The Big Bad City

Ok mom and dad, I can now sympathize a little bit with what it must have felt like to drop me off at college. Leaving our medium-sized town, you drove me and all dorm room necessities (Ramen noodles, mac ‘n cheese, pizza cutter, Mt Dew and box full of number 2 pencils) straight into downtown Chicago. No doubt our campus’ neighbor, the notoriously rough housing projects of “Cabrini Green,” caused you some anxiety. Well, I now know somewhat how you felt. No, Micah has not flown the coup yet; I don’t think any of us are ready for that. We were ready, however, for our first experience in bringing two young Gmz men into Addis Ababa for a two-week workshop. Knowing the culture that Habtamu and Wohis come from and the contrasting world they would encounter in the city of 7 million people, we shared in both their excitement and their fear.

 

With very dark skin and some distinctive facial features, the Gmz stuck out like sore thumb within the mixture of other Ethiopians found in Addis. If they happened to open their mouths, their Gmz language would be yet another beacon to draw attention to their “otherness.”  And even if they did their best to blend-in by speaking Amharic, their limited abilities in Amharic are much like ours, unimpressive. All in all, there was no way around the fact that they were different.

 

Human nature defaults to fear what it doesn’t understand, and I believe this is most applicable with regard to people who are not like us. Even that first day after getting them settled in a guesthouse and heading out to explore their neighborhood, I couldn’t help but feel the stares from every direction (some accompanied by comments that I hoped went unnoticed). I’ve heard unfortunate stories of countryside people being easy targets for big city thieves, and a big part of me wanted to warn and protect my friends. Yet, at the same time, I didn’t want to totally burst their balloon of naivety and so lock them a cell of fear and mistrust. So, I just gave them a few streetwise pieces of advice and then prayed hard. With a few days before our workshop, I encouraged them to explore a bit, only to receive the quick response, “No way, we’ll get lost!” It is true, Addis Ababa is a VERY easy city to get lost in and without a mobile phone; that could be disastrous. 

 

Day two in Addis, I sat in Executive Council meetings all day, thinking and yes, worrying about them. When 5pm finally arrived, I jumped in our truck and fought the rush hour traffic in route to their guesthouse. I was somewhat pleased to find them out, probably grabbing some dinner. Instead of waiting around like an overly-protective parent, I left a short note with the guesthouse guard “I’ll come again on Saturday morning.”

 

Saturday came two days later and I had to smile when I pulled up. There they were waiting for me outside, each of them sporting a brand new shirt – a nice woven sweater for Habtamu and Wohis was all bundled up in new fleece sweatshirt. I had warned them that it would get cold in the high elevation of Addis Ababa, but I could see that now my words had sunk in. Their new threads also pleased me as it meant that they have gotten over their big city fear enough to go shopping, though they probably saw it as basic survival from turning into Gmz popsicles!

 

My Saturday agenda involved a whole mess of shopping which naturally took us all around the city: a great way for them to experience some big city life. We started by going to the bank, a concept they had only heard about. Next, I then forked over their equivalent of a full year’s salary to buy four new truck tires (all vehicle parts are heavily taxed upon entering the country). Next, they asked where the president of Ethiopia lived so we drove by his palace grounds (you can’t see much beyond the heavily guarded fence). Next, we stopped at a quite modern, multi-level mall. After exploring an electronics store, we found an exterior window where they very cautiously looked down to the street below. Then, Wohis looked up and surprisingly exclaimed “There’s still more building up there!” I thought to myself, “Yea, we’re only one floor up.” Nonetheless, they weren’t taking any chances by getting too close to the window.

 

After the mall, we ticked off their one major request in coming to Addis Ababa: they wanted to see a real airplane. Sure, they had seen planes WAY up in the air as they cast a white ribbon across the sky, but the concept of that “bird” being made out of metal and having more than 100 people inside, they just couldn’t picture it. We went to the airport and thankfully, from the parking lot, we could see a decent-sized jet parked just beyond the fence. They asked why we couldn’t get closer to look at it, so I took the opportunity to teach them about terrorism and specifically 9/11. Later that day, I downloaded some pictures of the twin tower attack, only to have the unexpected surprise of Osama’s death the next day! We loitered in the airport parking lot for about an hour and fortunately got to hear/see two planes take off – very cool for them. The location of their guesthouse allowed for them to see many planes flying low over the city as they made their final approach into landing. With the combination of these experiences, I think their plane curiosity was satisfied.

