Dear Friends,
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| Doug & P.J. at the Roman Colosseum |
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Some of you may be wondering if we fell off the merry-go-round that was pictured in our last newsletter in July. Well, not quite. I (Doug) have been traveling both in the US and abroad, participating in some exciting decisions about the use of technology in Bible translation. More on that below, but for now I'm glad to be back home with P.J. and Roger. Last Sunday we made our first church presentation about our ministry, the first of many to come. It hasn't been all work, though. P.J. and I were blessed with two opportunities to get away for four days each, leaving us feeling very refreshed afterwards.
P.J. has been coordinating our itinerary for the year, shuttling Roger around, and getting us set up in the house while I've been gone. We are very much enjoying the house where we are staying this year, which has plenty of room to accommodate visitors. For those in the Michigan area, we plan to host several open house events with all of our curios from Africa on display. For those who are elsewhere, we have a big yearly planner on the refrigerator and are planning our trips anytime between now and next July. We've been broadcasting about our ministry via this newsletter, but it's like one-way glass and we're on the dark side. We want to hear your stories too!
Kevin seems to have started off college on the right foot, and is already excited about majoring in a relatively new field, renewable energy. That would be the antithesis of the unreliable diesel guzzling generators that he has grown up with. Henry has changed his major, and is preparing to be a physician's assistant. The two families we were closest to over the years in Africa were both doctors, and I'm sure that this has played a role in his decision. Roger has picked right up with orchestra and band in high school, having had few opportunities in Africa to be mentored on the trumpet. We want to make the most of these opportunities during our year of furlough!
If I told that I was going to share with you all that went on in the five meetings I participated in in the past six weeks, you might quit reading here. Instead, we'll try a new format. I've sumarized the three most important ones below and each paragraph has a link to a fuller article with more content. If you are reading a printed copy, you can consult the web version at http://higbyfamily.com/newsletter
The Rapid Word Collection research group met for a week in North Carolina in September. Together, we specified a best-practice method that language groups from all over the world can use to collect the words of their language in a workshop setting. We believe that by following this method, the workshops will produce a minimum of 15,000 words and phrases. These will have short definitions and will be arranged as a topical thesaurus. Besides having a dictionary in those languages, one of our most significant outcomes will be an electronic thesaurus that can be a significant help to translators of the Bible.
Later in September, I met with a group of people from three different Bible translation organizations in Misano, on the east coast of Italy. The topic for discussion was Translation Resources of the Future. Translation resources are similar to commentaries yet quite different. Rather than expounding on the meaning of the passage, they explain the meaning of the Hebrew and Greek words in a way that will help translators find the equivalent terms. Often they suggest a whole phrase that may be used to translate a word such as grace, when no equivalent is found in the language. Due to the fact that the audience for these resources is changing from the expatriate missionary to local citizens in those language areas, these resources must also shift to target those with a lower education level, and those from other major languages besides English to support translations into the minority languages of those parts.
Then in October, the newly formed group of Area Language Technology Coordinators met for a week in North Carolina. These are the folks who have been tasked with getting the technology and training to language workers on the field, similar to the program in Africa. They have made significant progress since last year: We praise the Lord that Eurasia area had its first event to train the trainers this past year. Soon to follow will be an event for Asia area in January. We are thrilled to see this mechanism established that is providing us with the means to deliver technology and training to Bible translators on the field! We want them all to be fully equipped with the tools and technology to simplify their work and to expand the world's access to the Scriptures.
We thank all of you for sharing in our ministry and hope that the Holy Spirit will continue to inspire you to pray for those who have not yet heard!
Partners in the Gospel, (Phil 1:5)
Doug & Priscilla Higby
Praise and prayer
- Praise the Lord for Kevin's successful start at John Brown, and pray that he will grow in his knowledge and faith during his time there.
- Praise the Lord for the new programs that are being launched in Eurasia and Asia areas to train trainers in the technology to advance linguistic research and Bible translation.
- Pray for Doug's nephew, Luke Aubrey, who has heard the Lord's call to join the Wycliffe Associates and is currently raising support to go to Papua New Guinea to do construction work. He will be working on the construction of a women's dormitory for a large training center that was recently built. Praise God for Wycliffe's focus on training – building capacity in local citizens who will equip translators with the skills to translate God's Word into their own languages.
- Praise the Lord for the work done on the Rapid Word Collection method. Pray that the materials will be finalized before the end of this year, and that language teams will begin to experience the advantages of this large thesaurus in their language development work and Bible translations.
- Pray specifically for a video team who would be able to come to Africa and film a Rapid Word Collection workshop in progress. The hope is to make a promotional video that would encourage teams all over to try this successful approach.
