A Plethora of Papaya

We need your help! The Catholic sister's compound on which we live is also the home to some three dozen papaya trees, all of which right now are bearing the weight of a bountiful papaya harvest. That means with 35+ trees, each holding 20-30 papayas, we are under attack with the threat of as many as 1,000 fruity bombs looming over our heads. And despite a steady diet of papaya for breakfast, and papaya smoothies for snack, and papaya popsicles in the afternoon heat, we are not keeping up with the harvest. So calling all papaya lovers, we need your help!

 

The Truth Be Told

I never realized that sending Christmas greetings could be so fun! In the end, it isn't much, a picture of our family with less than a dozen words of well wishing, but it’s the opportunity for creativity that gets my wheels spinning. Especially in this age of photoshop-ed masterpieces, the skies are the limit as to what absurd posses I can place my family in, and all, none-the-less with perfect smiles.

So yes, mom, the truth be told, our Christmas Greetings sent this year, was in fact a farce as usual. But, your straight-faced email did get Andrea's goat, when after reading:

“We got your Christmas card.  Actually, Derek (that is, my older brother) got his before we did, so we saw it there over the weekend first.  We got ours just yesterday.  So darn cute!!!!!!!  Very creative!!!   And good pictures of everyone.  Derek thought you photo shopped it, but it is obvious that it is the real thing.  We were very impressed with how strong Lumi has gotten.  Nice that you got to revisit Kili again too.”

...she said to me, “I can't tell if you mom is joking or serious.” Hee hee…good one!

No the photo was not taken in Tanzania, instead we built our “mountain” on the nice green grass of our good friend's backyard lawn.

And no, Lumi is not the world's strongest and most well balanced 9-month-old baby, rather her flawless pose was achieved with a little bit of help.

And of course, Lumi's proclamation of Jesus' birth, wouldn't quite have the force it needed without a clenched fist to drive home her point. So we simply lopped off her original hand an replaced with with another. 

Getting her on top of the mountain was no balancing act, indeed. Rather just a simple cut and paste.

 Then I didn't feel like the banana trees in the background would complement the idea of summiting a mountain, so, removing the backdrop…

I brought Kilimanjaro right into Addis Ababa, Ethiopia!

Lastly, adding our message and walah, we head to the printers.

For those of you who received it, we hope you enjoyed our Christmas card again this year. We appreciate your love and support! For those who aren't on our Christmas card list but would like to be, just shoot me an email and we'll add you for next year.

2014 - The Sweetness of God's Love

2013 - Birthday Party for Jesus

2012 - Family Pic - (Where's Waldo Style)

2011 - Rudolf Competition

2010 - Unto Us A Son Is Given

A Timely Dose of Secomaidezole Corinthacilin

As mentioned in the previous post, our two months in Addis Ababa left my heart feeling quite detached from the passion and joy I know I ought to have working day in and day out deep in God's Word. And while the recording of Luke and Acts was a brush with this joy during an otherwise 7 weeks of battling discouragement - Consultant checks, administrative headaches, truck problems, and others - we looked forward to hitting a restart button with our move back down-country among the  Gmz.

 

But not so fast, the day before our departure, while enjoying lunch with a friend at a restaurant, someone decided that their heavy duty wire cutters entitled them to "borrow" the spare tire we had locked underneath the truck. Grr… We have a second spare tire at our down-country home, but we'd have to drive the 11-hour journey without it, which is not recommended in a country whose gravel seems to have a 6-to-1 ratio of stones to nails! Do we delay our plans? Nah, tired of Addis, we decided to go for it.

 

Along the way in our newly fixed truck, we weren't very thrilled when we hit a bump and the engine cut. Turns out the negative battery lead jumped off the terminal - Apparently the mechanic had cleaned and scrubbed the battery terminals to the point that the clamps, though tightened all the way, no longer grip the terminals anymore...GRRR. Thankfully, it was an easy road-side fix allowing us to continue on our way, but now, likely as a result of the jolt to the engine, we have an electrical problem with our glow plug switch. Not exactly the breath of fresh air my already struggling attitude needed.

 

My symptoms? Well, there was the elevated temperature of negativity, sensitivity to annoyance, mild anxiety, with frequent spells of bad attitude, especially in the evenings. I went and saw the “Great Physician” and it seems he has since prescribed just the exact medicine I needed: Secomaidezole Corinthacilin, more commonly known on the street as Second Corinthians.

