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When our language helper, Lilee, asked me what kind of meat I like to eat, I attempted to say “kai kap muu kap NGUA” (chicken and pork and beef). But instead, I came up with ‘kai kap muu kap NGU” (chicken and pork and SNAKE)! Lilee gave me a funny look and replied in English, “Really?!” –K.R, Laos

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Our language tutor was teaching us to pray in the Indonesian language. We write out our prayer for his review and then read/pray them before class begins. My wife was thanking God for his mercy, but omitted an “h” sound in the middle of the word. She thanked God for his spider webs instead! —D.C.

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After dismissing his congregation, a missionary in Germany went to the back door to greet people as they left. He greeted each member with a handshake and smile and told them, “Gutten nackt.” They realized that he meant to say “Gutten nacht” meaning good night, but grinned or snickered because he had actually said good naked. The preacher was greatly embarrassed when a member at the end of the line corrected him. —Christine

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A basic conversation goes something like this: Sabaidii! Jao sabaidii baww? (Hello, how are you?)

Khoi sabaidii. Jao dee? (I’m fine. [How are] you?)

Khoi sabaidii. (I’m fine.)

It’s a good thing Jon was only practicing his language skills because instead of saying,

Jao dee (How are you?), he accidentally said, Jao dai! (You die.)!

—Chris, Laos

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I knew a little Spanish, so our Spanish Pastor asked me to translate his remarks to the English congregation because he was uncomfortable addressing them with his broken English. I was dismissed from this translation assignment after the first practice run. I would have thanked the English congregation for all of their help and chicken (pollo) rather than for their help and support (apoyo). —MW

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Scriptures for Sranantongo

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It was September 1986 and the Pattons’ plans were drastically changed when Dr. Patton opted to move to the city rather than join forces with the liberal group in control of medical practice in the interior of the country. It had been just two weeks since the couple had moved to Suriname’s capital, Paramaribo, when civil war broke out in the interior. Had the couple stayed in the interior, they would have been cut off from their mission while in only the beginning stages of language learning. God had a definite plan for them in Paramaribo.

Upon graduating from the University of Rochester in 1971 as an Internal Medicine Specialist, Robert Patton had embarked for Liberia, Africa, where he served as professor and head of Internal Medicine at the University of Liberia until 1976. More importantly, it was there in Liberia that he accepted Jesus Christ as his Saviour in 1974. Surely, he never imagined then where God would later lead him and what monumental tasks he would accomplish in just twenty-four years.

In 1986, the Pattons found themselves in Suriname learning the national languages of Dutch and Sranantongo. For the first five years he was in Suriname, Dr. Patton taught at University Hospital in the mornings and dedicated his afternoons and evenings to soul-winning, language learning, church planting, training national pastors, and establishing various ministries. During this time, Dr. Patton grew increasingly frustrated with the limited scriptures available in the Sranantongo language. He was using a Moravian translation of the New Testament from the 1800s, but its imprecision and antiquity made it a less than desirable version upon which to build a ministry. Furthermore, Dr. Patton longed for a translation of the Old Testament. In 1991, God showed him clearly that he should resign his teaching position and begin translating.

Dr. Patton approached this very serious project with fear and trembling. He worked carefully and steadily to translate a Bible faithful to the Received Text into Sranantongo. The translation team included himself and six natives. First, Dr. Patton studied the scriptures under consideration, consulting a conservative commentary when necessary for clear understanding; then he made a preliminary translation and passed it off for independent review by two nationals (separately). Two more cycles of revision by Dr. Patton and review by other nationals then followed. After a final revision, it was considered complete. The entire Bible was translated by 1997 and published by Bearing Precious Seed in 1998.

God blessed the Pattons’ diligent work. Not only is their Bible translation the most sold version of the Sranantongo Bible in Suriname, but it has also been shared through their radio programs. Dr. Patton has synthesized commentaries using his translation notes and their corresponding scriptures. These commentaries are helpful resources for national pastors and have also been broadcasted via radio.

You can read more about Dr. Patton on his website, teachingmissions.com.

