Hi, Friends!
I'm back from a productive trip to Indonesia and want to share some prayer requests with you. First, the edition 2.2 Plain Indonesian New Testament (TSI) is being printed now. 8,000 will be printed this month, and about that same number soon afterward. Please pray that God will help everyone involved in the technical aspects of printing. Please ask for God's protection over the printing process and the people involved.
We now have seven members in our translation team, and the newest one is Jackie. Jackie has two children, her oldest in college, and the youngest finishing Jr. high school. She became a widow just two years ago. In the picture, she's holding a certificate and I'm congratulating her for completing our on-line translation course.
Jackie comes with fourteen years experience working for SIL's language survey department. She truly is the world's expert in the status of ethnic languages on her island of Papua. And she has a deep desire for God's Word to be understandable by people in the villages of this island. She has drafted 3 chapters in the Old Testament so far!
I have a special prayer request this month for all seven on our translation team: Bible translators are in a spiritual battle. Satan often attacks other family members. Please ask God to strengthen each family. Please ask for God to help the spouse of each team member who is married, so that they will fully support what their partner is doing, and guard themselves spiritually. Pray that each translation team member would have good prayer support from within their local church.
Praise the Lord! The full recordings of the TSI New Testament are new available at Bible.is and readers will soon be able to hear them in the Youversion Bible app. Please join us in prayer that God will show us how to distribute the recordings on solar-powered Bible-listening devices like these.
I believe that some of God's people will come forward who will provide funds to give audio Bibles to rural people who are illiterate and thirsty for God's Word. That's the easy part, but still a prayer request. Please especially pray for the harder part: That our organization— Albata, can make partnerships with other mission organizations than can deliver these devices into the hands of rural people who will use them daily, and let others listen to them.
A Mr. T has also finished our online Bible translation course, but with a very special project in view. The special project is to adapt the TSI New Testament to be used in home churches made up of people who have trusted in Christ Jesus, but who refer to Him as Isa al Masih. These are baptized believers who believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Mr. T has long experience working with such people who are coming to Christ from Indonesia's majority religion, and his desire is that he can adapt our Plain Indonesian Translation to use terminology that will be best received by them. Please pray for him. At this time, please pray for wisdom in picking the best equivalents for some special key terms.
I was able to meet for a day with Mr. T during my visit to Indonesia. As we talked, I was blessed when he said, “This New Testament has been so meaningful to me!” As he said that, he reached for his copy of the TSI New Testament and started flipping the pages. Can you imagine how I felt to see so many marked pages?! Let's pray that the people Mr. T wants to reach will soon be similarly blessed!
Praise the Lord that I haven't come down with malaria or dengue fever after visiting the Orya area. And thanks for continuing to pray for Gale to have less pain and good sleep.
Thanks so much for your prayers!
Phil & Gale
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