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| "If we really long for Christ to return and the kingdom to come, then we will pour our lives into completing the prerequisite to His coming, namely,
Matthew 24:14 - 'This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all nations, and then the end shall come.'
The end will not come until every people group receives a credible testimony to the gospel of Christ.”
- John Piper
Another 1,007 verses down but still many more to go!
Man! It has been a long few weeks for both us and our Dao translation helpers! From early in the morning to late in the evening we have been working through concepts and questions such as "How do we describe Paul's shipwreck on Malta when the Dao people are a mountain dwelling tribe and have never seen a ship?" or "How do we write down that all the passengers on the ship swam to safety when none of the Dao people have ever swam a day in their lives and there is no verb in the Dao language for 'swim'?" (Acts 27-28) And the questions keep coming and coming!
Each one of these interesting questions has to be worked through one at a time, all the way through all twenty eight chapters of Acts and this is what the last few weeks have looked like for Jennie, our translation consultant and the Dao translation helpers (Top pictures). It is hard work, especially for Dao people seeing as how they are not used to sitting still at a table and focusing on things like this for eight to ten hours straight! However, after two long weeks of late nights and all day sessions discussing question after question and working through concept after concept in the Dao language, the end result is that another 1,007 verses are in final form for the Dao people group.
These 1,007 verses together with the other Bible potions that Jennie has already translated and also the book of Mark which we had printed about six months ago, make up approximately twenty five percent of the new testament! So although we still have a long way to go we praise God for the strength and stamina that He has given us thus far to see approximately a quarter of the New Testament completed for the Dao people group! As the people receive more and more of God's Word, we see them grow more and more in their love for and understanding of their Creator and their Savior Jesus Christ.
The helicopter came last Tuesday and picked up our translation consultant. We have spent the past ten days or so working daily on formatting and printing the first master copy of the book of Acts in the Dao language complete with pictures and everything else. We just finished the first copy today and tomorrow morning the helicopter will be returning to pick Jennie and I up and take us to the local city where we will have additional copies made for the Dao believers. These copies will then be carried back in for the believers so that for the first time in the history of the Dao people group, the Dao people will have the opportunity to sit around the fires in their own little thatched roof houses and read the book of Acts with their own eyes and in their own language!
Praise God together with us for His giving us along with our translation consultant and our Dao translation helpers the strength and stamina to see the book of Acts completed in the Dao language. Pray that He would give us continued strength and motivation as we press on to see the rest of the "Creators talk" put into the Dao language as well so that the Dao people can, just like us westerners and so many other people groups of the world, have the privilege of having all of God's Word in their own language and available to read in their own houses and to their own families and children. Pray also together with us that these new Scripture portions being given to the Dao people would help them to grow in their faith and their love of their Creator and give Him glory with their daily lives and actions.
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| Army for one – week 1 report Thankyou for praying for Word of Life Florida. We have completed two weeks of camp here at the Florida Facility. The first week was run simultaneous with our staff training week and we hosted First Baptist Church of Orlando for their Jr High campers and Sr. High Campers. Camp Orlando, as it was called, had a total of 600 campers and 47 saved. It was a great warm up for our STC as we facilitated that camp. Then on last Saturday we began our regular Word of Life Florida Summer Camps. On Saturday, 322 teen campers and over 90 adult conference center guests registered for the week. Our theme is “Army for One” and we are keying in on the life of David. We presented the Gospel Message on the first night of camp and what a blessing it was to see 67 campers come forward at the invitation . Our Bible Hour was in the book of Philippians and Chris Finchum did a great job of making the Word come alive. On Tuesday Night we presented the Word of Life Bible Institute and were thrilled when over 50 Jrs. And Srs. completed Bible Institute applications. We had over 120 attend our two day evangelism seminar which made them eligible for our Open Air Evangelism trip on Friday where we saw 9 people accept Christ. The whole week culminated on Friday night as Joe Jordan presented the Dedication message at our Camp Fire. There was an incredible response to the message as the benches emptied for the invitation and over 300 of the campers and leaders stepped forward to put a stick in the fire. All told, week 1 at Word of Life Florida yielded 60 salvations decisions, 18 assurance of salvation decisions and over 300 dedication decisions. Praise the Lord with us for the great start. | | |
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“A Victorious Death”
Since the time that we moved into the Dao territory we have seen many different sides of death, the causes being everything from homicide to old age. It was about three weeks ago that our friend Omaniwo (Top Center Left) became the first Dao woman to graduate on to Heaven as she died from what we could only guess was throat cancer. We watched her slowly waste away as she literally starved to death because she could no longer swallow food. It was only a few weeks before that, some of you may remember hearing about Omaniwo's son Bonanimena (Top right picture) who though he was young and strong died after a two week bout with Malaria and was the very first of the Dao believers to go and be with Jesus. This past week we found ourselves once again, along with the rest of the Dao people grieving the loss of another friend, and the local chief of our area -Totopwi. But never before this last week had we seen such a victorious side of death here in the Dao valley . It could not have been more clear to either us or the Dao believers that God's was powerfully at work and doing great things to glorify himself through this death.
