallas anyway, and Lynée is the only member of her team left here.

We’ve already started disposing of “stuff” from our house and packing boxes in preparation for a move. We’re also trying to understand the financial aspects of buying a house together and to agree on a plan with Lynée’s parents and two siblings. Her brother’s family is in Nashville already and would be a support for us as they have already been helping. It doesn’t seem like a good time to do this with the challenges facing our country and the world. Please pray the Lord would lead us through this process. We’re hoping to move sometime in the fall.

Ministry Update

At the end of March, we released test versions of the main fonts I work on. These fonts support hundreds of languages that need Bible translation in the Americas, Europe, much of Africa, the Pacific, and Russia. They also provide translators with special symbols needed for New Testament Greek and to scientifically describe the sounds in any language. We are receiving feedback from users on the field, and there were some aspects of the fonts which weren’t finished yet. We hope to do another test release by the end of the year. I need to keep plugging away on this despite all the work involved in moving to Nashville.

Lynée’s team held their annual teacher orientation in Orlando during the last week of July. Thankfully, it went well and everyone seems to have stayed healthy. Lynée did not go, though she did help with preparation and some of the logistics from afar. One of the teacher’s said, “Thank you so much for an excellent week of learning and growing and relationship building...I feel not only better equipped to do my job, but I have a lot more confidence that it is possible, through humble reliance on Jesus, for me to do it.” E.M.

Lynée’s new website is now online–the culmination of two years’ work! tckcare-ed.org

Thankfully, giving to our ministry has only slightly declined over the last few months. Committed giving is about $500/month low, but our 12-month average is fine because of special donations. Thank you so much for praying, giving, and encouraging us and our work!

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Wards newsletter - Aug 2002 (pg 2)

 “What You Team Has Done for Our Father”

“Forgive me for getting a bit emotional; I just couldn’t believe that your colleagues would spend many years working on a Nastaliq-style Arabic digital font with the hope that Scripture might be translated into this language one day. The devotion, commitment, and sacrifices are what we won’t be able to find in our business and social enterprise. I have the utmost respect and appreciation for what your team has done for our Father and his kingdom! Thank you!”

So said a potential new funding partner in the middle of a meeting in Asia last year. The font she was talking about is called Awami Nastaliq, and it was developed by the Writing Systems Technology team (Alan’s group). 

Awami Nastaliq is an Arabic-script font specifically intended for a wide variety of languages of Southwest Asia. Awami is an Urdu word meaning “of the people,” and Nastaliq is the name given to the sloping style of Arabic writing which is based on a centuries-old calligraphic tradition and, because of its beauty, has sometimes been called the “bride of calligraphy.” Its sloping beauty means that it is a much more complex font to render on computers than the flat Naskh-style Arabic font.

Awami Nastaliq using Graphite technology

“We see font development as primarily a critical component of Bible translation and literacy. However, it is also a service to the wider community in that it is enabling that culture to have a voice in communications—you can’t print books or newspapers, use a mobile phone, or email, or have a website in your language if you don’t have a font for it.”

Having the technical capability to publish Scripture in this script has been a driving motivation for my group since its beginning. We realized in the ‘90s that current computing technology would be unable to do this, so with much prayer, we designed and created software technology that could. I started working with this group in 1998 to contribute to this technology, called Graphite. We reasoned that if this script could be supported, Graphite could likely handle any writing system in the world, which would prepare the way to publish the Bible in any alphabet.

Graphite needed to be done in a way that didn’t depend on having major software companies change how their software works, so we pushed this technology through the free and open software community, eventually getting it into the Firefox web browser, the LibreOffice document suite, and other programs. But the technology itself isn’t enough—a font that uses it is also needed. After more time and effort, the creation of the above Graphite-based font was undertaken with all its intricate letterforms, shaping, and positioning. We actually had to enhance our original Graphite design to handle all the complexity. But by God’s grace, everything came together and Scripture is being published in this script! And you had a role by supporting our work!

Excerpted from bit.ly/awami

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Teacher orientation during last week of July

Dear Friends and Family,

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.” Psalm 139:23 & 24 NLT

Lynee and I have been working from our home since mid-March. I am using the desk in our office/guest room while Lynee is set up on the kitchen table. We’re both moving forward with our work but are finding some challenges in avoiding distractions. Some people are starting to work again from our Dallas offices, but we felt others who had more challenging remote “offices” should return before we did.