Summer 2020

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From Tijuana to Thailand

I was born in a town in Baja California, Mexico, into a Roman Catholic family. In 1984, my grandmother gave me a book in Spanish entitled All About Mexico. It told of the various Christian denominations in Mexico. I decided that when I lived in a big city with a Presbyterian Church, I would attend it. Later, when I lived in Puebla, Mexico, I found a phone number of the Presbyterian church in the yellow pages. I called and asked how I could be a member of the church. The person said I needed to accept Jesus Christ. He explained to me the plan of salvation, and I accepted Christ as my Savior.

While studying at the University in Puebla, I met Roger Reeck, an American Bible translator teaching English there.. He had translated the New Testament into an Indian language in Oaxaca, Mexico. I thought I would like to participate in this task, but also saw that it was beyond my ability. (Later at BBTI, I learned that Roger was a friend of Rex Cobb when he worked in Oaxaca, Mexico).

In 2005, my wife and I began to attend an Independent Fundamental Baptist church in Tijuana, Baja California. My pastor gave me the privilege to be in charge of the accommodations and food for missionaries that attended our missionary conferences. Also, I was the treasurer of the missionary fund. I felt that I needed to go and do something in Bible translation, but I lacked the courage.

At our 2019 missions conference, I discussed my interest in Bible translation with our church’s missionary to Chiang Mai, Thailand. He told me of the opportunity to reach Thai people and those in restricted neighboring countries. He told me of the need for Bible translation and suggested I talk with Dr. Bill Patterson, a consultant with the Trinitarian Bible Society. Bill Patterson recommended Baptist Bible Translators Institute. My pastor counseled me to ask the advice of missionary Bruce Martin, who also recommended this institute.

My dear wife, Josefina, is accepting and supportive of my involvement in this ministry and is also preparing at BBTI for missionary work in Thailand.

by Alejandro Rojas

Summer 2020

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Sranantongo of Suriname

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Suriname is situated on the northern coast of South America. Its history is almost as diverse as the vegetation that grows in its tropical climate; Suriname was first explored by the Spanish in the 16th century, settled by the British in the mid-17th century, and became a Dutch sugar colony in 1667. Indigenous populations and escaped African slaves were pushed into the interior of the country where they established their own tribal languages and cultures.

Since Suriname didn’t gain independence from the Netherlands until 1975, the national language is Dutch, but because Suriname has been influenced by so many countries and cultures, an English-based creole language called Sranantongo is spoken by a majority of the population as either a first or second language.

Along with linguistic influence, the Dutch also brought Moravian influence (followers of John Huss) in the early 18th century who translated the New Testament and Psalms into Sranantongo in 1820. Unfortunately, this translation was not very precise, and its language is now archaic. In the 1970s, a Bible translation group (SIL) began working in Suriname to translate the New Testament into Sranantongo from the Critical Text. In 1998, Robert Patton, MD, DD finished his translation of the entire Bible from the Received Text a few years before the Critical Text (SIL) New Testament was completed.

To date, Dr. Patton’s translation has sold over 20,000 copies: enough to put the complete Bible into the hands of one in twenty-five people. To God be the glory!

Summer 2020

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A Postage-Stamp Call

Nathan Fritz was born into a Christian family. At age six, his father, Rocky, became pastor of First Baptist Church in Amboy, IL. Even though he heard the Gospel over and over, it was not until age twelve that Nathan truly believed on Christ as his Saviour. Tina knew nothing about Jesus until age eight when her mother first took her to church. It took Tina several months to understand her need of salvation, but when she saw herself as a lost sinner, she trusted Christ.

Nathan became interested in various countries through his hobby as a philatelist. His church supported many missionaries, including the Mumfords in France. (They served there for fifty years!) Brother Mumford, Nathan’s pen pal, sent stamps from various places, among which was a place unknown to Nathan, Cape Verde. He had no idea where this country was, but he made it a point to find out. Nathan learned that Cape Verde is a group of fifteen islands located off the western point of Africa. He now wonders why the Portuguese explorer, Dinis Dias, called it “Verde” (green). Maybe it was green in 1445, but today, with only ten inches of annual rainfall, it is anything but green. Although it is located nearly four hundred miles from the African continent, the sandstorms from the Sahara Desert cause many problems for the people of Cape Verde. As Nathan’s interest in the country grew, so did his burden for the people. Their lives are dominated by African and Roman Catholic superstitions. Several of the islands have no gospel witness.

