Planes, trains, and automobiles

For months, I have told people that I knew what I was going to write next. It’s true. I did know. It is also true that, for months, I put off writing what I knew I would write. Let’s put it down to this dizzying visit of ours to the U.S., shall we? Buckle up and return those trays to their upright positions, and I’ll share what we’ve been up to.

As I indicated back in July, we started our visit at the end of August by flying from Frankfurt to Atlanta. That’s not our normal routine, but we were to pick up a loaner vehicle from a generous church in the South Carolina Lowcountry—classic Southern hospitality boosted by the Holy Spirit, or perhaps the other way around. After visiting friends in the Charleston area, we headed north to Pennsylvania, dropping off our younger son outside of Camp Lejeune so that he could follow later with his brother. (Aww….)

A fitting chariot for our stay. We are supremely grateful for the comfort, which has greatly eased the stress of travel.

On Labor Day weekend, we had a small family reunion with my mother and sisters. After a few weeks of getting reoriented and helping the lad get moving toward life on his own, Katherine and I drove to Duncanville, Texas, for our first church visit (25 September) and meetings with Katherine’s global library colleagues. I also dropped in on my old IT crew.

A pause from driving lessons along the Susquehanna River.

My wife and I parted company at this point. Katherine remained in Texas for a few more days; to help our son further, I flew to Philadelphia and took trains to Lancaster. (Now the title is fully justified!) In that time, Katherine received word of a serious illness in the family, so next she drove to Colorado. I flew out in the first week of October and rejoined her. From there, we drove to St. Joseph, Missouri, for our second church visit (9 October)—and then back to Colorado.

As in this picture, taken in central Kansas, it seemed like there was always another road for us to travel.

From Colorado, we flew to Orlando, Florida, to take part in a week-long seminar at Wycliffe USA called Connections. There, we learned how to transition from crazy lives overseas to crazy lives stateside, and we met some of the people who manage some of the crazy on our behalf (read: finance and healthcare). The time impressed on me that each of us there, like the figures described in Hebrews 11:13-16, is still looking for a place to call home. In the meantime, we wander the earth, hoping for our God to put us to good use.

At Wycliffe USA. The pavement reads, “Declare His glory among the nations.”

We returned to Colorado. After a few more days there, including some with the older lad, I took the car and headed alone to Pennsylvania, leaving Katherine with her family.

After stopping for a day in Missouri, I journeyed straight to our third scheduled church visit (6 November) in Media, Pennsylvania. Then I returned to Lancaster. A few days later, Katherine flew to Harrisburg and was picked up by all three of her guys. We left our two rascals alone long enough to make our fourth church visit in Springfield, Pennsylvania (13 November).

The next week, Katherine and I drove down to Annandale, Virginia, for the fifth church visit in our schedule (20 November). Thankfully, we got a break in our travels for Thanksgiving. (Did you see what I did there?) We also got to spend time again with both of our sons. Such times make for a happy mama … and papa.

In Colorado, it was nice to walk for a change.

Our sixth and final church visit took us back to the D.C. area, in Fairfax, Virginia. We returned to Lancaster, but Katherine has flown to Colorado again, leaving me alone with this keyboard. (She’ll be back. I hope.)

Over all these trips, we’ve seen a lot of faces—the faces of family, friends, and a host of supporting sisters and brothers in Christ. We have also seen a lot of miles, according to the history gathered by my phone. (Yes, I let “them” keep track of me—someone probably should.) It reports that, since we began our journey to the U.S., I have travelled 10,466 miles by plane, 76 miles by train, and 8,118 miles by car. That’s an average of about 167 miles each day. For the past four years, we lived less than one mile from our offices in Germany.

Here are our faces, more or less. We took more pictures at rest than on the road. Huh.

During most of this time, Katherine has also been attending to her study program in Library and Information Science. She loves it, and she’s doing great—as if any other result was possible!—but it has added a layer of intense activity to everything else. Katherine will have a break from these studies until we get back to Germany next month. She’ll be far more settled next semester, but I know that she would appreciate prayers to the Lord our God for sharpness of mind and stamina.

I want to close with an observation. We returned to a country different from the one we left in 2018—and the churches reflected the changes. The situation reminded me of that of the Jewish exiles who returned from Persia to their homeland: they didn’t all go back, rebuilding took a long time, the results weren’t like “the glory days”, and they seemed to be surrounded by foes. Everyone was discouraged. But in a vision, the prophet Zechariah was told:

It is not by force nor by strength, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.

and then:

Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin ….

Zechariah 4:6-10, NLT

Don’t lose courage. Don’t lose hope. Let’s look to the One who can achieve far more than we can on our own. Under His faithful care and yours, Katherine and I will return on yet another plane to Germany, where we will continue our ministry with Wycliffe. We had no fixed home here, and our home there will be different from the ones before. Please pray for our journeys in this world, and we will pray for yours.

A pretty picture from the end of a day, for the end of your reading, because you made it this far.

Another end to waiting, but better

A few months ago, a member of Wycliffe Germany came to me bearing a thick sheaf of paper. She is one of several people around the center who have worked in Tanzania, as Katherine and I once did. However, her work there is ongoing—she serves as a consultant to a cluster of projects in the south of the country. One of the languages in the project is that of the Safwa, who live in the mountains around the city of Mbeya.

In the 2002 Wycliffe publication From Akebu to Zapotec: A Book of Bibleless Peoples, the Safwa people have an entry under, of all things, the letter S. The entry is accompanied by an artist’s rendering of a photo taken during the sociolinguistic survey of the Safwa language in 1998. Katherine and I took part in that survey. We found that the Safwa had a strong sense of identity and preferred their language to Kiswahili in daily use. The Church was present, but its message and ministry was hindered by the use of Kiswahili. Those of us who surveyed the language concluded that the Safwa would surely benefit from Bible translation, but we also felt that such a project would be a long time coming.