When we first stepped foot in the Dao valley a few years back after riding a small boat up the muddy, twisting lowland rivers and hiking into the foothills of their territory, Totopwi was one of the first to great us with a huge toothless smile and welcome us to their land. (Top center right : Scott & Totopwi- taken when we were first moving into Dao nearly three and a half years ago) From day one he was supportive of our coming to their land and telling them of the Creator’s talk. He sent his sons and daughters to help us learn their language and then when the day finally came that we were to begin teaching them in their own language of what their Creator had done for them he did his best to make sure that his entire clan was there and listening until the very last day of the nearly ten week, daily teaching time during which we taught all the way from creation to Christ. On the last day of the teaching, when he had heard the conclusion to the story of what God had done through the sending of His son Jesus Christ, he once again looked up at me with that unforgettable toothless grin and said "I never thought that I would live long enough to hear the things that I have heard today, though I have hoped for this message my entire life. I always thought to myself that I would die of old age without having heard but at least my sons and daughters would get to hear! But now today, I have heard the conclusion to the story of our great Creator and His son Jesus Christ, and I Believe!"
It was this last Sunday that two of Totopwi's daughters came to our hamlet at first light, bearing the sad news that Totopwi was very weak and that He believed that he was going to die. They came to us saying "He wants you to come and share God's word with him one last time before his spirit departs from his body and he goes up to the place above the sky!” Derek and I packed our packs as quickly as we could and began heading down the mountainside for Totopwi's hamlet. A few hours later as we were just arriving at his village we could hear the traditional death chants and cries coming up from the houses. We went directly into the small smoke-filled, men's hut where Totopwi was laying on his leaf mat, with all his friends and family gathered around.
A few seconds later he asked some of his sons to help him sit up and then he looked at us and began telling us that he had sent for us because he had seen a dream the night before, which he believed was an omen from the Creator one that he "Would soon be departing for the place above the sky and that Jesus was the only way to get there" I asked him to describe to me what he had seen and he told me "I saw in my dream the same ladder that Jacob, the son of Isaac had seen in his but this time it was going from our Dao land up into the place above the sky and this time, I was going up the ladder to meet Jesus and go into the Creator’s place." After he had described these things to me he looked at the others sitting around the room and said "The Creator’s talk is big and there is nothing bigger. I will soon die and my spirit will not carry with it any of my belongings. I will leave all of my shell money behind, I will leave my pigs and my gardens and my houses and all of my belongings behind, my spirit will go up alone. All those things I once thought so important will be left behind and so I say to you hold onto God's Word and never let it go! Do not run after those other things but hold onto the Creator’s talk because your spirit is the only thing that will go up to heaven in the end."
After he said these things to all of us I shared with all those in the room from the Dao gospel of Mark , chapter sixteen about the promise of eternal life that Jesus has given to all of us that trust in what He has done on our behalf. We then prayed together with those present that God's will would be done and then we just sat there and cried together with them for a while. A few hours later, after Derek and myself had snapped knuckles (The Dao form of greeting) with Totopwi one last time. I looked at him and as he was smiling up at me from his leaf mat with that special smile , and with the tears streaming down my face I said to him "Friend, I am leaving now, I do not know whether I will see you again on this earth or not but if I do not see you again on the earth, I will see you when we are both together with the Creator one in His place above the sky". Then Derek and I headed back up the mountain side.