 

If you ask them what the highlight of their time in Addis was, they would most likely say “playing volleyball with the foreigners.” Sure, they play volleyball all the time in Gesas, but this was very different. First of all, they got to play in a really nice gymnasium, with really nice equipment. They got to play by the rules of rotation which means that they actually got to serve, bump, set and spike at different times. In Gesas, the best server serves all the time. The best setter sets all the time. The best spiker spikes all the time and the rest are just pushed to the corners of the court. It bothers the bageebers out of me when I play, but I need to pick and choose my battles and that certainly is not one of them.

 

All in all, Habtamu and Wohis did great in the big bad city. Sure, they never really explored on their own outside the general vicinity of their guesthouse, but they stayed out of danger and out of trouble and still returned home with hundreds of stories to tell those that eagerly awaited them. As a ‘thank you’ gift, we bought them each a large watermelon in Addis Ababa. It would have been fun to be there as Habtamu and Wohis sliced open these extra special treats with family and friends, no doubt talking non-stop late into the night.

How Much for the "Non-Magnetized" Option?

What was that the Apostle Paul said? “Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character and character, hope.” Well, in my case, I’m not so sure about perseverance or character development, but I certainly can attest to an increased HOPE - that is, a hope that I will never again have to change a flat tire on our truck!

It all started on our first drive out to live among the Gmz. During the last stretch of our 12 hour day, while driving through a small town well off the beaten path, someone alongside the road waved his arms to get my attention. Then, following his outstretched pointer, I knew exactly what the problem was, for I had seen that poor right front tire looking a bit discouraged at our last stop. Knowing we were close, we pressed on and arrived to our new home without a problem. Changing a tire? No sweat, after all I remember my dad crouching beside our Dodge minivan teaching me and my whole Cub Scout den the manly art of tire changing. I, being the teacher’s pet that night, took my turn and of course passed with flying colors. And now, drawing from that excellent training some 20 years earlier, I was soon heaving off the old and bolting on one of our two spares. Good as new!

 

 “Gomistas,” as the tire shops are called here, are a dime a dozen along the main roads, but the closest one to our remote house is about 30 miles away. Nevertheless, we go to that city every few weeks and so at our first visit we stopped in at our first “gomista.” I watched in amazement as this guy began by hammering my wheel rim with a sledge-hammer. I assumed he knew what he was doing. Once he removed the steel ring, he popped out the rim and pulled out the tube (all tires are tubed here, though in the bigger cities tubeless is now an option). He inflated the tube and gave it a bath to find the hole. Then, cutting a patch out of some previous guy’s tube, he glued it on and hammered away to secure it tight! Then, before returning the repaired tube, together we inspected the inside of the tire – sure enough, the spike of a nail was poking through. You can’t expect any tire or tube to drive back the edge of a nail. It was just my dumb luck to run it over in the first place…or so I thought.

 

We returned home feeling good about having two spares again, only to discover another dead soldier the next morning – this time, the head of the nail was entirely visible from the outside. It would be another two weeks before we returned to the “gomista,” so we were thankful again for our second spare.

 

At first it was kinda funny, but it didn’t take long for funny to become downright ridiculous. Over the course of the first four months living out among the Gmz, we were haunted by six flat tires, two of which gave me the opportunity to entertain the whole town of Dibate with my one-man tire changing show (I should have put out a hat to collect tips). Then, in early January, my trip to Bahir Dar (recorded in the “God in our Midst” Blogs) chalked up an additional three flat tires in less than 28 hours (and the first time that I needed both spares). Nine flat tires in five months is more than annoying, considering that I probably do 20% of the driving that Larry does in his truck – yet Larry has never had a problem with nails. In fact, Larry, finds my predicament downright hilarious – “next time, don’t buy the magnetized tires!”

 

Well, having only once needed both of my spares, I felt we were doing ok, that is until our late April trip into Addis. I think I made a mistake by verbalizing my intention of buying new tires for the upcoming rainy season, so that on the old tires’ final voyage back to Addis Ababa, they went on strike! Well, maybe you could say that it was my fault. You see despite starting the trip with one of my spare tires out of service, we decided not to stop at the gomista in the first city. Why? Because Micah was sleeping and when making a long trip, there is no sense in waking a sleeping baby by stopping. And besides I still had another spare, right? Are we in agreement then? Ok, good, don’t change your mind on me half way through the 50 kilometer gravel stretch that lies between us and the next gomista.