Let’s come back now, 24 years later, to that sheaf of paper. What my colleague Andrea presented to me was a draft printout of the New Testament in Kisafwa:

The cover page of the draft New Testament in Kisafwa

My friends, this day was one of the most significant of my entire life. Later that day, I wrote to others that, if I did nothing else worthwhile in my life, the knowledge that these people would receive the Good News in their own language would be enough to content me. Praise God with Katherine and me for the proofing and the publication of this good work!

The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth.

They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry.

It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit.

It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it.

Isaiah 55:10-11, New Living Translation

Last month, Wycliffe Germany had its annual member meeting, which gathers together all those who are present in the country for the purposes of enjoying fellowship and conducting business. Yours truly ran the technical components of the main session, freeing others to give their full attention to their friends and to the meeting.

My command center for the Mitgliederversammlung

Next month, Katherine and I will be returning with our younger son to the U.S. for a 4 1/2 month home stay. We will help him settle into life and work, now that he has finished his schooling and a gap-year program. Moreover, we will spend long-missed time with our families, friends, and supporters. Our schedule is still taking form, so if you live in one of the following states and are interested in getting together, please let us know! We’ll arrive in Georgia, pick up a car in South Carolina, and then drive to Pennsylvania. From there, we will spend time in Texas, Missouri, Colorado, and Virginia, before leaving again from Atlanta.

We hope / plan / expect to return to Germany in mid-January. When we come back, we won’t come back to the house we’ve been renting since 2019, but rather to a apartment. An empty nest. When you pray, please ask the Lord our God to bless us with a great home stay, our son with a good start to the next phase of his life, and our ministry with sufficient support in prayer and finances to assure our next term of service. If you want to be part of that, you can join us! None of what we do would be possible without you!

Watching faith become sight

In the letter written to the Hebrews, we read, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1, NIV) While preparing for a new term overseas in our Wycliffe ministry, I’d say that we’re witnessing many instances of “what we hope for” as well as “what we do not see”. You’ve probably gone through such periods in your own life—it’s the details that appear different. Read on to understand what it’s like for us right now.

Our family is about two months from our scheduled return to Germany. In faith, we have purchased tickets for a departure on August 5th. Each of us has a valid passport. These are things we do see. Easy enough. There are other things, which we do not see but we hope for, that must take form so that we can actually go.

The faithfulness of the churches and individuals who support us allows us to report that we do see a great portion of our monthly financial needs met. That is thanks to the Lord we serve, who works through these generous people. The “ministry budget” approved for our next term in Germany, however, is more than what we receive now. The difference is driven by increases in the cost of living and the need to plan for sudden, large expenses. To reach 100% of our ministry budget and be free to depart, we need to receive an additional $270 each month. This amount is part of what we hope for.

One sudden expense came from the home that we own in Texas, which we are renting out until we can sell it. Early this year, we were surprised by a large bill for repair work done between tenants. These expenses are being paid back by the incoming rent, thankfully, but now the rent isn’t covering our mortgage. Until the end of the year, provision for the mortgage payments and our own housing expenses is another thing we do not see … yet.

We also experienced higher expenses during this year in the U.S., where the cost of living has been greater than in Germany. These situations have taken a worrisome toll on our savings. The increase in our ministry budget will help us prepare for and recover from such periods as we serve Wycliffe internationally.

Our initial home will be an apartment in the building close to the top of this picture.

Without faith, those things that we do not see could tempt us to lose confidence. But our amazing God has bolstered our faith by encouraging us and lifting our hopes!

He has blessed us with certainty in our housing over in Germany. When we arrive, we’ll be staying in an apartment at Wycliffe’s Karimu conference center. The original booking went through the first few weeks of school.

This is the front of the house that we hope to call home beginning in December.

We were thrilled to have time to look for long-term housing, but our Lord wasn’t done yet! We received word that a family we know from church is building a new house and wants to rent their current one after they move in December. After some waiting and uncertainty, we learned that the house would be available to us! It seems just what we hoped for.

What a relief to know that we would have a place to call home! But our Lord wasn’t done yet; he wanted to take care of the interim period, too! The fabulous folks at Karimu worked hard to clear us to stay in the apartment all the way until December, barring extreme circumstances. We are amazed by all these developments and thank God continually for his goodness to us. As we face so many things that we do not see, the gift and blessing of assurance in this aspect of life overwhelms and encourages us.

We are confident that our Lord still isn’t done. If he can settle our housing arrangements in Germany, well in advance of our departure, then surely he can and will provide for everything else. Paul wrote to the church in Philippi, “… I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.” (Philippians 1:6, NLT) Katherine and I believe wholeheartedly that God’s “good work” in us includes our serving him and Wycliffe in Germany.

By what means will he “continue his work”, transform our faith in what we do not see? It will include our brothers and sisters who care for and pray for us. Perhaps it will be you. Perhaps it will be someone you know who also understands the importance of continuing God’s work in this world. Please think about this and consider supporting our ministry regularly so that we can resume our service to Wycliffe in Germany:

The Wycliffe Ministry of David & Katherine Liddle

That link to our ministry page at Wycliffe’s website can always be found on the “Join Us” page at Liddles.net. Regardless of whether you give or not, we ask you to pray to the God we serve that he will give confidence and assurance to all the areas of life in which there are things we do not see. We can’t do this on our own; we need the Lord, and we need you. Thank you for your love, and your concern, and your generosity!