 

But, when the dust finally settled in our Gilgel home and I was able to return to the office with the translators, God's grace was renewed each morning by a truly refreshing look into his Word. Whereas the end of the translation process (the consultant check) is the most wearing on my passion, the first step (drafting new texts) is by far the most exciting! I get to look at these texts of Scripture for the first time through Gmz eyes! But, even more than that, we were drafting some of my favorite texts from one of my favorite books of the Bible. 2 Corinthians is the book where Paul bears his soul most openly: the hurt he feels at the Corinthians showing some measure of allegiance to false apostles who puff themselves up and peddle the Word of God for money; his enduring love he has for the Corinthians despite the conflict; a strong yet humble defense of his apostleship; and the foolishness of boasting in anything other than Christ. My hermeneutics class at Moody, focused entirely on unpacking this letter, helped me see the power of understanding Scripture in light of its historical context, and in doing so, drove this book, in particular, deep into my heart!

 

And now, 15 years later, in an office some 7,500 miles away, I have the privilege of re-experiencing Paul's heart with our Gmz friends and co-workers: Being led in Christ's triumphal procession, being the aroma of Christ, God's shocking grace shown in placing the treasure of the gospel in mere jars of clay, the anticipation of the judgment seat (bema) of Christ, and high calling as ambassadors of Christ to hold out the message of reconciliation, and on and on… There is so much gold to be panned out of this letter, it is my prayer that our translation has done it justice, and that the Holy Spirit equips the minds and hearts of Gmz pastors and evangelists to grasp and share its great wealth.

 

Fighting a Heart Detached

I'm having to remind myself that I have the best job ever. I get to live and work in God's Word day after day, studying, learning and experiencing the texts of Scripture afresh along with three colleagues who are hearing much of it for the first time! However, sadly, I have to keep reminding myself of this because without fail, a couple times a year, my heart manages to lose perspective. Honestly, there is never any lack of discouraging factors involved in the Bible translation, upon which if I choose to focus, quickly take the wind out of my sails. It may be interpersonal conflict between team members, it may be competing priorities which disrupt an already tightly-packed schedule, it may be heated translation arguments over what I view as non-issues (the minute pronunciation of a word), or it may be an insistence upon conformity to the old King James-ish version in Amharic, despite all modern scholarship pointing in a different direction. It could be anything, really, that causes my heart to detach, and often it is hard to pin-point just one trigger.

So it was during the 7 week stay we had in Addis Ababa from early October to mid November, more than half of which found the Gmz team and I shielding ourselves from the bombardment of questions from consultants as we checked Mark, James, 1 Corinthians, 1&2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. Consultant checks are always hard for me. It's humbling to have someone point out mistakes we've made and have to wrestle with making changes on the spot. It's frustrating to see how much of our time with the consultant is spent trying to convince him/her of something about the Gmz language and culture which warrants the translation we had chosen and it’s frustrating to see, given how little he/she knows of the Gmz language and culture, how powerless he/she is to offer helpful suggestions. It's scary to see heated arguments get opened up again just as their wounds are starting to heal from our last check. And it's disappointing when either the consultant takes a stand much too strong, forcing a change that my eyes see as for the worse (ie. ‘remaining possessions’ instead of ‘excess wealth’ in Luke 21:4) or he/she takes too light of a stand and approves a translation that I strongly advise against (ie. the creation narrative stating that we were made is God's physical, bodily image). All of this leads me to a proper understanding of my role, that of an advisor, not a final decision-maker.

In having lunch with a colleague late in those 7 weeks and venting about all of this, he asked me, “What does all of this do to your passion toward the work? Does it make you want to dig in more? Or to disengage?” Sadly, it's much more often the later. But not exclusively. In those challenging weeks, God did not leave me without moments of real joy, one of which shines in my memory above the rest.

It occurred on a Friday and Saturday at the end of my busiest week in months. While I had been planning and leading the Executive Committee and a couple of Director handover events, the Gmz guys had been in the sound booth recording our texts of Luke and Acts for oral publication. As I was able, I poked  my head in to hear the reports, which sadly were not all positive. Heated arguments over pronunciation, low reading ability, stuttering, all of which was putting the pace behind schedule. Finally, Friday afternoon and all-day Saturday, I was able to add my efforts to the equation in the hopes of finishing our goals. As I read each phrase out loud, Worku spoke them into the microphone, Thomas listened and read along for accuracy, while Janey sat in another room reviewing the previous session's work. We were running through chapters as fast as we could, and yet two thoughts struck me deep down: the first was somewhere along the lines of “This is it. This recording is the form of publication that the Gmz people are going to access. The extremely low literacy rate make oral distribution a much better means than written and so here we were putting the metaphorical ink of sound bytes down on the invisible paper of electronic files. It’s the final watering of the seed we hope to see spring to life in the Gmz church.” 

