Merry Christmas! December 22nd, 2015
It is unbelievable that Christmas time is here and time for a year end summary. This has been a year of struggles, challenges and amazing successes for the Lord. Most of you know that we have faced many things on the personal front. My father, Ron Whitmer battled two types of cancer, a melanoma on his liver and prostate cancer. As summer arrived so did their need for our support to help Mom and Dad through his fearful journey and hospital stay. The Lord is good. The surgeon was able to destroy the tumor on Dad’s liver and after 45 radiation treatments, the prostate cancer seems to be gone as well. I ask you to join me in continuing to pray for his recovery. While in the hospital recovering from the liver cancer, Dad’s electrolytes became imbalanced, leaving him catatonic and in intensive care for 10 days. Because of the mental impact, the road back has been difficult in ways he has never expected. Please pray for him to regain his confidence and clarity of mind that has been initiated by the cancer and his brain chemistry being so altered when his sodium levels plummeted.
Linda’s mother has been diagnosed, at 92, as unable to stay on her own. Memory lapses and occasional confusion are taking toll on her as well. She has come to reside with us in our mission house on Johnson’s campus. I hoped these life passages of our parents would happen separately. But God seems to have put them all in one 6-month period to get them over with. Yet, I still say God is good. His blessings are bountiful.
God has also been leading us into new areas of work. Having worked with Linda as Dean of the School of Intercultural Studies (Missions) to develop our current mission training programs (Translation, Scripture Use, Development, Church Planting, and Specialized ICS program), I (PBTI) have moved into developing them for running in different languages to serve mission worldwide.
A major challenge to developing our online courses in Russian for Ukrainian students has to do with the cultural differences. When I arrived on the field in March this year, no actual translation work had been started even though the materials had been transferred to the them weeks before. I thought at first they seemed mostly against online education that we were using or, more likely, I suspected them to be afraid to take responsibility for decisions on their own in an unfamiliar method of education. Being there and working face to face with them afforded the time to work through the relationships with these wonderful partners and they soon began backing the project. As of March 13th, 2015 we were making progress on Mission Theology (How God designed mission to happen) and Missiological Anthropology (Developing awareness of the Culture of people.). However, we still have a long way to go. Resources for the courses are very few. We are translating a text for Mission Theology in order to have what we want. At the time there was a tentative date for populating the courses in September this year, and I planned to be there for this start.
In the March visit in Kherson, I taught a course in contextualizing the Gospel for different cultures. One of those students on campus at TCI was Alex, who acted as a military Chaplain in the Ukrainian Army. We became great friends during my visits. As I returned in September to start the Russian online Missiological Anthropology course, I was told of Alex, who having held devotions with his platoon, went out on mission and was killed by stepping on a landmine. Our students on this trip, along with me, were all devastated.
September brought the completion of the course materials translation for Missiological Anthropology. It was ready for students. September 7th, we enrolled 14 students from 6 former Soviet bloc countries to study Anthropology online from their homes as part of their preparation to become missionaries. Now that the term is complete, we are finishing up the final grades and recording their scores both at Johnson and Tavriski Christian Institute. Prayer Answered!
Mission Theology is still delayed by the need for a competent textbook in Russian. Earlier this month (December) we received copyright permission from Eerdmans Publishing to begin translation. TCI (Tavriski Christian Institute) has printing equipment to produce hard copy textbooks, but since we are hosting students online, we will use a digital version of the book integrated into the course for the students to use. Currently, Mission Theology is scheduled to be populated with students and run in May. The next course for me to develop in Russian will be “Introduction to Linguistics” as a support for students joining translation teams.
The next languages we anticipate for our courses will be Mandarin and Portuguese. This will allow us to train many recruits with PBTI (and other mission organizations) who speak these heart languages and to join teams going to areas using Portuguese and Mandarin as a trade language. We (PBTI) are looking for mission professors to recruit and help develop the training for church members in Brazil, Mozambique, and other Portuguese speaking areas. Translation of courses into Portuguese will begin as soon as we have the personnel. As you know, we are also focusing on training Chinese Christians from friendly, open areas as well.
We have translation students in the MA ICS Translation program, including one student from a closed country who started off as a Mother Tongue translator. Her desire is to become a Translation Specialist and do translation work in her own country. These people no longer have to come to the US or Europe. This coming year will be a busy one: two courses and two textbooks translated into Russian for use with students in Ukraine through online media, two trips to Ukraine to teach in person and two trips to Asia for consultation and cultural exploration. Thank you for supporting this work