 

Trouble started about 20 kilometers down this gravel road, when there was a loud popping sound and the “whack, whack, whack” of rubber hitting the inside wheel well. Pulling over, we assessed the situation to find that a portion of the tread on my front right tire had pulled off the steel bands inside. Just as I was digging out the jack to change it, up drove two guys I used to shoot buckets with when we lived in Addis. “Need any help?” they asked. “I don’t think so, we got a spare and should be good to make it to the next city.” They pulled away, and not long after, Andrea casually said, “Uh, you might want to look at the back right tire as well, it looks a little flat.” Sure enough, it wasn’t at full strength, but I tried not to worry about it. However, over the course of the time it took me to change the front tire, the rear tire had deflated significantly. Now, it was definitely a problem. With two flats and one half-exploded tire, I was left with only three good ones…which if you do the math, turns out to be one short of moving a truck!

 

After some deliberation, we came up with plan A. I removed the flattened rear tire and replaced it with the partially-exploded tire. Why? Because the inner tube had yet to be punctured, making it the only tire I had that could hold air (I doubt the Cub Scout manual would have recommended such action!). Exceeding my expectations, that mangled, deformed tire halved the distance to the next city before we were startled by a loud “BANG!” and immediately knew that one of those steel bands had suicidally turned inward on itself. Now, stuck with three-two-one (good tires, flat tires and completely totaled tire) it was time for plan B. About 10 minutes later, we flagged down a minibus who, at a mercilessly boosted fee ($2), agreed to take on only one additional passenger. We got away with two as Andrea and Micah jumped aboard and the driver threw one of our flat tires onto the roof. If she could get to the gomista in the city and then hitch a ride back, we would be all set. I and the two Gmz guys with me, worked on the other one using the air pump I had thankfully borrowed from Larry, but I wasn’t encouraged to see that it wasn’t holding much more than 20 psi. Nevertheless, we threw the tire on, gave it a few final puffs of air and tore off, going as fast as the road would safely allow us. Maybe it was the friction of the road heating and expanding the air inside, but much to my surprise, that tire held us for the remaining 15-kilometer stretch into the city. Surprisingly, we arrived at the gomista even before Andrea and Micah, whose minibus had been, unbeknownst to us, a wedding party that bumbled along casually, singing celebratory songs to the bride and groom.

 

After the gomista worked his magic, we put our best four tires back on and loaded up our one remaining spare. Behind schedule, we didn’t make our destination before nightfall and so spent the night in a tiny town along the way, thankful to be sleeping in a bed as opposed to five of us camping out in our stranded truck. The next day, we made it to Addis in good time, none the worse for it. At my first free morning, there I was in the Bridgestone tire dealer ready to fork over whatever they asked for anything that was round and smelled like new rubber. Unlike the States, such places don’t try to sell you unnecessary guarantees or service agreements, etc. But just in case, I thought to ask “How much for the non-magnetized option?” Had they been quick on their toes and crafty salesmen, I would have expected to hear “Oh, those are special and we happen to have just four left in the back storeroom. They can be sold to the one who will pay double.” Hmmm…tempting, but with such luxury look at all the fun I’d be missing out on!

The Prodigal Joy Returns: Part 4 - He is Risen Indeed!

This final blog post in the “Prodigal Joy” series is not so much a story, but rather, one final cherry on top of what I’ve already described as overflowing joy!

 

On Wednesday night of that first week of translation, I realized that only three verses remained to be translated in Luke 15 and that already Thursday morning we would be ready for another passage. “Hmm…” I thought, “Should we continue into Luke 16? Back up to chapter 1? Or pick another self-contained passage elsewhere in the Gospel?” I didn’t think long before I had convinced myself of the best possible plan. After all, THE most important Christian holiday was just a week and a half down the road, and how special would it be for the Gmz church to celebrate Easter Sunday with the recording of the newly translated Easter story in the Gmz language!

 

Considering that Luke 15 (32 verses) took us 3.5 days to translate, our initial goal with the Easter story seemed a bit lofty: Jesus’ walk to Golgotha (23:26-32), his crucifixion (23:33-38), the comments of the thieves (23:39-43), his death (23:44-49), burial (23:50-56), resurrection (24:1-12), and appearance to the disciples (24:36-49) – a total of 56 verses with only 5 working days before Easter Sunday. Nevertheless, we set out, full speed ahead and we were encouraged to see our count of verses translated each day steadily rising!

