Terry Gibbs, Wycliffe Bible Translators
Thank you for your faithful prayers and financial support this past month.
As of the end of July, the 5 Payap students had finished their Thesis checking and submission process and submitted all of the necessary paperwork to Payap so they could graduate. By now they have each returned to their home countries and begun Translation work. It’s very common for a student to return to the area where they had done their language data gathering which was used to write their Thesis. We’ve had brief a 10 day lull between the end of Summer Semester Foundation Courses (Phonetics, Phonology and Grammar), and the beginning of our Fall Classes on Aug 8. First Year students will be taking Sociolinguistics, Grammatical Analysis, and Phonological Analysis. And Second Year student will be taking Text Analysis, Advanced Phonology, Translation Practicum, and Historical & Comparative Linguistics. The car is doing well except that the driver side window no longer goes up and down, so another trip to the auto shop.
While out walking:
I saw an older man and a younger girl (both American’s), looking lost while studying their map. It turned out he was her father and they were here for a few days of vacation time. Before we parted he invited me to come and stay in his bungalow in Maui sometime. It’s the first time someone offered me something.
I talked to an older lady for a few minutes and found out that she had just moved to Chiang Mai 3 weeks ago. When I asked what she planned to do here, she said she came to spread the Gospel to the Thai people (a fellow worker in the Harvest).
I met a young couple with a small child in a stroller (uncommon here) who were from Belgium (very few people come from there). They had just gotten off of the plane 6 hours ago and did not have a map or any idea what sites to see.
I talked to two Chinese girls, the first girl knew English fairly well, the other girls knew very little English. After I finished helping them with directions, I gave the first girl a small tract. She looked at it and said Christian, so I said yes. She said a friend of hers in China had recommended that she read the Bible. So I then pulled out a small 15 page booklet that summarizes one of the Gospels and gave that to her also. My hope was that it would be less intimidating than reading the whole Bible. It was also good to know that I did some Watering where someone else had already done the Planting.
And the young couple who won the door prize of the month came from the tiny Pacific island of New Caledonia (it’s out in the Pacific Ocean 900 miles east of Australia).