The second thought I had was more personal. Sure, I had read these passages of Acts many, many times before. The Gmz guys and I had gone through each verse no less than 8 times in the last two years. And yet, to hear my own voice read them out loud, phrase by phrase, and then to hear Worku speak it with clarity and passion, they hit me at a new level. Peter's vision of unclean animals revealing God's acceptance of all people, both Jews and Gentiles – God's choice of Saul to become Paul and Ananias' faithfulness and trust to be a part of that conversion process – Paul's hardship wherever he turned and yet his unwavering faith which even steered the ship and its crew through a very real life-and-death situation. The book of Acts really is a special book, unlike any other as it records the narrative of how Christ, through the Holy Spirit, led and spread the infant church during those challenging, yet triumphant early years! It’s a testimony of which we ought never grow tired.

Giving Thanks Together

American holidays in Ethiopia are always a bit different, but we still manage to turn out something special. Our plans for Thanksgiving this year changed a couple times as we invited our American/Canadian colleagues with whom we had lived in Gesas to come to up to our new home in Gilgel Beles. However, as the holiday drew nearer, it became obvious that the timing wasn't right, and so, late Tuesday night, Andrea and I hatched a new plan. We'll buy two chickens and a whole mess of veggies in Wednesday's market. Then, we'll ask the Catholic sisters to prepare one chicken in the traditional Ethiopia most special dish – Doro Wot (chicken stew) with Injera. Then, we will bake the other chicken with veggies, and serve it foreigner style with bread. Topping it all off with the Ethiopia coffee ceremony – with a little pumpkin slipped in for good measure.

 And so, Thanksgiving morning, as the translators and I drafted 2 Corinthians 9-10, the sisters, Andrea and the kids all pitched in to prepare a feast! At noon, two Gmz translators and their wives sat along the left edge of our table, while Father Balini (from Italy) and Father Quim (from Portugal) sat opposite us and the three sisters (all from Southern Ethiopia) rounded the corner toward our right. Before the meal, we all gave thanks, mostly for the unity of Spirit we had represented in the room. Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox; American, European, and African…we ate together in thanks to God who has bless us all so richly in his Son Jesus Christ!

Praising God for Truck Problems?

Yes, it's true, there was certain smile on my face and bounce in my step the whole day after seeing our truck loaded on top of a flatbed trailer and hauled off to a mechanic who had just told me 15-20 days would be needed to tear into the whole engine. I know what you're thinking, “Who in their right mind…?” Well, you have to know that this was, in a sense exactly what I prayed for.

 

Starting a month or two back, we began having some troubles with the truck, especially with rough idling on cold starts. Internet research led me to many possible problems, most of which were extremely minor and no need for concern. However, driving into the capital city in late September, I specifically prayed, “Lord get us safely to Addis Ababa, and then if this is a major issue that needs attention, please make that obviously clear early in our seven week stay.”

 

Now in Addis, I don't drive the truck very much, Andrea needs it to run errands, and doctor appointments, and getting Micah to and from school on days he is allowed to attend. And so for a week and a half, I didn't so much as touch our vehicle until one Friday morning. On that particular day, I was hoping to bring a bunch of baby clothes to the office to pass them onto a colleague who recently welcomed their first child. I started the truck, gave it a minute to warm up beyond the ugly idle and then started down our cobblestone road. Less than a block away, there was a loud crack from the engine and the terrible noise that followed, alerting me that my plans for the day had just changed. I limped the truck back home and called the mechanic, who quite quickly identified the noise as a bad bearing on a connecting rod inside the engine cylinder.

 

I praise God that he send a noise we couldn't ignore, not leaving me wondering.

I praise God that it happened in Addis Ababa, not down-country among the Gumuz.

I praise God that it was so close to our house, not in the middle of a busy intersection where everybody gathers the "help."

I praise God that I was the one driving it, not Andrea with her backseat full of kids.

I praise God that no appointments or school days were missed in the incident, all I had to do was make a simple phone call, “Hey, truck problems, start without me, I'll be in as soon I can.”

 

Since that day, now two weeks have passed, I've been impressed with the mechanic, who promised that he alone would do the work, unlike the common practice of qualified mechanics who open a shop, and hire of force of young minions to actually do the work. Praise God! I'm thankful that he works under a "replace only what needs to be replaced" policy, unlike the common practice of gouging customers by requiring the replacement of lightly used parts which if not claimed can be resold for extra profit. Praise God! I am also thankful that the total bill looks like it will come down to around $1,000, which is definitely manageable in our truck budget for the year! Praise God!

 

With “Praise Gods” all around, what is there to be upset about? Sure, we could worry about the future, and let anxiety and fear steal precious hours of sleep each night – “What if this guy overlooks or forgets something in putting the great mechanical puzzle back together?” But just as God is the Great Physician, so also, I see him as the Great Mechanic, able, if he wills it, to guide the hands of our “truck doctor” with His standard of perfection. It is in Him we trust.