 

As the week was winding down and we were coming to the end of our translation goal, I asked the guys if they would be willing to work the morning of Good Friday in order to tack on the preceding context of Pilate’s judgment (23:13-25) as well as the conclusion to the Gospel in Jesus’ ascension (24:50-53). Praise God for these servants, all five of the guys said, “Let’s finished it!” And so we did. The morning of Good Friday ended up being a long recording session for all 74 verses we had translated in the previous 5.5 days. Saturday involved me spending several hours on the computer editing the 2.5 hours of recorded material into one 11 minute story. But, mind you, this was not just any story. As I listened to the text many, many times, I remembered that this was the climax of the most important story that will EVER be told in the Gmz language. It was the story that I had the privilege of presenting to the Gmz believers on the very day in which Christians all around the world celebrate its significance.

 

Those of you who have seen popular missionary videos might expect me to share how these believers all exploded into emotion as they heard the Easter story in Gmz for the first time. But, in reality, this was not the case. No visible tears were shed as they listened to the crucifixion scene and no shouts of joy accompanied his resurrection and ascension, not even a hum of excitement afterward. But, as I think about it, most Gmz are not very flamboyantly emotional people, so maybe the fact that the room was dead silent for the whole 11 minutes was enough reaction to confirm its importance. With further thinking I began to wonder if it would be correct of us to expect dramatic reactions to a first hearing of Scripture. More and more I am realizing that the text of Scripture is loaded with meaning and significance that, apart from the Holy Spirit’s miraculous work in a person’s mind, could never be grasped at a first hearing. As the recording flew through certain passages that Easter morning, my mind travelled back to the translation office, where ample time had allowed me to unpack the meaning and significance of these loaded texts. Without these snippets of important background information, without tying in context from elsewhere in Luke’s Gospel or Old Testament themes, I knew that this introductory presentation of Gmz Scripture was only scratching the surface of their minds and hearts. But, on the other hand, I fully believe that it will not stop there. As Gmz believers gain access to Scripture, it will continue to scratch and carve and bore its way deeper and deeper into their understanding, their values, their worldview, their character, and their lives, which will be increasingly lived out to the glory of God. What joy it brings to know that we are a part of that!

The Prodigal Joy Returns: Part 3 - Now that is Scripture Use!

It’s no real surprise that the floodgates of joy should burst open at the sight of the Scriptures coming to life in the Gmz language literally at my fingertips. However, in the midst of what felt like already overflowing joy, God had another unexpected blessing up his sleeve.

 

After three mornings in the translation office, the six of us had finished drafting all but the last three verses of Luke 15, with the first two stories (the lost sheep and lost coin) already recorded and edited into an audio version. As the clock struck noon that first Wednesday, I thanked them again for their hard work adding “See you all again at 10 o’clock (that’s 4pm for us) for the teaching class.” You see, along with the excitement of translation beginning, a major change was happening within the church. Up until this time, the sermon had always been given by one of the non-Gmz men who work in Larry’s education project. Now, seven years after the original church plant, it was decided that it was time for the young Gmz men to step up into this teaching role. With fear and trembling, they agreed and Larry and I scheduled our first training that Wednesday afternoon.

 

Like many things, planning for that meeting unfortunately didn’t happen much in advance. By that I mean, I wandered over to Larry’s house after lunch and casually asked, “So what do you have planned for today’s training?” His response was confident and totally serious, “Well, I am going to welcome everyone and then turn it over to you.” Woah horsey! I’m leading the whole thing? I was surprised because for the last 6-7 months, Larry had been leading Wednesday afternoon meetings for this same group of Gmz guys who had requested training in how to share their faith. And now, just like that, he was handing the reigns over to me? Then again, it made sense. I have the education credentials for it, while Larry is a veterinarian, yet very capable in handling the Scriptures. I have the language training to better communicate in (it’s a long story, but Larry and his wife studied another Ethiopian language instead of Amharic before coming to Gesas.). And lastly, I had been spending the last three mornings wrestling with the Gmz translation and was therefore best prepared to lead an exegetical discussion on the chosen passage.  With renewed excitement, I ran home to print off Luke 15:1-7 - the Parable of the Lost Sheep.