Cape Verde was a strategic station for Portugal’s African slave trade. Portuguese involvement in slavery continued into the 20th century, but world-wide slavery to sin continues until this very day. The Fritz family is working to end spiritual slavery in Cape Verde by extending the invitation of Jesus Christ. “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). They proclaim, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36).

Nathan and Tina grew up playmates and competitors in Bible quizzes. Tina became the church pianist, and they worked together in children’s ministries. Nevertheless, they did not become interested in each other until Nathan’s junior year at Crown College where he majored in missions. He graduated in 2006, and they were married a month later.

When they arrived at BBTI in 2016, Nathan and Tina had four beautiful children: Andrew, Lydia, Ruth, and Grace. Anna was born just before Christmas 2017, four months before they left for the field. Sent by their church in Amboy, IL, and aided by Baptist International Missions Inc. (BIMI), they are completing their first two-year term in Cape Verde. They are learning Portuguese, the official language, and then will learn the common Creole language. Nathan preached his first sermon in Portuguese after eight months. He teaches in a seminary and also in a chronological Bible study. Both he and Tina conduct individual Bible studies. God allowed Nathan to take part in distributing the New Testament to 13,000 school children, putting God’s Word in nearly every home on the islands of Fogo and Brave.

As the Fritzes neared the end of their Advanced Missionary Training at BBTI, they said, “We couldn’t imagine going to the field without the many things we have learned here.” Later they wrote, “We are hard at language study. I cannot begin to tell you how much we have used all the knowledge you tucked in our toolbox” (July 2018). “We were just saying AGAIN last night how much BBTI prepared us for being overseas. Thank you both SO much for your investment in our lives” (April 2020). Pray for the Fritz family and for the many more like them that are needed right now in Cape Verde!

Summer 2020

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God’s Word Is Not Bound

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“The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple” (Psalm 119:130). The apostle Paul tells us that God’s Word is not bound. “Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound” (2 Timothy 2:9). The writer of Hebrews expands on this: “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword” (Heb. 4:12a). We know this to be true because we see it in the Bible, we read about it in history, and we have experienced it in our own lives.

The story is told of an unsaved anthropologist who warned a jungle chief, “There are some people called missionaries, and they have a book called the Bible. Don’t allow them to come to your village! They will destroy your culture.” The chief smiled and said, “You are too late. They have already been here. And it is very good for you that they came, otherwise I would have already killed and eaten you!”

Light is on its way to the 121,000 Tenek Indians of the state of San Louis Potosí, Mexico. In 2006, Tenek speaker Fernando Angeles and his wife, Christy, began translating the New Testament under the direction of Bibles International, a division of Baptist Mid Missions. This formal equivalent received text translation was completed in 2017. These descendants of the great Mayan empire can now hear God speaking their language. At the conclusion of the Tenek New Testament dedication service where the Gospel was preached in English, Spanish, and Tenek, an elderly man told Christy, “I couldn’t understand a word of the Spanish, but I could understand every word of Tenek, and I have faith.” In the past, the Gospel has made little impact on the Tenek nation, but pray that will soon change. Pray for the distribution of the Scriptures and for Tenek-speaking laborers to preach them!

In 1973, Baptist missionaries Ron and Cheryl Myers went to Thailand. There was still a war raging in that area, and the Myers labored and mastered both the Thai and Isan languages with North Vietnamese and Laotian troops only six miles away on the opposite side of the Mekong River threating to invade. With strong convictions concerning the Scriptures and how they should be translated, they took on the responsibility of putting God’s Word into the Isan language of Thailand and Laos, spoken by over twenty million souls. The project was completed in June 2016 and published under the auspices of Bearing Precious Seed Global. There is much demand for these New Testaments, and they are bearing much fruit in both the free and communist countries. The Isan New Testament has also been recorded and is being broadcast by radio. Pray that the light of the Isan Scriptures will shine brightly and give much understanding to the Isan nation!

In 2005, BBTI graduates Dan and Jennifer Olachea were sent to Uganda, Africa, by the Central Baptist Church of Ocala, Florida, with the help of BIMI. They began working in Mbarara, Uganda, with the goal of giving the 3.4 million Runyankori people a formal, well-translated copy of God’s Word in their heart language. Dan helped to train six Runyankori native translators, and they labored eleven years with him to accomplish this great task. Work has begun on the Old Testament that will give even more light to the Runyankori people.

