December 28, 2009 -- Burkina Faso 
Dear Friends, We wish you a Merry Christmas and God’s richest blessings for 2010. Wow! That is such a round number, it reminds me (Doug) of January 1, 2000, when I began working on the Fulfulde Bible translation after passing my language test. So much has happened in those 10 years and it is wonderful to see how the Lord’s hand was at work through it all. We had much time to reflect on this during this past week when we made a family trip back to Mali, accompanied by good friends, the Van Dingenen family. The roads were unpaved for over half the journey, but this presented little challenge for our newly acquired Land Rover. Last time, we had asked you to pray for the paperwork process to put our vehicle on the road. God indeed answered your prayers, for we feared we would have to cancel the trip when the paperwork was still stuck on some government desk with less than a week to go. But again, God extended his grace to us and just five days before our voyage, we had Burkina plates and all the necessary papers. Since Henry leaves for college next summer, this trip was important for us to relive the eight years we spent in Mali.  | Pastor Timothy Kodio next to the completed
progress chart for the Dogon Bible |
During our trip, we spent time with Timothy Kodio in his remote village location. His team is preparing for the publication of the entire Bible in the Dogon language. I always am eager to get my hands on a translation computer—to check that the anti-virus is up-to-date, that data is backed up, and that the latest versions of the software are being used. To my great chagrin, I discovered that Timothy’s computer contained none of the Translator’s Workplace resources, a collection of over 500 exegetical resources and Bibles destined for translators, neither did it contain a separate collection of resources in French. I was able to install these so they can at least be of assistance during the final revision, but this incident galvanizes us once again in our goal to make sure that every translator everywhere is using the technology that allows them to work most efficiently. To that end, I recently had an amazing opportunity to address all of our language program managers across Africa who supervise Bible translation projects. In the presentation I showed a picture of my teenage boys and explained how I might teach them to drive a car: “Press down on the clutch, turn the key till it starts, select a gear, let up on the clutch and accelerate. OK, boys, here are the keys. Have fun and don’t stay out too late!” After the laughter died down, the room became very quiet when I explained that this is exactly what we do when we hand a computer to a language worker without providing adequate training. Please pray for these program managers as they try to implement the recommendations on how to plan and budget for the training that will make our translators more effective.  | | Kevin as Goliath |
In our last letter we mentioned the boys were on a mission trip to a village with their youth group. They uploaded a music video here that shows them in action. Kevin played the part of Goliath in the skit by riding his 6 foot giraffe unicycle! Many have asked us how we celebrate Christmas in Africa, far from family. We always attend the Christmas service in Mooré and French at our local church, but we keep a foot in our home culture. We find ourselves in the company of English-speaking friends who have also left family to serve overseas. In this community, we are “Uncle Doug” and “Aunt Priscilla” to many, and our boys have many “uncles” and “aunts”. For our English Christmas celebration we joined with two other families for Christmas dinner and listening to the BBC’s “Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols” live from King’s College in Cambridge, where P.J. and I had visited last summer. In addition to the friends here, we no longer even count the cost of talking to family in the US, which modern connectivity allows us to do for less than 2 cents per minute! We praise God for the opportunities we have to celebrate Christmas, despite the distance. This Christmas and New Years, we extend our warmest greetings to you and yours, thanking you again for the part that you play in our ministry here in Africa. Partners in the Gospel, Phil 1:5 Doug & P.J. Higby
Prayer & Praise- Praise God for the paperwork on the Land Rover being completed in time for our trip to Mali. We now have a sturdy vehicle that we can all fit in.
- Praise God that Doug was able to meet with all the language program managers in Kenya to stress the importance of technology training for Bible translation teams.
- Pray for God's grace as Doug will be traveling quite a bit in the next few months. Doug & P.J. were apart 84 days in the last year, and want to make sure not to go beyond their limits. Pray for stability in the family and good communication.
- Pray for wisdom as we are in the midst of navigating the financial labyrinth of sending Henry to college. There are a lot of paperwork and deadlines for college applications and scholarships and we don't want to let any opportunities go by, while seeking the Lord's direction.
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