 

As if it was Satan’s last lame attempt to delay the inevitable, a HUGE thunderstorm rolled in right at 4pm as I was printing off my final materials. Wind-whipped sheets of rain soon made the path between my house and the church building into a river so I decided to wait – knowing that no teaching could be done under the deafening sound of rain pounding on the church’s tin roof. At 4:15, the rain still hadn’t let up, but I was too excited to stay home any longer. I ran for it, soon busting through the door of the church, wet to the skin but grinning from ear to ear! When the rain finally slowed enough to allow voices to be heard within the church, we began the meeting.

 

Now, what took place over the next hour was nothing short of a blessing from God. Larry fulfilled his role beautifully and soon I was in the driver’s seat. A few of the non-Gmz preachers had come to the meeting and so I started by asking them how they prepare for giving messages. Each of them mentioned the two most important things I wanted to hear: prayer and study of the Word. This lead into me hammering the point that preaching cannot be done without praying for the Holy Spirit’s help. And second, preaching cannot be done without knowing the Scripture to be preached, and knowing it well!

 From there, we transitioned into the text I had chosen and together listened to the recorded version of Luke 15:1-7. Then I asked a few questions and we listened again. From that point on, things went really, really well. As we discussed the story, we discovered some excellent Truths about God and about ourselves, both of which we could apply to our lives - in other words, an exegetically-based lesson for one of the young men to preach that coming Sunday. And that is what happened. Not only do I have joy in the privilege of seeing the text of Gmz Scripture born at my fingertips, but I also have amazing joy in the privilege of seeing that same Scripture come alive in the minds of the Gmz believers as together we unpack its Truths to be taught each Sunday.

 

My favorite linguistic class at the graduate level was a class called “Scripture Use Methods.” This class opened up my mind to the fact that Bible translation is far more than writing words on a page. It also includes breaking down the many potential barriers that stand between these life-giving words and the minds of the people who need them. Well, in this case, slightly damped by the rain, yet still literally hot-off-the-press of my inkjet printer, Scripture Use was happening in the Gesas church. And I praise God for giving me the enormous privilege of being a part of it. My joy, again, is made complete!

 

The Prodigal Joy Returns: Part 2 - The Answer Twelve Years in the Making

With my guarded nervousness settling into a suppressed excitement, I and my five Gmz co-translators entered the translation office and sat down together for the very first time. I glanced at my clock – 8:28am – two minutes early. I shook my head in amazement and launched into the agenda I had rehearsed over and over again in my mind. Are there any questions about this work? The hours? The pay? Etc. Nothing. I thanked them for coming on time and explained to them that I needed that to continue. In fact, although 8:30-noon is only 3.5 hours, I said that if they arrived before the 8:30am opening prayer and stayed until noon, I would pay them for a full 4 hours of work. They nodded with understanding so I continued, “This is God’s work, therefore, every morning we must begin with genuine prayer for God’s help. Without his help, we will never succeed.” No convincing was needed here and I soon had a volunteer to join me in opening our work with prayer.

 

Remembering the next item on the agenda, I introduced our tools: the English Bible, the Amharic New Testament, the Greek New Testament and the published New Testament in a different dialect of Gmz. In the discussion that followed I learned that they all shared the idea that the Bible was originally written in Amharic. This extended my introduction of the Greek New Testament as I explained why I would frequently be referring back to and giving priority to this one. We then talked about another major world religion that does not allow their Scriptures to be translated into any other language. In contrast, we talked about how the God of the Bible is different and that he wants everybody to be able to understand his message in their own mother-tongue. It’s always exciting for me to teach and re-teach these Truths, for they are the basis upon which we have dedicated our career in serving God.

 

When I sensed their understanding of the written tools we would be using, I turned their attention to the computer screen, and specifically the computer program called “Adapt It.” This program, developed by the organization we belong to, was specifically designed to assist and speed up translation projects where there already is a published translation in a related language/dialect. I showed them the simple layout where each word from the “other” Gmz New Testament has a blank box underneath it where we can add the correct word in our dialect. Then I showed them how the next time the program encounters that same word, the translation is automatically inserted into the blank box. So, the more data that gets inputted, the larger the database grows and the faster that translation snowball gets rolling (no I did not use the snowball analogy with them!).