When the Word of God is presented to people in the official language or a trade language of their country, they may understand very little of it. Even if they comprehend much, it is always a foreign book. But when it is in their heart language, it has much more authority. They can hear God speaking their language! Friend, did God speak to your heart this morning as you read His Word? Why was that? Because you have a Bible in your heart language. There are still three thousand seven hundred language groups that have no portion of the Bible. That fact should bother us. No doubt it bothers our Saviour!

Yes, the Bible is a miracle Book; it can accomplish wonders. But we must realize that it does nothing where men do not take it. It has no feet or wings to magically carry itself to far off places. Neither does it mysteriously appear in languages where it never existed. God does not inspire a man to write scripture in his Bibleless tongue. God inspired it once; now it must be translated. That is just how it works. God’s people realized this in the first century and began translating the Bible. Down through the centuries since, men have faced the death penalty for giving the Bible to people in their heart language. This job may be easier today, but we can be sure that Satan will fiercely oppose it. May God give us men and women with the courage of John Wycliffe, Martin Luther, William Tyndale, Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples, Francisco de Enzinas, Casiodoro de Reina, and hundreds of others before and after them. The task today requires no less dedication than theirs.

Thank God for the many places where the light of His Word has entered, given understanding, and for some, even changed the course of history. “The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up” (Matthew 4:16). But there are still billions of lost souls waiting in very dark places for the Light. We need Bible translators, Bible printers, Bible distributors, and Bible preachers. Pick up your Bible. Hold it and look at it. Now, ask yourself, “What am I doing right now to put this Book in the hands of one who sits in darkness with no Bible?”

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Waiting and Working

Nathaniel ‘Nat’ Williams was born into a Christian family in 1978 and grew up near Rochester, New York. At age five, he prayed a prayer, asking God to take him to Heaven when he died. That was his hope for the next eight years. Finally, he realized that salvation was not in a prayer or in living right, but in the sacrifice of Christ on his behalf.

When Nat was a young child, his parents became serious about serving God. The family worked together in neighborhood children’s clubs and Vacation Bible Schools. All of this was on-the-job training for foreign missionary service. Nat taught English in Taiwan, took part in literature distribution at the Asian Games, and traveled for two years with the Institute In Basic Life Principles. He planned to serve in foreign missions, but in reality, he was a missionary already. He worked while he waited.

After graduation from BBTI in 2004, Nat moved to Allentown, PA, for further training in ministry and missions at Lehigh Valley Baptist Church (LVBC). He helped organize their Missions Research Center and worked with their ministry to international students. (Later, in 2013, LVBC would send him to the field.) Nat made a ministry trip to Chile and several trips to SE Asia during these years. This was all GMT (Good Missionary Training).

While working, Nat was also waiting for something else that a missionary needs. He met her at LVBC, and again in Thailand, where she assisted in ministry for fifteen months. Anne was born in Pennsylvania in 1983. Like Nat, she made an early, but empty, profession during VBS. Outwardly, she was mostly good, but she knew something was wrong inside. She attended the Christian school but was often in trouble for cheating and lying. On one occasion she was sentenced to a two-day suspension followed by a four-week Bible study with a lady from church. The Bible study didn’t change her, but it did show her that she was lost. At age fifteen, Anne finally truly trusted Christ and was born again.

Nat and Anne were married in July 2010, and little Paul arrived two years later. (Ellen followed in 2014, and Rachel in 2017.) God had already shown Nat that he should serve in Myanmar (formerly Burma). But Myanmar is closed to foreign missionaries. How could they reach the people there?

Thailand is not closed, and it is a very strategic place for literature distribution in restricted neighboring countries. So, in 2013, the Williamses moved there. (In 2014, Nat and his team received 2,000 boxes of Burmese Scripture to distribute in Myanmar! In 2018, 25,000 Burmese Bibles arrived!) Nat and Anne went to work, learning the Thai language. They didn’t say, “We are headed for Myanmar, why learn Thai?” They are also learning the Burmese language. They continue ministering in Thailand in church planting, Bible studies, literature development and distribution, and reaching people by teaching English.

