Hello dear family and friends,
Here is our latest graduate! Chaz and Laura and I were privileged to be able to attend and celebrate with Danny,who is obviously excited 
He will join us in Michigan for a month before starting his summer job at Pine Cove Camp in Texas. This fall he will start a year’s internship with Release,a discipleship and small group ministry with Lamar University students in Beaumont,Texas.
The happy family
Pretty excited
Chaz is now home again,after his 3-week trip,first to Guatemala,then to Boston. Following is his report. If you have further questions,please ask!
“Wycliffe translation consultants along with 9 teams from different indigenous groups in Guatemala met for two weeks and had the pleasure of learning under Dr. Stephen Levinsohn. Stephen first worked with the teams in helping them understand basic structures of their own languages and how these compare with Biblical Hebrew. They learned,for example,that when the subject of a Hebrew sentence occurs first in a clause instead of its normal second position,there has been a change of subject from one character to another. So if there is a change of subject in Hebrew,do they have to switch the word order in their own languages? No,but they need to know how a change of subject is indicated in their languages and apply that strategy in their translations. And no,they did not learn Hebrew in two weeks,but they can see the Hebrew word order by following along in a Hebrew-Spanish interlinear Bible.
“So the nine teams were busy applying the different strategies to the own translations of Jonah. The responsibility of us consultants was to check their work,making sure they weren’t following the Hebrew or Spanish,but rather than they were noticing features they had learned about Hebrew,as above,and using the analogous strategies their own languages have. Using the full compliment of strategies your language has ultimately makes your translation more natural,clear and accurate. I spent his one week at the workshop consulting for the Mam team and the Pokomchi team. I finished my third Hebrew course the week just previous to the workshop and it certainly came in handy.
The Pokomchi team
The Mam team
“After the week in Guatemala,I flew to Boston for the third and final residency period for my Doctor of Ministry program in Biblical Translation at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. It was great to be with the rest of the class and professors (the “cohort”) again. We spent the two weeks hearing lecturers on conflict resolution (handy in working out problems on translation committees) and receiving feedback from the cohort on our thesis projects. My thesis project is entitled ‘Preaching Good News to the Poor’ –Theological Assumptions about the Kingdom of God and their Effect on Bible Translation. I hope to complete it and officially graduate in January 2014.
“In Guatemala I also took on the responsibility of consulting with the Cakchiquel team on the translation of Galatians in their language. I also continue working with the Emberá-Tadó and Emberá-Chamí teams. The Tadó team is working on the Gospel of John and the Chamí team on Acts.”
Please pray for these native translators as they continue on in their task and for Chaz as a consultant. I’d appreciate prayer for my Translator’s Notes team as well. We have grown in number but have recently had some challenges,like budget cuts and a stolen laptop. Please pray that the TN volumes can keep moving toward completion despite setbacks.
Thank you for standing with us!