 

With all the introductions behind us, we finally turned to the text of Scripture. I explained that the opening story in the Gospel of Luke was a difficult story to translate. Those of you blog-nuts who would ace the TAW blog trivia game surely remember the blog last November entitled “Crash and Burn…Rookie” in which my first attempt at Scripture-based story translation was a total disaster partially due to the difficulty of the Zechariah story, the same story found in Luke chapter 1. Not wanting to repeat that failure, I opted to begin with a much easier passage: Luke 15 with its nice parables of the lost sheep, lost coin and lost (or prodigal) son. The decision turned out to be a good one as we launched into the text for the first time as translators.

 

Now I could give you a play-by-play of every discussion we had revolving around every word in the original text versus the translated text, and some of you fellow-nerds would actually enjoy that, but I will spare the rest of you such detail. As we labored through the verses, learning the best team strategies as we went, I was amazed by several things. First, it was eye-opening to see how little the published Gmz New Testament actually communicated to the Gmz speakers in the area where we live. Sure, they could understand some words, but there were very few sentences that they could accurately translate without me first telling them what it was supposed to mean. In fact, at the end of the day, when I looked back over the boxes now filled in with our first seven verses of translated Scripture, less than 10% of the words remained the same from the other Gmz dialect. So my first real brushes with the language variation left me all-the-more convinced of the need for this second translation. Second, I was amazed at the ease of the computer program and even within the first few verses I began to see it work its magic by suggesting translations for previously dealt-with words. Finally, I was surprised that despite it being slow-going, tedious and mentally challenging work, it was also a LOT of fun to see the guys interact (a.k.a. argue) over difficult concepts and preferred wording and then at the end of the discussion to see an agreed-upon product saved into the computer.

 

As time was winding down, we found ourselves faced with our most difficult verse of the day, Luke 15:7 “I tell you that in the same way (as the happy sheep owner) there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” Two comparative adjectives (‘same way’ and ‘more’), two relative clauses (‘sinner who repents’ and ‘persons who do not…’), five key Biblical terms (‘rejoice,’ ‘heaven,’ ‘sinner,’ ‘repent,’ and ‘righteous’) and a difficult ‘obligation’ construction that I have not yet found in Gmz (‘need to…’). We had encountered problems earlier in the day, but this was our first Goliath verse. Without building unrealistic hopes of finishing it that day, I plowed into an explanation of all that was happening in this sentence. Upon finishing, I threw the ball into their court to begin reconstructing these ideas in the Gmz language. Despite mental fatigue that accompanied the very end of their first day of work, these first young men surprised me by quickly discussing it and coming up with what appeared to me as two complete sentences, encompassing all that I had asked for. Just as the clock struck noon, I saved our first Goliath verse into the computer where it would wait for further review first thing the next morning. With an uncontrollable full-toothed smile, I thanked my co-translators for their hard work that day and we soon headed out into the blinding sunlight.

 

Maybe it was beginners luck, maybe it was the rose-colored perspective of a novice, or maybe it was simply a gift from God, but that first day in the translation office was enough to make me as giddy as an infatuated schoolboy. Seriously, I must have looked silly as I walked home from the office that day with a HUGE grin on my face and a noticeable bounce in my step. Still filled with excitement, I sat down for lunch with Andrea and Micah (I love it when I arrive home and lunch is on the table! Am I spoiled or what?). Sparking up conversation, I casually asked, “So what did you do this morning?” To which Andrea began, “Well, we visited the chickens for a bit and then we went for a walk to see…” I tried to listen to my wife’s response, but my ears gradually tuned out as my eyes began to fill with tears. Unconsciously, my mind had apparently overheard my question to Andrea and mistakenly thought IT was being addressed. “What did you do this morning?” “I translated Scripture into the Gmz language.” It was true…really true and the power and depth of that true statement was astounding – like a sudden downpour of joy in my innermost being. No longer was I studying linguistics at Moody, no longer was I gaining ministry and life experience at Campus Life, no longer was I studying theology and graduate-level linguistics in Dallas, no longer were we in the Wycliffe application phase, the “partnership development” phase, the field orientation phase, the Amharic learning phase, the waiting phase for Micah’s birth, the Gmz language learning phase, the work permit renewal phase or the delay for unrest in our work area phase nor ANY OTHER phase we had encountered in our long road of preparation for Bible translation. No, for the first time in my life, I could honestly respond to this causal question “What did you do this morning?” with the very answer that my heart had longed to give since its specific calling to Bible translation more than 12 years ago: “This morning, I translated Scripture into the Gmz language.” I have waited twelve years to be able to say that, and the joy that comes along with it, makes it exponentially worth the wait.