 

This Is Our Descendent

As we did after our furlough in 2012, we would like to post the script from the short presentation we gave in churches while in the States earlier this year for Lumi's arrival. It serves as a means of archiving it for future reference as well as sharing it with those partners with whom we were not able to connect this time through. So imagine yourself, sitting in your church's pew, having just sung your favorite praise chorus and up walks a tall lanky guy in white khaki pants and a green sweater (I wore the same thing to every church). For a yet unknown reason, he is carrying a baby car seat…hmmm…nursery workers out on strike? We'll have to see…

 "Ziyaala, nakataama nalaDaawit duupok'w Etambidok'wa ká-aça. Ahamaakwe Kristos, Etagirba." Amen? Amen! 

It really is a privilege for us to be here to share what the Lord has been doing among the Gmz people in and through the translation of his Word. Andrea, Micah, Grace and I have the privilege of front row seats on the action, but we also have the privilege of sharing what we see from that vantage point with all the partners that make this work possible – including you, as your financial gifts, prayers support and general love for us sustains both us and the work we are involved in. And for that we say thank you.

 But not only us, on our last afternoon in Ethiopia, I left the office at about 3pm, but not without saying my goodbyes to the Gmz translators, Thomas, Janey and Worku. "Have a good flight, tell Micah and Grace that we will miss them, enjoy your families and your foods in America, come back fattened up for the slaughter" - as you can see I’m coming along nicely on that one (and I did too – I brought back 10 extra lbs!). The farewells and well wishes when on for several minutes before they changed the subject to something that was obviously on their hearts. Janey looked directly at me with a huge smile on his face, yet an expression complete seriousness…"Çakáaam obatsa-daaŋgeya, obatsa-maaŋgahiila hiii káb'aga kákooma kálaadagaf akwa nagaaha nala!" The other two translators joined in, "Ŋgishaam kámaahamaama, dilafarok'w s'ee-Misa kacanaka kámaañja-matab'atsa alamaama." Sending me off with this solemn charge – "Give a big greeting and a FAT thank you to all the people who support us in this work. Tell them, we raise up the name of God because of their help!"

And so, on behalf of the Gmz church, I bring you their sincere expressions of gratitude, "Naaç aMisa guuta ká-aça," May God give blessing to each of you!

One day in the translation office, checking chapter 8 of Acts, we encountered a rhetorical question, lamenting the Messiah's life cut short, the NIV says, "In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth." I knew that I needed to test the meaning of this rhetorical question, “Who can speak of his descendants?”

So I sat back in my chair and looked at my co-workers; all of them are in their mid-twenties. Work'u married just two years ago, Janey married a few months prior, and Thomas was eagerly counting the final days until his own wedding. Knowing that none of them had any children yet, and wanting to make sure this story's statement of lament was communicating clearly, I asked a two-fold question, “First of all, what does this question mean when a Gmz person reads it?” Their response was clear, “Not having children means he had nothing to leave behind; he planted fields, harvested grain, ate it year after year until finally he died; his life had no meaning beyond that…” “So,” I continued, “if one of you dies before your wives give birth, could this same statement be said about you?” They nodded their heads in silence. But after a moment, Thomas sat straight up in his chair and, with astonishing insight, pointed at the computer screen in front of us. “No!” he said, “This is our descendent!”

 Oh how right he was! In translating God's Word into his mother tongue, he and Worku and Janey are leaving a legacy not only in this generation, but in the generations to come. By producing some of the first literature in Gmz, we are shaping and standardizing the language in spelling, grammar and vocabulary. In hashing out difficult concepts we are learning together what the Biblical text is saying and what that looks like within the Gmz worldview. In producing the final product of Scripture in ink on paper or in sound files on mobile phones, we are giving the Gmz people access to the very same message that has changed and continues to change the lives of each of us in this room. In translating God's Word, Thomas, Janey and Worku are giving birth to a legacy that will extend beyond themselves, doubtlessly into eternity.

Now in Gmz culture, women traditionally have given birth to their children alone, often working "life as normal" through the contractions until the final time comes, at which point they go off into the woods by themselves, do their thing and come back…with a baby. The new father's role is to wait impatiently at home for their arrival.

And so, probably stretching this birthing analogy way beyond the allowable limits, YOU have been that father in waiting. My family and I, as midwives in the project, have gone into the woods and given our helping hands in bringing into life God's Word in the Gmz language. I now, in returning home, count it my privilege to present to you on behalf of the Gmz translation team the fruit of our labor together with your faithful prayers and support, (reaching into the baby carrier and pulling out two booklets…) our children and yours: Luke and his twin brother Acts.

