Melinda has been serving in a refugee camp in North Africa off and on since December 2015. In October 2017, she wrote a newsletter entitled “Visitors and Visioning.” She began by saying, “If you ever are in despair that God isn’t working, you should come visit me. He continuously shows Himself to be great and active in this refugee camp! Getting here is a doozy, but once you’re here it’s worth every bit of trouble.”
Earlier this month, three visitors from supporting churches in Kansas came to visit our Bible translation project for five days. We packed everything we could into those five short days. Actually, I planned half-days and the Holy Spirit filled up the remaining part of the day. It was a great adventure.
One of our unplanned surprises was a Saturday matinee in the fancy church that doubled as a theater. My good evangelist friend Abel came by to meet and greet my visitors. At the end of his visit, he invited us to come to a viewing of The Jesus Film the following day. We accepted.
The church who hosted the film is a fledging little one-year-old church, filled with the first Christians in this tribe, ever. Granted, 98% of those in the church are young women and children, but every one of them is a precious child of God. After the film, three women accepted Christ! Please pray that the men’s hearts will soften toward the Good News, too.
During Abel’s visit with my three visitors, we started talking about all the Bible translation needs in the camp. From the sixty-ish tribes represented in the camp, we made a list of six tribes for whom we will pray about starting a Bible translation project!
It was worth it for my visitors to brave the crazy capital, with its “mosh pit” of an airport (which is really just a tent with holey particle-board floors), unreasonable immigration officers, and soldiers everywhere. Come on in …the water may be hot, but you’ll get used to it!
My team of three national co-translators had one down day before welcoming yet another important visitor. It was the linguist who originally helped my team write down their language for the first time ever! He had come to this camp twice before, and this was his final visit in this series of linguistic work.
For two weeks, my awesome team hacked their way through spelling issues, braved the perils of discourse markers, and scaled the heights of verb issues. (I’m trying to make linguistics sound as exciting as it really is!)
We had a rough start, though. The very first night our visitor was here, his laptop and phone got stolen from his tent while he was sleeping. We mobilized security agents and also prayer warriors. Miraculously, two days after the items were stolen, they were found! When we went to the police to identify the recovered laptop, the main security guy said, “You are very lucky, because we NEVER find items this quickly.” I couldn’t help but burst out, “It’s because we’ve been praying!” The man looked embarrassed at my outburst, but I didn’t care because it was true. He needed to hear it. What our enemy meant as a disruption to our important work actually turned into a testimony of God’s power!
My translation team and I learned so many helpful things in just two weeks. We learned better ways to write things, and realized that our original drafts had been sounding a bit “foreign” and unnatural. Thankfully, we aren’t too far into the drafting process, so we can use our new tools to revise what has already been drafted, and then move forward with confidence. This gifted team is fully capable of producing a Gospel of Luke in their mother tongue that sounds like their grand-father is telling the story of Jesus. We are working towards that day!
In a newsletter from around this time last year, I showed a picture of my dear friend’s baby Melinda (named after me). Shortly after that picture was taken, they went back up to their home in the mountains. However, earlier this month, my friend and her now-more-than-one-year-old Melinda returned to refugee camp!
It was such a touching reunion. When we greeted, my friend covered her face with her hands and cried and cried and cried. It got kind of scary, how emotional she was but soon the tears turned to smiles, as we got caught up on all that had happened over the past year. It’s good she’s back, and it was fun to see little Melinda (in red), who took right to me, without a hint of fear! Isn’t she a cutie? What special visits, visitors and visioning!
Praise God for the three visitors from Melinda’s supporting churches in Kansas who had the courage to come to a refugee camp in a North African war-torn country so they could encourage their missionary and better understand what daily life for her was like.
Praise God for the trained linguist who came for two weeks to better equip Melinda and her three national co-translators in drafting the Gospel of Luke.
Praise God for answered prayer and the witness to the main security person when the linguist’s stolen laptop and phone were found.
Pray for Melinda and the other six Pioneer Bible Translator missionaries who continue to serve various people groups in this war-torn country in North Africa.
Pray that God will continue to give them the physical, emotional, and spiritual strength to not only persevere but to thrive in shining the light of Jesus in such a spiritually dark place.
Pray that Melinda and her national co-translators will make steady progress in producing a quality translation of the book of Luke.
Thank you for your prayers, Gerald & Ruth Denny Coordinators of Prayer Ministries Pioneer Bible Translators
In a newsletter from around this time last year, I showed a picture of my dear friend’s baby Melinda (named after me). Shortly after that picture was taken, they went back up to their home in the mountains. However, earlier this month, my friend and her now-more-than-one-year-old Melinda returned to refugee camp!