Dear faithful partners in Lele Bible translation work.
Thank you for blessing us with your partnership for these many years. These past weeks, we’ve been reflecting on all the progress that has already been made in translating God’s Word for the Lele people. Did you know we already have about 60% of the New Testament in rough draft?
We have also been planning for goals for the six years to come and realizing that we could see a third or more of the Bible published for the Lele in the next few years!
On Saturday, September 8th, I celebrate my forty-something birthday. (No, I’m not getting out my calculator to do the math! And, yes, we’ll check to make sure our fire extinguisher is ready in case all those candles get out of control.) My friend Pierre sent me a bit of a birthday present in the form of some pictures—but you’ll have to open our attached newsletter to find out more about that.
But besides that present, Tina has been working the past couple of weeks on a huge Christmas present for the Lele people. She’s been able to pull verses from our Luke translation (and a few verses from Matthew and Acts) to put together a new Lele Bible verse calendar for 2019! Instead of going out for a picnic on labor day, she was laboring away at getting the calendar finished. She was able to email it off and it is currently being printed and put together in our West Africa Branch print shop right as you read this. This will be a wonderful tool for sharing God’s Word with unreached villages all over among the Lele people. Thank you for your prayers and financial support making projects like this possible.
By the way, as we get into these fall months we are looking to visit some of our supporting churches to give updates on the work. If you are interested in us coming, feel free to email or call us and we’ll do our best to make plans for a visit in the next few months. We are already making plans for another trip to the field in January to focus on the work with our Lele partners, so we’d love to come tell you more about it in person before that.
Thank you again for your partnership.
Blessings,
Marc and Tina Gebhard
PBT – West Africa Branch
Please do not post information from this update on the internet or in other mass communication media without our permission.
Email: marc.gebhard
Phone: 214-971-2045 (Through 2018)
Easy online donations:
www.pioneerbible.org/MarcAndTinaGebhard
You may also send personal mail and donations to:
PBT-Gebhard
P.O. Box 10184
Terre Haute, IN 47801