germany – A Liddle Good News

Moving experiences

According to the elephant in the room, it’s been about eleven months since I last wrote an update here. Before I’m squashed by the pachyderm—or worse!—I’m going to note what’s been going on in the life and ministry that Katherine and I have together. There might even be a few pictures of us.

In mid-January, we ended our five-month visit to the U.S. and returned to Germany. We came back to the same apartment on the Wycliffe center that we lived in shortly before leaving. This time, though, it was just the two of us, since both of our sons now live on their own in the States.

In March, we had the very great pleasure of receiving an advance copy of the Kisafwa New Testament. Katherine and I were part of each of the teams that conducted the language survey of the Safwa people in 1998 and reported that they would benefit from their own translation. Holding the fruit of the fruit of our labor in our hands brought to completion all of the effort we put into every interview we conducted and every test we administered under trying conditions. We’re grateful to our God for the chance to serve him and the Safwa people in this way!

Selections from the Kisafwa New Testament. We’re so happy for them!

In May, Katherine flew to Colorado to be with her parents (and sister!) for a little more than five weeks and help them through a challenging series of medical events. It was a good visit for them all. Contrary to every expectation and betting pool, I survived her absence admirably. I’ve never gone on so many solitary hikes in my life!

Selections from the photos I sent to Katherine while she was away and the mouse was … hiking.

Upon her return, Katherine immediately resumed her responsibilities, managing the course reserves for the language and culture classes taught during the summer. After that, it was time to ready ourselves to move into the apartment we’ll be renting until we leave Germany. Katherine was also preparing for the start of the third semester of her library sciences program at Texas Woman’s University. (She’s doing great, by the way.)

In October, we moved into our new apartment—and almost immediately had a visit from Katherine’s parents and sister! We loved being together, and it was hard to say good-bye.

Our apartment on the lower level of a house very close to the Wycliffe center.

So here we are in November. This month, Katherine and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. We spent a long weekend at a quiet place less than an hour from Holzhausen that overlooks Lake Bigge and Lake Lister.

Views of the Biggesee (left) and Listersee (right). And us.

What’s next? More studying and homework, more cataloging in the library. More shepherding of all the technology in use by Wycliffe Germany, more preparation for the nasty things that can happen to those systems these days. But no more moves, so far as we know.

Thank you for reading today. Thank you for standing by us and behind us during our 25 years of marriage and during the additional years we’ve been ministering with Wycliffe Bible Translators. We know that it’s not been easy lately for those of you who give, and we honor you for facing that challenge with faith and with grace. May the Lord our God fill you with peace and with encouragement, and may he bless your Thanksgiving celebrations with abundance—and the wisdom to know when you’ve had enough!

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!