It was on Friday morning that a Dao man named Paina came do our porch and delivered the news that "During the night Totopwi's spirit had left his body and gone to the Creators place above the sky to be with Jesus" Jennie, myself and Derek all went back down to Totopwi's hamlet on Saturday afternoon and after mourning with the friends and family during Saturday and Sunday, we gave the Sunday message there as we were all gathered around the dead body of our friend. There were both believers and unbelievers from various areas of the Dao territory that had gathered to mourn and so it was an incredible time of testimony to the unbelievers to hear about the confidence of eternal life that Totopwi had even in the days leading up to his death. They marveled at the dream that Totopwi had so boldly talked about which was a clear message to both him and all of those around that there is only one ladder, one trail, and one way to eternal life - Jesus Christ! Before we left that afternoon, the unbelievers that had gathered at the funeral from the other areas and specifically a man named Pakoboo (Top Left Picture) and others from his clan were saying to both us and the other Dao believers "You must come and give us this message soon! Don't worry about food, don't worry about a place to sleep! We will give you everything you need and plenty of food to eat if you will just come and give us the Creator's talk!"
God is reaching out to the Dao people in unique ways and drawing them to Himself in ways that we never would have expected. Praise God with us for what He is doing and pray together with us for the remaining unreached branches of the Dao people group. Also, pray for the Dao believers that we are presently working with and training up to become teachers and evangelists that will go and reach these remaining unreached areas of the Dao territory . Pray also for the Dao people as they mourn their losses that they will continue to place their hope in Jesus Christ. Please pray also for a two week Bible Translation check that started today after the helicopter dropped off our translation consultant here and during which he and Jennie while be working together daily to put the book of Acts in final form so that it can be distributed to the Dao people. | | |
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Fay and I just returned from our 10 day spring tour with the ensemble. What a great tour we had! We were in 15 different meetings from Christian schools to Regional Teens Involved in two locations. We were with some great friends of the ministry like Brian and Danette Coski - 1999 graduates of the WOLBI Florida BI. Brian is the Music Director for Whitefield Academy in Atlanta. We were with Mark and Nikki Wheaton. The are former students and staff. We were with Pastor Roger Parks, of Heritage Baptist in Prattville, AL. - who was in our Word of Life Clubs when Fay and I were club leaders some 35 years ago. Roger started the Heritage Baptist Church which now averages over 500 on Sunday. We had a great time at the two Regional Teens Involved Competitions. All in all we collected 23 full applications and 83 short applications as well as had people saved and christians make decisions. We love our ensemble this year and it is great to see them growing spiritually. | | |
|    " This is Scott and Jennie's latest post. And this is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us..." (1 John 3:16) We know how to love by the example of Jesus love, and as the Dao people have seen the example of Jesus love for his enemies even to the point where he was hanging from a cross, scarcely recognizable as a human being because of the torture that he had faced and yet still saying out loud "God forgive these men that have done these things to me because they do not realize what they are doing!" many of the Dao believers cannot help but to be deeply affected by what they have seen and heard. But the example of Jesus is not the only time that the Dao have heard of such extreme love as this! In the last couple months they have gone on to hear of great men like Stephen in the book of Acts who followed Jesus example and as he was being stoned to death, fell to his knees and said the same words as Jesus, pleading God to forgive the very men that were killing him.(Acts 7)
This message of extreme love only gets all that more intense as we have moved into the life of Paul in both the second half of Acts and Romans and they see Paul being beaten and whipped by his enemies and then turning around and telling the very people that were only minutes earlier beating him, of Jesus love for them. In the apostle Paul they see the attitude of a man that teaches not only with his words but also with his life things like: "Do not ever repay anyone evil for evil", " never avenge yourselves but let God do the avenging!", "If your enemies are hungry feed them" and "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good!" (Romans 12) And they begin to admire such extreme love which whether cultural, ethical or economical, goes against every system they have ever known and lived by here in the Dao valley!
It was this last weekend that these teachings became that much more real and personal to the believers here. It all started a couple weeks ago when a very important man named Daapiyaa from a branch of the Dao that has yet to be taught God's message for the first time got sick and died. The people from the clan of Daapiyaa blamed his death on one of the clans in our area that has been taught and become believers and so this last weekend a war party was sent down to our area to avenge the death of Daapiyaa and kill a man named Iyepiyaa (Man in top center picture), a boy named Magabidedi (Boy in top right picture), and possibly a few others if they were to get the opportunity. Then this past Saturday afternoon one of the men that we have been training up to be a teacher named Daapooi came up to our hamlet and told us of what had happened to him the night before:
"It was in the middle of the night that they came, I knew that they were there because I could hear voices outside of my hut and I could hear them walking around on the other side of the piece of tree bark that I place in front of my door each night. Then they came right up to the bark door and began tapping and scratching on it trying to get me to come out. I knew that if I went out that they most likely would start shooting arrows at me and I would want to shoot back but I also knew from what we have learned from God's book that our Creator alone is the most powerful and that he could protect me and so I prayed out to him...'God please show me what to do! I do not want to fight with these enemies! Please protect me and my family and cause these enemies to go away so that we will not have to fight each other' and then I just waited....They came a second time and began tapping and scratching on the door once again and trying to get me to come out and fight them but I just waited and kept praying....They came a third time and tried again to get me to come out and war with them....and then finally, they left. The next morning I made sure that they were not around and then I went out and saw that they had dug up and stole some of the food from my garden, but I just stood there and I thanked God because he had protected both me and my family and made a way so that I did not have to war with my enemies that had come down in order to kill us."
