You know we're here supporting Bible translation, and you know we do that through our jobs as well as our side ministries and personal relationships.
One of our friends, a translator, told us this story.
But first some background.
Translators here go about their work in a few different ways. One of the ways is that they build a team of nationals who understand the language and are willing to work on Bible translation. These people are essential to the ex-pat understanding the language and the side-result is the relationships that form. Sometimes it takes a very long time to build such a team, and sometimes these teams can fall apart.
But our friend has a good team.
One man through this process has had his life changed by Christ.
Here's the story.
In a culture where wife-beating is acceptable on man's wife was giving birth and he did a remarkable thing. He stayed outside the house all weekend singing praises to God and praying for his wife and new baby boy. He was tender with her, devoted to her, encouraged her. That is a very very rare thing to see in this country and is evidence of Christ changing lives.
Slightly embarrassed at his own tenderness he told none of his friends about the birth or his actions, but raced to my friend and secretly told him. You can spend your life working to share Christ with a nation, a culture, a people, a person, and not get this kind of reaction even once in your life.
He said, "I've never felt close to God like that, God truly does answer prayer, I prayed that my wife would be okay, and that she would give me a son, and she did!"
What a great encouragement! What a remarkable testimony!
Kendal and I get excited to see the translators excited! There truly is a lot of passion that goes into this work.