The family makes frequent trips into Myanmar even though they cannot live there yet. It is a place of much Christian nominalism. Most people have no idea what real salvation is. Nevertheless, Nat has met and helped some faithful Baptist preachers. Besides the Burmese, the Williamses also want to reach the people of other languages and ethnic groups there; many of them are Bibleless and unreached.

Nat and Anne are team players. They may not minister to thousands, but they strategize and labor, teaching individuals who may very well reach the multitudes. They have learned that God leads by opening doors and sometimes by closing them. Their record shows that they are interested in people, not places. They are working in Thailand while waiting for an open door to Myanmar.

Spring 2020

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Southern Aymara of Peru

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The ancient home of the Aymara is perched twelve-thousand feet above sea level on the Altiplano, a high plateau near Lake Titicaca in the Peruvian Andes. Although life is challenging due to very poor soil and a region susceptible to both drought and flood, the nearly three hundred thousand Southern Aymara have found a way to sustain a vibrant culture. Fulfilling social obligations is very important in these communities, which are usually composed of large family groups. Each person takes part in the husbandry and agricultural tasks that are central to their lifestyle.

To a casual visitor, it may seem the Aymara people have already embraced the Gospel. However, while the name of Jesus and the symbol of the cross are common, these people are just a step away from paganism. Four hundred years ago, they were first introduced to Christianity by Catholic missionaries. In response to these new teachings, the Aymara simply blended Christian terminology and stories with animism, creating a folk-religion that worships both Jesus and natural “spirits.”

The Southern Aymara have no Bible to lighten their darkness and expose the error of their beliefs. While the Central Aymara do have a Bible translation, its dialect is so different from Southern Aymara that it is considered to be an entirely different language. There is no Bible translation in process for the Southern Aymara. Meanwhile, they continue to live and die deceived and in darkness.

Spring 2020

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Steadfast Through Trials

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The Richard Johnson Memorial sits on the site of Australia’s first church.

Far across the oceans, he stepped onto the shores of New South Wales. He didn’t know what lay ahead, but he had traveled the grueling eight-month voyage with a burden on his heart for the souls of the unwanted and unloved. At the young age of thirty-three, Richard Johnson had responded to John Newton’s plea and God’s call to be the first missionary to the penal colony of Australia.

Back home in England, Johnson had taken on the responsibility of delivering the Gospel to the outcasts of British society. He had poured his heart and soul into the work of the ministry, giving himself to preaching the gospel, ministering to the sick, and doing whatever he could do to help those in need. Here in Australia, difficulties met him at every turn as he put his hand to the plough, yet, he remained faithful. The first service was held under a tree on February 3, 1788. He chose Psalm 116: 12-13 as his scripture text, “What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord.”

For the next four to five years, Johnson repeatedly petitioned the governor for a church building, but the petition was denied. He was told that a church was not important enough to warrant the expense. Open air services were all they had until Johnson decided to build a church with his own money. At the meager price of 67 pounds, or 80 US dollars, a building was erected and utilized for the honor of God in 1793. In a seemingly bleak turn of events, the building was burned down in 1798; however, a new governor had been instated between 1793 and 1798. God used the new governor of the penal colony to have a stone church building erected which lasted for the next fifty-eight years. In 1792, a year before Johnson built the church, he wrote a tract addressed to the prisoners in which he expressed his deepest desires. The following excerpt is but a small glimpse into this man’s heart: “I beseech you, brethren, suffer this word of exhortation. Your souls are precious. They are precious to the Lord Jesus Christ. They are precious in my esteem. O that you were equally sensible of their value.”

After twelve years of service, Johnson was advised to return to England due to severe health problems. Not much is said about what happened to Johnson after his return; one might say he disappeared into the pages of history. One thing we do know is that Johnson was faithful; he was faithful to continue proclaiming the gospel of Christ and faithful to let men know that Jesus was the only way to life eternal in heaven. Records show that at least two hundred souls were saved in the twelve years Johnson spent in New South Wales, and even after he left, Johnson’s ministry continued.

We may become weary in the work God has given us to do. The future may seem bleak and the labor monotonous, but stay steadfast!

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Revival in America?