That same day little Magabidedi,(Top right Picture) one of the ones that is being targeted by the enemy clan came to both us and our team mates the Grants at individual times and told us of how although he is afraid of the pain that would be caused by the arrows if he were to be shot, he is no longer afraid of what will happen to him if he is killed. He probably is not more than eleven or twelve years old but he looked up at us and said "They want to kill me but I am not afraid to die. The reason I am not afraid is because I know that if they shoot me and I die, my spirit will go up to be with Jesus. Besides that, God alone is bigger and greater than any of our enemies!"
After hearing the awesome perspective of Magabidedi, we began to think of his father Iyepiyaa, (Man in top center picture) whom was also a target but whom had up until that point still not given clear testimony of having trusted in Christ for salvation. We figured that there could not be a more important time than this to go down and ask him whether or not he was ready for death and so we along with our team mates the Grants went down to the little hut where he was sitting and talking with the other Dao men and I told him that we were concerned for him because of the situation. I asked him whether he had yet understood what Christ had done for him and whether he had believed those things which we had been teaching them about for almost a year now. He replied:"I understand now the importance of the message of Jesus. I understand that he died for my sins and I have now placed my trust in what He has done on my behalf. In fact, it is because of these very things that I have not been chasing after my enemies and trying to shoot back at them up to this point. I want to live according to the way Jesus lived. I am following his teachings!"
Later on that Saturday afternoon a man named Uwokaatomaa (Top Left Picture) came and told us his thoughts on the situation. He said: "It is because we now follow the teachings of Jesus that we are not doing what we would have done in the past in this situation! We are not likewise hunting this war party down and trying to kill them first! In fact, even If they come and shoot me tonight, as I am laying on the ground and while the blood is pouring from my body I will look up and thank God because He has made a way for me to be with him and then when my spirit leaves my body it will go up to heaven to be with him. Because of what Jesus has done for me, I have no fear of death"
We went down to their houses that night and prayed together with them that God would watch over him, calm any fears they may have and that if it were his will, that He would protect them and spare their lives in the midst of this hard situation. The next morning, all of the believers gathered together for our weekly Sunday morning teaching and Uwokaatomaa, in representation of all of the believers that had gathered to hear God's word prayed for their enemies and pleaded with God saying: "God please see our situation, change our enemies hearts, please take away their hatred and their desire to kill us. Please take away their wanting to shoot us with their arrows. We know now that they only do these things because they have not yet heard your message and that in the past we were no different than them. And so we ask that you would take the hate from their hearts as you have taken the hate from our hearts and that you would change them as you have changed us."
After the meeting was over this last Sunday I said to Uwokaatomaa "Thank you Uwokaatomaa because this morning you showed me how to do the same as Jesus. You showed me how to do the same as Stephen and Paul. You showed me how to pray for my enemies in the same way that Christ prayed for His!" and as I walked away from the meeting place, I thought about my own heart and the way I have talked of and treated the enemies of my own people group in the past. Whether those enemies be in America, across the street, in the Middle East, or anywhere else in the world for that matter, I walked away realizing that my attitude has not been the attitude of Jesus Christ. I walked away asking God to change me and thanking Him that even though we are the "Missionaries" to the Dao, God is now using the Dao people to model His word, and to teach and reach us just as much as He is using us to reach them.
Please pray for the Dao people in this situation, that God would give them wisdom and show them how to handle these delicate situations according to the model layed out for them in His Word. Also pray for them as they are talking among themselves and strategizing on how they can in the future send some of their own Dao teachers to these enemy clans to share God’s message with them as well. Pray also that God would continue to change the hearts of Jennie and I as well through situations like these and that He would continue to use the Dao people to show us things and attitudes in our own lives that need to change. Also, Please Pray also for the health of our entire time as we along with the Grants have recently been facing some very uncomfortable sicknesses that seem to be related to parasites we may have picked up from bad water in the various hamlets we have hiked to over the last couple months. | | |
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