One more year

We have been in Mozambique for a very long time. This is our oldest daughter visiting a village a half hour out of town in 2003. This was most of what she knew about the world at the time. This village was new to her, but not scary or strange.

Our home was surrounded by a green, lush garden. Tea time under a guava tree was a daily ritual with Rosa and Maria. I admit, this looks a little "colonial" in some ways. But that is just life in Africa: our kids are white and everyone else is not. When you have a picnic this is what it looks like. 

By 2012 my kids were happy in their school. The translation project was well under way. I was out and about visiting friends and finding places to share Nyungwe stories. There weren't many. Not many people were interested yet. We were on the verge of a new big thing, but we didn't know it. 

After our "furlough" for a year in 2012-13, we returned to Mozambique. Little Zebra Books started publishing stories in Nyungwe. Suddenly everyone wanted something to read and we had it for them. After years of preparing translations and working through grammar and spelling and discourse analysis of this Mozambican language of 500,000 speakers, someone was paying attention. 

The Bible translation team also got some good publicity when several smaller portions were made available through grants for printing in 2014 and 2016. Matthew and several of Pauls' epistles joined the already available books of Luke and Mark. The team learned the best ways to get books out to districts far from town where people hunger for God's Word in their language. 

These cute kids have grown up... 

We all have! And so has the Nyungwe Bible translation and literacy work in Tete, Mozambique. 

We have one year to go until the New Testament is translated, checked and ready for typesetting and printing! (It should be published in 2018.) We have one year to look at ways to get as many people interested in reading Nyungwe as we can. We have one year to connect with key leaders and partners in ways that will ensure that the people of Tete have access to their own networks for distributing and studying God's Word.There must be trained people in place to take over some of the nitty-gritty stuff of getting books from printshops through customs and into active reading groups all over the region. 

We need prayer. Just because we are nearing the end of this phase of ministry does not mean we are DONE... or that the Nyungwe Bible translation is DONE... or that the Little Zebra Books reading groups are DONE. 

We've only just begun, I think. 

God's plan looks different than we imagined it so many years ago. 

The future is good for Nyungwe.

The future is good for our family, too. 

We hope you stick with us for the long haul. I don't think you are "done" yet either!