The annual teacher orientation that Lynee's department holds is going to be happening next week in Orlando - in person. They only have eight participants this year, so they can easily keep their distance. Please pray the teachers will learn a lot and that God will keep everyone healthy -- while traveling and during the training. Several of those attending are ready to serve in Papua New Guinea as soon as they can get permission to go.

We're planning to send a longer update soon.

Lynee traveling to help parents

Dear Friends and Family,

We hope you are staying well and experiencing peace in the midst of all that is going on in our nation and the world right now. This will be a shorter-than-normal update.

Alan’s team meetings went well at the beginning of February. Thankfully, his team made good progress on improving the testing done on all of their font projects, and the logistics at both locations where they met went well. We are thankful his team was able to meet when they did, so they could spend that time face-to-face planning for the future. Alan is now busy working on a couple of fonts, doing the technical things he has to do to them, so that they can hopefully be ready for a test release later this month. The other key person working on these fonts will be going on a 6-month sabbatical to finish his PhD then.

I have been in Nashville with my parents for the last week, coming after my mother was released from being in the hospital for four days with a rapid heartbeat and fever. Little did I know all that would happen with COVID-19 while I was here. In addition to helping fill in while my mother regained her strength, I was able to do some shopping and help prepare them for social distancing since they are in their 80s. I have not gone anywhere except to my brother’s house since last Friday. We are trying to keep them as protected as possible. I’m planning to leave tomorrow (Wed.) but am not totally sure yet. Please pray for their health and my safety as I drive home. Also, I pulled a muscle in my back yesterday, so driving the 11-12 hours home is going to seem extra long.

We were strongly encouraged today to work from home for the foreseeable future -- fortunately both our jobs allow us to do that. We continue to covet you, your prayers, encouragement, and gifts, all of which keep us going. Please let us know how we can pray for you.

Lynee (for Alan too)

Translating Romanian Sign Language; Alan's meetings started

Dear Friends and Family,

We hope your year has gotten off to a great start. We had good visits to my family in Nashville and Alan’s family in north Georgia for Christmas, and our house sitter survived our new cat (Simon)! We both got sick while traveling but are much better now, though please pray that the lingering cough I have will clear up.

Translation for Sign Languages
One group of languages that Wycliffe has started translating for relatively recently is Deaf sign languages...

More than 90,000 Deaf people living across Romania use Romanian Sign Language to communicate. Culturally, they view themselves as members of a vibrant community with its own unique language and identity.

However, the Deaf face challenges reading and understanding the written language used by the hearing society around them. That’s why it’s critically important that the Deaf gain access to God’s Word in a language and form they clearly understand.
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The Romanian pastor wasn’t sure what to do. He had adopted a deaf boy into his family and wanted to teach him about the Bible. But after trying for a while, the hearing pastor could tell that his deaf son didn’t understand the Scripture in spoken and written Romanian.

Then one day on Facebook, he saw a video of a New Testament passage. The story was of Jesus calming the storm — and it was in Romanian Sign Language. When the father showed the video to his son, the boy perked up and seemed to clearly understand the story’s message.

Excited, the pastor reached out to the Romanian Sign Language translation team who created the video. As a result, the team members soon connected the family to a local Deaf church. There the boy is able to form relationships with other Deaf believers while growing in his faith through Scripture — communicated in a language and form that impacts his heart.

(The above story was excerpted from Wycliffe’s annual report in the Romanian Sign Language section.)

Personal update
The two weeks of team meetings that Alan’s department is blessed to have each year started tonight (2/2) with a welcome dinner. This year they are gathering in Dallas. The first week will be at a retreat center which they haven’t used for twelve years, so please pray that everything works out okay there. The second week will be at our campus in a different conference room than usual.

The theme for most of the font development sessions will be testing, which is currently Alan’s main focus. They are trying to find ways to share and standardize the testing done on the fonts that several subteams develop for different parts of the world. In the past, each subteam developed their own way of testing based on what they needed, what they knew, and what technology was available, so there’s a lot of variety right now. Sharing the best of what each subteam does and somewhat standardizing the process are the goals. Alan will be leading three sessions and taking notes on many others. Pray for unity, clear communication, and practical steps/goals moving forward.

I am continuing to work on my department’s website. I am rearranging some of the content and adding new material. We hope the site will go live soon. Pray that I can make some good progress, even as I keep up with my other responsibilities. Simon continues to bring us joy as well as challenging us when we tell him “no” - he acts a lot like a toddler. :-)

In the Love and Grace of Jesus