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Many of God’s people lament the moral decline in America and are petitioning the God of Heaven to send revival to our land; no one would deny that we desperately need it! Some admit that revival is theoretically possible, but are skeptical that it will ever come. They say we have gone too far away from God. But surely, America has not gone farther downhill than Nineveh. Our perverted society is only a step behind Sodom, but Sodom would have repented if Jesus would have performed His mighty works there as He did at Capernaum (Matthew 11:23).

What results are we praying for? What will revival look like or accomplish if it comes to our country? We hope revival will yield spiritual benefits. We hope it will bring an increased church attendance, separation of church members from the world, more prayer, more love for the Bible, more souls saved in our churches and in our community, better offerings, more churches planted in America to replace those that have gone liberal or died, and more young people training for and entering the ministry. (At a large Christian college, the last graduating class of nine hundred eighty students contained only eight or nine mission majors. I have been on that campus twice and found these fine young people preparing to stay in the United States and be good, upstanding Christian nurses, businessmen, engineers, policemen, lawyers, doctors, teachers, graphic designers, computer scientists, and so forth. Few, however, are planning to be ministers in general, and fewer still intend to be missionaries and take the Gospel to where it has never been.)

We anticipate that revival will benefit our society. We hope that revival would greatly damage the liquor and drug business, close down abortion clinics, and generally bring some old-fashion decency to our country again. We probably would not say it out loud, but we may hope that revival would produce more American patriotism and converts to our political view. Yes, by all means, we should be praying for revival in America! At the same time, however, is not our prayer somewhat selfish and short-sighted?

Why hasn’t it occurred to us to pray for revival in Malaysia, Morocco, or Moldova? As far as I know, they have not experienced revival in Bulgaria, Bangladesh, or Benin in a long, long time. How many churches have been planted recently in the Netherlands, Niger, or North Korea? And what about Germany, Gabon, or the Republic of Georgia? Don’t they need revival as well? Church attendance and soul winning are needed in Lebanon, Lesotho, and Lithuania. Although devoted, separated people are praying in Afghanistan, Algeria, and Azerbaijan, they, for the most part, are not praying to our God. And talk about converts, their religion is getting them! It is adding to its number in our country, too! (We failed to evangelize them where they live; now they have come to proselytize us here!)

As worthy as our request for revival in America is, and at the risk of sounding un-American, may I remind us that Jesus did not command us to pray for revival in America. Rather He commanded us to lift up our eyes upon the fields. He said, “The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest” (Luke 10:2). And, where is the harvest the greatest? Where are the harvesters so few and so desperately needed? On foreign mission fields!

Are we really praying for missionaries to be raised up and sent out by our churches? We pray for enough money to meet the budget and support the missionaries we have. We may even ask God for new ones (to come to us from other churches) to replace the ones that have died or left the field in recent months. It seems that for many churches the best they can say is, “We are holding our own.” For the most part, we are not praying for missionaries to come from our church or our family. I hope someone somewhere is praying that God will send out missionaries from his church, but I have rarely heard it. Maybe we doubt that it can happen, or worse yet, perhaps we really don’t want it to happen! (We think we can’t afford it, or we don’t want to be separated from those we love.) We pray for what is important to us, and we usually get what we pray for. “…ye have not, because ye ask not” (James 4:2d). Then is our lack of new missionaries a reflection of our lack of prayer for them?
Should we stop praying for revival in America? Absolutely not! It would be wrong to not pray for America! “Moreover as for me, God forbid that I should sin against the LORD in ceasing to pray for you:” (1 Samuel 12:23). However, if our prayer does not include a sincere, fervent begging for God to send laborers to the other one hundred and ninety-four countries, to the other seven thousand ninety-six languages, and to the seven thousand plus unreached people groups, then our prayer is short-sighted at best and selfish at worst. (I almost added “sinful.”)

Maybe God would be pleased to answer our prayer for revival if it included His entire harvest field. My Bible does not say, “For God so loved America…” It says that God gave His Son to die for every sinner in the world. If we were infused with God’s love and desire for all the world, doesn’t it stand to reason that He would be more willing to answer our prayer for revival in our own country?

“And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him” (1 John 5:14-15). Yes, we cry out for revival and all the blessed results that it will bring to our homes, our churches, and our country; but the number one result of real, God-sent revival must be complete obedience to the Great Commission of our Lord Jesus Christ!