 And so for the first time this past Christmas, the Gmz believers heard the words with which I began this morning, "Ziyaala, nakataama nalaDaawit duupok'w Etambidok'wa ká-aça. Ahamaakwe Kristos, Etagirba." Today, in the city of David was born for you a Savior, He is Christ, the Lord. And again I ask, Amen? Amen!

The work of Bible translation is unique among most other forms of ministry in that the initial goal is easily defined and progress toward that goal is easily measured in verses translated. Luke and his brother Acts contain 2158 verses out of the nearly 8000 in the New Testament. Or in other words, more than 27% of the NT is now completely finished. 

But there's more, we're expecting again!  This time it looks like septuplets as James, 1&2 Thessalonians, 1&2 Timothy, Titus, and the runt of the litter Philemon are on the verge of completion. Praise God with us for He is accomplishing his work through our efforts and again we say thank you for your partnership in bringing the message of new life into the Gmz villages of Western Ethiopia. 

Please continue to pray for these little guys, that the Truth contained in them would not remain on the page, but rather wriggle its way into the hearts and lives of the Gmz people, leading us together in the celebration of new life!

The More I Learn...The Less I Know

"The more I learn, the less I know." This was the feeling I had a couple weeks ago when Andrea and I attended the homeschool conference held at the International school where Micah is enrolled. Ok so the statement isn't exactly true in relation to the actual quantity of knowledge stored on my mental hard drive, but it is true when viewed from the perspective of my expanding worldview. By that I mean, many times, exposure to new information opens the realization of my basic ignorance in a given subject. So, when I attend a conference in a field like children's education, I am exposed to a whole set of knowledge, most of which is completely foreign to me. As I listen to the statements made by the presenters and the TED talk video clips we watched, I am blown away as if two tidal waves simultaneously collide on my head, that is the first wave of "This is REALLY, REALLY important stuff!" and the second wave of "Travis you know NEXT TO NOTHING in this field!"

 

I imagine my mind like a huge dimly-lit library. While there are certain sections of the library where the shelves are asked to carry a decent weight in books, but peering down the "Philosophy of Education" stack, or the "Child Development" section, I find the equivalent of only a few flimsy paperbacks thrown haphazardly on the shelf, beyond which I see an endless surface begging to exchange its accumulated dust for real books of knowledge in these fields. Wow, to learn how the mind collects and organizes data…that's fascinating. How amazing it would be to understand the boundary between realistic expectations on a child's developing mind and on the other, pushing him/her to go beyond the basics? I'd love to be able to see the perfect balance between divergent thinking and conformity to a standard. Oh, and the creativity required to inspire artistically-minded children in black-and-white subjects like Math! While exciting, for sure, at the same time, I find it profoundly discouraging. There is much I don’t understand, in fact, I don't even feel I have the tools to process through the subject. I find that the piddley few things I've picked up in my 35 years until now don't even allow me, I feel, engagement into the conversation.

 

I stumbled out of that week excited and wanting to be a part of the homeschool process with Andrea, but terrified at the sharp learning curve ahead of us if we expect to be able to do it with any level of excellence. "The more I learn…the less I know," I suppose it could be better stated, "The more I learn…the more I realize I don't know."

I Think I Can, I Think I Can…No, I Think I “Jar”

Yes, the “Little Engine That Could” is a current favorite in our household, especially with little Gracey who surely feels the impending sadness of the good little boys and girls on the other side of the mountain if the train filled with toys and treats doesn't arrive by morning. A very nice story for teaching the importance of helping others and of the power of positive thinking. I'm not sure I can appreciate the materialistic message which says the boys and girls cannot be happy without new toys and treats, but it is what it is.

As a linguist, it is my job to question why we use words in the way we use them. You know, stuff like, “If beautiful means full of beauty, why doesn't awful mean full of awe?” and “Why do motors run, but they can't walk?” and “Is the name for the social media rave Twitter somehow related to the word coined by Bambi's friend Owl – Twitterpated?

A recent area of confusion for me is the term we used for the sealing food items for storage in glass jars – canning. My definition of "can" is usually something made out of metal, not glass. Well I suppose there is the porcelain variety used at the other end of food processing, but I hardly doubt that this is what is in mind in the “canning” of meats and veggies. Am I right? If so, will you join me in a crusade for changing this process' name from canning to jarring?

