Thanks for listening to this special edition podcast! I arrived back in Jakarta from Papua around noon yesterday.
Mrs. Y. sells yellow rice starting at 6 in the morning, under the big mango tree just a short walk from where I was staying in Papua. Yellow rice with a little chicken and a boiled egg is my favorite breakfast in Indonesia. Y grew up Islamic, but married a guy who (sadly) is only nominally Christian. Then she became a real Christian through reading her husband's Bible. Her mother, who lives close in the neighborhood, has disowned her. I gave her three of our smaller books, one to give to her pastor. As I came up the next morning, she was reading in chapter 6 of Revelation.
What she said about the Plain Indonesian translation is what so many have told me: I understand this! It doesn’t use hard-to-understand words.
Updated apps are out for Android and iDevices. I am told that the Apple app has neat new features that people love. However the updated Android app is not really much than the old one. If you update your app, give plenty of time for the episode list to be downloaded. It took me several times pressing the refresh button before I got my list back. If you have problems, please don’t write to me, but use the Contact button. This will get the information directly to the person who can help.
If you have joined the DBRPodcasts only recently, it may be harder with some podcast manager apps (including our own app) to listen to the podcasts starting at 001 and moving forward. You can always search for the day number you want at our web site. If any of you have a good app that helps in sequential listening starting with earlier episodes, please let me know via the Send a message link.
Here’s a couple of pictures of my team members in Sentani. Since Gale and I cannot live all the time in Indonesia, it has been wonderful that Jim and Judi Olson have been my partners. Jim wears many hats, and one of them is helping our team with accounting. Judi works many hours translating, checking drafts, or preparing Bible study materials. In particular these days, she is helping a team translating into the Lepki language. Imagine starting a project like that being close to my age!
While I was there, we focused on translating Ps 3, 13, and 23, and all of Ruth.
Paula (on the right) will be administering the team work flow in drafting, editing and checking Old Testament passages. Serli, the newest team applicant, is not pictured.
Rima (on the left) has been coming every work day without pay ever since November to take our on-line Bible translation course! That's dedication! All these ladies can only work 2-3 hours per day because they can only work when their kids are in school. In the last months Rima and Paula sometimes couldn't do anything because the Internet was down. I saw this as we tried to work on some shared googledocs. You're stuck if you get the dreaded yellow ‘Connecting …’ notice. 15 minutes later, the little circle is still spinning, and it says it is still connecting. Of course, one can edit documents offline, but the resources we need for Bible translation can only be accessed online. (You can see some of those resources under the Shovels heading at the DBRP web site.)
There is only one way our team in Papua can get really good Internet service, and that is with a satellite Internet system. The cost for the equipment is $2300, and after that it costs $200 monthly. If any of you would like to help with the equipment cost, there are instructions for giving a one-time gift via a bank card at the end of the Our Story page at dailybiblereading.info.
Upon arrival here in Jakarta, Daniel (our organization’s office manager) was excited to show me that he has been translating the book of Daniel. He’s gotten all the way up to chapter 2, verse 9. This seems to be a change of heart for Daniel. Previously he thought he might just help with editing. I think Daniel might discover that he has talents he did not know about!
My close friend Boas (Mesak’s father from my last report) saw me off at the airport in Sentani yesterday morning. He reported that the Orya college age youth have set the date for the next retreat to be Apr1-4. They set up an organizing committee and decided that all the committee members will put in the equivalent of $25 seed money. In their money and economy, this is like giving several hundred dollars, or a significant part of their monthly income. This is the largest amount they have ever committed together to contribute to a project like this. Boas said their motivation is simply to spread the Gospel, and that they are planning to have retreats progressively moving through each of the next five southern Orya villages until they go beyond the Orya area! I gave a camera to Boas so that I will get pictures of what's happening.
Thanks for praying for me and Gale at home. She says she’s doing OK and its snowing now. Please pray that Indonesian Christians will catch the vision for supporting God's work just like the Orya people have.
Stay joined to the Lord, and may He bless you "real good".
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