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We were living in Petrozabodsk when my friend, Laura, came to visit. Conversing with my neighbor, she said that she had arrived Friday. But instead of saying “pyatnitsa” (Friday), she said “p’yanitsa” (drunk). She realized her mistake as soon as the words were out of her mouth, and we all smiled as she frantically exclaimed, “No, no! Not p’yanitsa, pyatnitsa!
Pyatnisa!” —Amy, Russia

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The new missionary told his congregation the story of the man with 100 bees. (They were puzzled; they had never read this story!) One bee was lost so the man left the 99 in the fold and searched for it. The man found his beloved bee with a hurt leg. He carefully wrapped it, gently placed the bee on his shoulder, and carried him home! (Realizing the missionary’s mistake, they all smiled as they pictured the man carrying his abeja “bee” instead of his oveja “sheep.”)

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Burden Becomes Plan

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Simeon, a deaf man in Ghanta City, Liberia, sat nearly eight hours to hear doctrine and Scriptures explained to him in Sign Language. However, he was still hungry for more. Here was a man that could honestly sing, “More about Jesus would I know.” The image of this young deaf man that was eager and hungry for truth is etched in my memory.

I grew up in a pastor’s home in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and was saved at age seven. My parents raised their children to be involved in church ministry and to have a burden for the world. My dad, Wil Muldoon, was called into overseas missions at age sixty-one, and he is still serving in Papua New Guinea at age seventy. His commitment to follow Christ has had a profound impact on my life.

In 2013, I went to Bulgaria for the Deaf Olympics with Silent Word Ministries International. During this trip, a burden for Eastern Europe and the Deaf of the world grew in my heart. During my junior and senior year of college, I worked with the Deaf at Bill Rice Ranch and was involved in a deaf ministry at a local church. My burden grew. Seeing my parents in PNG in 2015 was a highlight and after teaching in the Bible institute there, I fell in love with investing in men who are hungry to learn.

The Deaf, Eastern Europe, and training men were all swirling in my head and heart upon arriving back in the United States, but I didn’t see it as an actual possibility. God was patient with me as He showed me more and more of Himself and His burden for the Deaf. On January 1, 2016, David Bennett, my mentor, challenged me to sincerely see if God wanted me to invest my life in training deaf men in Europe. After two months of praying and receiving counsel from my parents and pastor, a conviction settled that, what had started out as a burden, was actually God’s plan for me.

The next steps were training: theological training at Seminary, deaf training in Liberia, ministry training in a nine-month apprenticeship under a pastoral staff in Tennessee, and missions training at BBTI. The next major step will be full time deputation to start a deaf church and training institute in Eastern Europe!

by Ben Muldoon

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After lunch, the congregation spends time in Q&A about the morning message. People were stumped by a question about how long it took for Elijah to get to Mount Horeb, and several answered that it took three days. I spoke up, boldly saying, “si sip meu.” I mistakenly thought that meu in meu ni (today) and in meu ni wan (yesterday) meant day. Everyone laughed because I said that it took Elijah forty hands.

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When our evangelist friend visited us, he preached through a translator. A story he told began like this: “I was out in the lake swimming with the water over my head.” Our translator stopped abruptly with a very confused look on his face. He could not understand how a person could be both out of the water and in the water. Even more, the water was, apparently, over the person’s head??? (James, Russia)

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The new BIMI missionary in Japan, Ron White, was preaching about sin, or tsumi: “Tsumi are bad. Tsumi cause death. We need to get rid of our tsumi!” But there was a big problem. He said tsuma instead of tsumi and was actually saying, “Wives are bad. Wives cause death. We need to get rid of our wives!”

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Scriptures for Sranantongo

From Tijuana to Thailand

Sranantongo of Suriname

A Postage-Stamp Call

God’s Word Is Not Bound

Waiting and Working

Southern Aymara of Peru

Steadfast Through Trials

Revival in America?

Burden Becomes Plan

Fifty Faithful Years

Only One Life

A Story of Faithful Love

God Commands Me!

Missions in America

Love for the Unlovable

Living Christ’s Love

“Our Gilmore”

Answering the Call

Yet Will I Trust Him