My family and I have been jarring a lot lately. Having been out in the remote areas for our longest stretch ever, 13 weeks, and having had an extra mouth to feed with our summer intern, we went through nearly all of our previously jarred meats, sauces and salsas. And so, after getting settled in our Addis Ababa home, we hit the local markets, this time hauling back 27 lbs of tomatoes, 4.5 lbs onions, ½ lb of whole garlic, a generous clump of cilantro, 3 lbs of carrots, and the heavy hitter to our budget – 22 lbs of freshly slaughtered beef. This time Micah and Grace went with me to get the beef and Micah's bird's-eye view allowed him to supervise the 20-minute process of the shop owners cutting and grinding it just how we had requested.

Meanwhile Andrea and Lumi were back at home dicing up the mountain of tomatoes for spaghetti sauce and salsa. Lumi did her part by sleeping silently on mommy's back.

Grace, always happy to play with water, offered a helping hand in washing the jars, lids and collars,

 …while Micah ran the blender for the tomatoes that would be used for sauce.

Eventually, everything finds its way to the stovetop where the meat is browned, the sauce is simmered and onions and garlic are roasted for extra flavorful salsa.

The grand finale includes a batch of about 20 cans taking a hot bath in the massive "jarring" pressure cooker, where they slow cook for up to 90 minutes.

The jars then cool on the counter over night.

In the morning, we check all of the seals before packing them into their transport boxes in which they make the bumpy trip down-country.

It's a full day's work, but it can be fun as well, especially with lots of little hands helping. But more than that, one full day of jarring makes for 50-some meals greatly enhanced by either slow-cooked tender meat chunks, homemade pasta sauces or salsa made just how we like it. In our down-country house where we lack the preservation power of refrigeration, these jars made up not only the foundation of our pantry, but of our menu as well.

Appreciating Elik

Inviting interns into our home is at the same time exciting, but also a bit humbling as well. Sure, for a short time, it's not all that difficult to entertain a guest such that they get to know only your best side. But after a week or two, that not-so-glamorous side of our sin natures begins to surface: my defensive pride and tendency to withdrawal under stress, Andrea's final strands of patience running thin at the dinner table, Micah's boredom and curiosity combining forces to test boundaries, Grace's tired whine echoing throughout our house, and Lumi's persistent wails trying to alert us of teeth breaking through – and so, we apologized to Eric up front for the "real life" family he was about to experience this summer. Yea, its humbling, especially with an intern like Eric, who despite having his own space to which he could retreat (small though it was), he followed his drive for social connection by spending the majority of his evenings and free time with us. Don't hear me wrong, it wasn't that we wanted him to leave us alone, rather his presence with us, his eyes and ears ever-observing, ever-processing, ever-analyzing, whether he said anything or not, we quickly began to see ourselves through his eyes – and believe me, it wasn't always pretty. Informative, convicting, and a sanctifying tool in the Holy Spirit's hands.

 We find some comfort realizing that this character sharpening is reciprocal – in other words, over the course of a full summer, interns can't hide behind their "best-face" either. Facing the challenges of living in a cross-cultural environment, starved of English-speaking peers and dumped into the discouraging process of language learning, there is plenty of time to experience both the good and the bad days. As it was with Maateyos in 2013, so also with Eric in 2015 (or as Grace called him ‘Elik’). Humbled together, we opened our home and welcomed them into our lives, knowing that they would forever be a part of our family!

There is so much that we can appreciate about Elik. His love for people, his compassion, his strong shoulders willing to carry another's burdens, his sharp mind, his love for God's word and his thirst for knowing God and making him known, all these challenge me in areas where I feel weak. 

Recognizing ways in which our personalities differed challenged me to see the world through another set of eyes. Although I won't soon change from the task-oriented person that I am, I have a renewed passion to love and value the people through which this task is being accomplished. While I will still need solitude and non-activity to recharge after a stressful week of work, I realize how weekend activities can promote healthy engagement with local churches, shared memories with my family, and a much needed break to routine, especially for Andrea and the kids who stay at home all day, every day. And although I will likely never crave meaningful social connections as much as Elik does, I am seeing our relationships with others through a new lens, which allows me to appreciate them at a much deeper level. For all this and more that I continue to learn, I have Elik to thank. I thank him for being himself in our home: giving voice to his observations as well as to his struggles. It is through honest open communication like this that iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17).

My appreciation for Elik continues into the translation office. Despite never finding his groove in learning to speak the Gmz language (partly due to my failure to sufficiently help), Elik persevered enough to understand a fair amount of the language. It was on the basis of this understanding that he contributed to the project in a number of ways. He worked with the Gmz translators to draft a trilingual (Gumuz, Amharic, & English) children's book of the Easter story, which the translators are very excited to see in print soon. 

He transcribed edits for me at the writer's workshop with government language experts. He helped collect and analyze data, organize ideas, and format an academic paper on conditional clauses in the Gmz language. On the eve of his departure, he walked me through his work on this paper and together we reflected on how this study has already begun to inform our work and improve our translation of conditional clauses. 

Most of all, I appreciate Elik for his perseverance in wrestling against Microsoft Word in the process of formatting the texts of Scripture into three new booklets: Acts + 1&2 Thess + 1&2 Timothy/Titus/Philemon/James. 

Many of these texts have been translated for some time, but they have done the Gmz church no good sitting in our computers. Elik's formatting them into user-friendly booklets will get them into Gmz hands, heads and hearts in the very near future.

We thank you, Lord, for sending Elik into our family both as a friend and partner in the work of Bible translation. His unique personality and skill set contributed to our lives and the project in ways that were unexpected to us, yet we believe, intentionally planned in your wisdom. We pray for Elik and ask that you will continue to use his experiences with us this summer to shape him into the specialized tool you desire him to be, and guide him into the specific role you've designed him to fill…

Bird Watching

In the previous blog post, I explained the importance of friendship upon which trust is built – a trust that oils the wheels of creativity and grace much needed in the office. This friendship is built out of many different blocks, some of which are merely the hours upon hours we spend with each other in our work-related activities. Even in our most serious days, rarely does an hour go by without something happening or something being said that makes us all laugh. These last few months, we've discovered a new game for us to enjoy together – bird watching.

 

The sun beats down pretty hard on Gilgel Beles, and unfortunately, the city's location on the gentle slope down toward Sudan, doesn't afford it much of a breeze. Stale heat, as we have come to learn, has very little to speak well of and when the three translators and I crowd around one laptop screen for a team check, our collective body heat cranks the degree of uncomfortability up another few notches (not to mention an unfriendly aroma surpassed only by that of a Friday night locker room). Oh well, I guess it's all a matter of perspective, as many of our Scandinavian colleagues would say that our "sauna" office is lacking several degrees of heat, a whole lot of humidity and definitely the freedom of self-exposure! In other words…it could be a whole lot worse!

 

Early in the project we requested and received a "ventilator" for the office - that is, a fan. And so, on days where there is electricity, it is not uncommon for us to set the fan on oscillate and circulate our stench around the room for all to enjoy. Believe me, the dry mouth and itchy eyes that follow an afternoon drinking in the breeze are well worth the exchange.

 

However, it doesn't take living over here long, before one learns that electricity is not something to take for granted. A day without at least one power outage would be news-worthy around the dinner table. A week without at least one powerless day is a true blessing from heaven. All that to say, we've learned to appreciate the "ventilation" when we have it. For when it is gone, the best we can do is leave our doors and windows wide open and pray for a  low pressure system to blow through.

 

Working with our doors and windows open, however, has recently added a new dimension to our work. You see, when we first moved to Gilgel Beles in May, Micah was desperately wanting a pet. He had a tortoise for a couple days until one day it bolted into the tall grass and disappeared. He had a tree frog for some time, but without finding what it wanted to eat, and with its evening croaks getting quieter and quieter, we decided to let it go to live the happy, free life. He has captured plenty of snails, but they haven't turned out to be very exciting pets.

 

Then one day, as the Gmz translators, Eric and I were hard at work in the translation office, we had an unexpected visitor – a tiny little bird flew in through our open door and instead of choosing the straight shot out the window on the other side of the room, he decided to take a pit stop on the curtain rod. Ah yes, Micah would love to have a bird, I thought as our work quickly took a backseat. The translators and I got up and quietly closed the windows and door. Then, after a short chase and with the help of the window curtain, we trapped that little bird live and boxed him up for the short trip home that evening.

 

Needless to say, Micah was thrilled to have a tiny little bird all of his own. We carefully took him out of the box and for all of about 2 minutes Micah was in pet-owner heaven. But as I searched for a suitable box we could turn into a permanent cage, a sudden gasp caught my attention and I turned just in time to see the bird shoot out the window and up into the sky. One very happy bird made for one very sad boy.

 

The next day at the office, the translators asked about Micah and his new friend. They laughed to hear how happy Micah was to doddle over his new pet, but they laughed even harder to hear how the bird escaped his grasp and darted straight out the window. But, when their laughter subsided, they returned to seriousness, saying, “Just you wait, the next bird that flies in here…we'll get him for Micah. Just you wait!”

 

And, ever since then, we have been on a mission. And so, once a month or so when a bird happens to visit us in the office, all mayhem breaks loose as all of us spontaneously jump off our chairs, and scramble toward the doors and windows with all-out shouts of excitement. Thus far, we've yet to get all the windows closed before our frazzled and panicky visitors find an open one, but that doesn't dampen our enthusiasm and anticipation of the next one. I never knew bird watching could be this fun, for whatever reason, I always thought it was people just walking around looking at birds from afar. Boy was I wrong. I love having fun with the Gmz translators. I love the memories, the inside jokes that come out of things like this. They are the glue of friendship. Now if we can just find a way to tame that birding excitement after each hunt, so as to concentrate again on our other mission, Bible translation…

Investing in Relationship

One thing we learned early on in life here in Ethiopia is that everything in life is built on the foundation of relationships. A forgotten greeting in the office can cause a major disturbance in that day's work. Written contracts provide no security over a good relationship with our landlords. Even shopping for fruits and vegetables, the relationship between vendor and patron is very important. So also, in the translation office, the first several months of translation were very difficult. Why? Because I quickly learned that without the relationship nurtured outside the office, it was nearly impossible to build an attitude of mutual trust. And without trust, especially given the ecumenical diversity in our project, the work cannot move forward!

 For this reason, I am always on the lookout for ways to invest in the personal lives of the Gumuz translators. Early on, we found every excuse to share a meal at a local restaurant. We made a point of inviting them over to our house whenever we were together in Addis Ababa. During breaks in the normal work day, I'd often find a way to pass the time together, sometimes playing simple games like "Let's see who can throw the fewest number of rocks before hitting that tree!" and "Nah, you got lucky, I bet you can't do it again!"

The most recent investment into our relationship as a translation team was the biggest by far: a "guys only" trip to the famous rock-hewn Orthodox churches of Lalibela. Andrea and I had seen them before, BC (before children ), but when our summer intern, Eric, expressed interest in visiting them, I birthed the idea of a translator's retreat, not too much unlike the team-building retreats that I enjoyed back in my youth ministry days.

The churches - they truly are something to behold. Full size churches, 900 years old, chipped out of rock, some cut straight down into the earth. Many of them are monolithic structures, literally meaning "one rock", these places of worship were chiseled out of a single section of bedrock. Much to the disappointment of all you amateur geologists out there, I don't remember the name of the type of rock, but I do remember the guide saying that it is a volcanic rock which gets stronger the deeper one digs into it. And I suppose that makes sense as these pillars have been holding the incredible weight of a rock roof for many centuries.

For Thomas, the Gmz translator from the Orthodox church, this trip was somewhat of a pilgrimage as Lalibela is very much a holy site in Orthodox Christianity. 

For the rest of us, we couldn't help but be awestruck at the magnitude of such a project. One church, St. George's, is the crown jewel of the collection. According to the records, it took more than 30,000 professional stone-cutting craftsmen a full 23 years to complete!

St. George's from above

St. George's from below

And that is just one church among the 11 rock-hewn churches made on that hillside. Why were they made? King Lalibela was both a king and a devout priest. He made a trip to Jerusalem to visit the holy sites, which turned out to be an incredibly moving experience for him. Many Ethiopian Christians of that day attempted such a pilgrimage, but unfortunately, unrest between Christians and Muslims put these pilgrims in great danger along the way, some of whom never returned. King Lalibela wanted to make a holy site on Ethiopian soil, thus naming some of the buildings after holy sites in Israel – Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Golgotha, etc.

Having taken the cheapest and roughest public transportation to get to Lalibela, we were way under my initial budget thoughts, and not looking forward to another 10+ hour day of bus travel in leaving Lalibela, 

Cramped quarters inside public transportation

I poked my head into the Ethiopian airlines office just off the main drag in Lalibela town. I had always heard that Ethiopian citizens and legal residents in Ethiopia receive discounted prices on domestic plane tickets, but I didn't know just how discounted. It turned out, we could exchange that long exhausting day in a series of buses for a 25 minute plane trip for a whopping $30 a person. 

Plus, taking the plane would allow us to see another famous site in Ethiopia – the king's palace compound in Gondar (not quite the Lord of the Rings, but still pretty cool).

All in all, our 5-day excursion proved to be an unforgettable experience for all of us. Eric really enjoyed seeing the country and some of its historical sites, and of course getting to know the Gmz translators a bit better. Micah loved being with the "big boys" and having a whole lot of daddy time.

With the hum of an engine, Micah can sleep almost anywhere.

Of course, he was happy to see Mom and his sisters when we returned, but that didn't stop him from expressing his true feeling, "Mom, I wish I wasn't home yet. I wish we were still on our trip." I and the Gmz translators were happy to be home, but thankful for the experience of travelling together. You see, we've learned that our mutual trust and cooperation inside the translation office is directly correlated with the strength of our friendship in our everyday lives. 

It is my prayer that the shared memories and new inside jokes we've captured will cover over a multitude of heated translation discussions in the coming months. If not, there are always more trees at which we can throw rocks.

Enjoy the lovely Ethiopian birds right here!